Bitter weather limits participation in Strawberry Ceremony

The speeches were short at this year’s Valentine’s Day Strawberry Ceremony for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The group of 400 people gathered at Toronto Police Headquarters at Yonge and College streets was considerably smaller than in previous years, likely due to the bitter minus-28 degree temperature.

Cups of water and several hundred strawberries, the women’s medicine,

were distributed to the accompaniment of traditional Anishinabek teachings by Whitebird.

It was the eleventh year for the ceremony, conducted by Mi’kmaq Elder Wanda Whitebird, and organized by No More Silence. 

No More Silence is a grassroots group that aims to develop an inter/national network to support the work being done by activists, academics, researchers, agencies and communities to stop the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women. 

For the first time, the family of Bella Laboucan-McLean attended the ceremony—her parents, Billy Joe Laboucan and Annette McLean, her Aunt Ruby, her little brother Billy Joe and her sister Melina Laboucan-Massimo.

Her father, Billy Joe Laboucan, chief of Lubicon Lake Cree First Nation in northern Alberta, said his daughter “died mysteriously by falling 31 stories and we haven’t really had any resolution yet. The police have said her cause of death was ‘undetermined’.”

Bella was 25 years old when she died in Toronto on July 20, 2013. Whether her fall from the 31st-floor balcony of a downtown Toronto condo was an accident or murder has never been determined by police. They view her death as suspicious. Having just graduated from Humber College’s Fashion Design Program, her father said his daughter was looking forward to her career.

“My beautiful Bella was so special to me,” said her mother, Annette McLean. “She was so loved.” When she was just a little girl, McLean recalled, her daughter would talk about moving to the city, living in an apartment and working downtown. “I begged her to come back,” she said, “But she wanted to follow that dream. And you know what? In her short life, she did everything she wanted to achieve. Now she’s in that other realm, but she’s not far…That’s what we have to tap into is that spirituality and take time to pray because it’s something that’s going to help you. We’re not alone.”

Bella’s sister, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, thanked the gathering for, “holding her picture and holding her memory here on the streets of Toronto. It’s really an experience to go through this,” she said, “because when the case is unsolved and the death is listed as suspicious, it’s hard… you can’t wrap your head around why, how and who. That’s why I’m here today standing outside the Toronto Police service, to demand justice for my sister and for all the murdered and missing women.”

Several other speakers talked about family and friends they had lost to violence and expressed their hope for justice.

The group marched along College Street pausing at Yonge and College for a round dance as Toronto police stopped traffic. Several women singers drummed as people danced and others held up signs bearing names of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The march ended at the YMCA on Grosvenor Street where a feast was provided by Native Men’s Residence.

“These deaths have to stop,” Billy Joe Laboucan told the crowd. “We have to do stuff in our own communities, in the provinces and also nationally, as well as globally. What we’ve experienced, the losses, it has to stop.”

Photo caption: The family of Bella Laboucan-McLean at Strawberry Ceremony for MMIWG, Toronto. From left to right, her aunt Ruby McLean, father Billy Joe Laboucan, mother Annette McLean, and her sister Melina Laboucan-Massimo.

Photo caption: Community marches for missing and murdered women and girls in Toronto on Valentine’s