The Martlet

I don’t pick up hitch-hikers very often, but when I do, I only pick up First Nations people.

If I see a First Nations woman by herself on the side of the road, I worry she may be putting her life in danger. I’ve heard about the Highway of Tears and the Pickton farm, and I’ve read Amnesty International’s Stolen Sisters. If I see a First Nations man hitch-hiking, I worry that other drivers won’t pick him up.

I also think, “that could be one of my relatives — I ought to help.”

There’s one First Nations man I’ve seen many times hitch-hiking on the Island Highway between Victoria and Campbell River. He’s roughly 50-years-old, big and scruffy, with long hair, black boots and a jean jacket. He looks like he could be a biker. Last summer, I picked him up just south of Parksville. “John” likes to talk, and as we drove to Victoria we talked, amongst other things, about the 500 missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

We talked about how 10 or 15 years ago, the word on the street was that there were 50 women missing from the Downtown Eastside. We talked about how, up and down the coast, the families of these women tried to get the attention of the public, the press and the police, but how there was only deafening silence with respect to these missing women.

These women were Indigenous.  They may have been prostitutes. They may have been drug or alcohol addicted. They may have had risky lifestyles. The police suggested that maybe these women didn’t want to be found, and the very real concerns of friends and families weren’t taken seriously.

John and I talked about how it’s not just Canada where Indigenous women are disappearing. It’s Mexico. It’s Guatemala. It’s South America. All over the world our women are being targeted. Currently, folks on Moccasin Telegraph are saying, “forget about the number 500. It’s more like 1,000.”

Then I told John about the “Walk for Justice,” and how last summer a group of Indigenous women walked from Victoria to Ottawa to draw attention to the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. I told him how they’re saying these disappearances are connected to organized crime, human trafficking and organ harvesting.

Human trafficking and organ harvesting — doesn’t that only happen in far away places like where there are no laws or judicial systems to protect human rights? That would never happen in Canada. 

But this is the word on the street, and I worry that in the same way the Moccassin Telegraph turned out to be right about the 50 missing women, it might turn out to be right about human trafficking and organ harvesting.

John tells me it’s not just women anymore. He tells me Indigenous men are also being targeted. Hitch-hiking isn’t safe. He tells me some gruesome stories about some young men last seen hitch-hiking outside of Campbell River. I don’t know what to think. Isn’t Canada supposed to be a beacon of human rights? The Moccasin Telegraph has turned out to be right in the past, and this news is just too fucking freaky.

Are these more unspoken, unrecognized, unacceptable truths? Is this the kind of stuff we ought to keep quiet about, or is this the violence of silence?

Amnesty International says that Canadian indifference and silence on the safety of Indigenous women must end.

On Saturday Feb. 14, I’ll be showing my love and respect for the missing and murdered Indigenous women and supporting their families by joining in on the Stolen Sisters Memorial March in Victoria.