A Call for Truth, Justice, and Anishinabe Resurgence
By Neeshawaytahmog
Mother, Grandmother, Lynx Clan Watch Founder, MMIWG Testifier
As Indigenous History Month comes to a close in Ontario, many Anishinabe people across the province are left with a deep ache—a knowing that June has come and gone with little more than token gestures from political leaders, including those who wear the badge of Indigenous identity yet sit in silence while our people suffer.
Throughout the month meant to honour our history, our survival, and our sacred connection to the land and water, we saw government offices decorate their doors with orange shirts and hang red dresses—but where was the true action? Where were the words in Parliament, the new protections for our waters, and the proper funding for healing programs, education reform, and justice for our people? The silence was louder than any speech.
We are still fighting in courts—for decades—just to affirm our rights to hunt, fish, and live off the land, rights that are inherent, not granted. The recognition of our Treaties continues to be delayed, denied, or distorted in the very systems designed to protect settlers’ interests.
This year, the reality of Bill C-5 continues to loom over us—a bill that promises change, but does not go far enough to address the long-standing injustices faced by Indigenous people. And despite years of testimony, including my own in 2016, Canada still fails to fully acknowledge the loss of **Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people—**and refuses to meaningfully include Men and Boys in that conversation.
The murders of both my sons in Thunder Bay—one in 2019 and another in January 2025—remain part of this national silence. I live with the heartbreak not only as a mother, but as someone removed from a public pow wow on June 21, 2019, National Indigenous Day, while dancing in my jingle dress requesting a healing song for families of the MMIWG. That trespass order lasted five years, and yet, I continue to walk in ceremony during every full moon—because healing must continue, whether the government supports it or not.
We also carry the weight of broken systems that continue to damage our children. Today, child welfare is the new residential school, where agencies remove Indigenous children from families with little regard for cultural safety or accountability. Abuse in foster care is often ignored or denied—protected not by justice, but by internal politics. Some of our own Chiefs and board members are complicit, defending agencies instead of standing with the families. This is the modern-day meaning of the tiny handcuffs found in residential school exhibits—our children are still being taken, restrained, and silenced.
And what of our youth who sit in custody? Many are survivors of trauma, poverty, and racism, yet they are locked into colonial justice systems that punish, not heal. Our broken education system, too, is a reflection of colonial trauma. Many children are raised by survivors of abuse, genocide, and displacement. We can’t pretend these cycles fix themselves without real support.
Money has become a force of destruction—used to strip our land, suppress our culture, and distract us from our sacred responsibilities as Anishinabe people. We are told reconciliation is happening, but ceremony is still criminalized, land protectors are arrested, and environmental racism rages on.
We cannot heal without support. And too many of our own people are being used to block the healing of others.
I speak now to the ones living in tents, in the woods, in alleyways—the survivors of abuse, the forgotten, the lost ones who have turned to drugs or alcohol to numb the pain. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are part of the story, the resistance, the healing.
Lynx Clan Watch was born in grief, resistance, and deep love. We bring forward the spirits of our loved ones in jingle dress walks, in full moon ceremonies, in healing circles, songs, sit-ins, and teachings. We do this for our children, for the land, for the water, for the next generations.
Because every child matters. Every voice matters. Every ceremony held is a rebellion against erasure. And the results we seek will not come from broken processes—but from the strength of our people rising, together…as my Son Thunder’s Story, “its not about the process, its about the results”…we are the first people of this Land, we call North America, and the thunderbirds are showing us ways to succeed.
Miigwetch to those who continue the work, even when nobody is watching.
