Statement from the AMC on Red Dress Day
May 5, 2025
Treaty One Territory, Manitoba
AMC Communications
Treaty One Territory, Winnipeg, MB – Today, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), the First Nations Family Advocate Office (FNFAO), and families across our Nations came together to honour the lives of missing and murdered First Nations women, girls, and Two-Spirit people.
Red Dress Day is not just symbolic – it is a day of truth. Our people are not missing; they were taken. They were murdered. And too often, they are forgotten by the very systems meant to protect them.
We gathered at Memorial Park and walked to Oodena Circle because our loved ones are not just statistics, they are daughters, mothers, aunties, sisters, cousins, and friends. Families have waited years for answers, denied proper investigations, justice, and support.
Under the direction of the Chiefs-in-Assembly, the AMC continues to act. Resolutions have called for full landfill searches, an independent inquiry into the deaths of First Nations women, accountability from provincial government leadership, First Nations control over MMIWG funding, and justice system reforms aligned with both the National Inquiry and the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. This is the political will of our Nations and the urgency of this crisis demands it.
Red Dress Day reminds us of the strength of families who carry this grief and continue to fight for justice. It reminds leadership of its duty to act. This crisis is not in the past – it is happening now.
The walk, the drum, the open mic, the healing, and the prayers – they are ceremony. They are resistance. They are love.
We thank the First Nations Family Advocate Office for their leadership and care in organizing today’s gathering. We walk beside the families. We remember every life taken. We will not stop until every system that allowed this violence is transformed and justice is served.
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For more information, please contact:
Communications Team
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
Email: media@manitobachiefs.com
About Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs:
The AMC was formed in 1988 by the Chiefs in Manitoba to advocate on issues that commonly affect First Nations in Manitoba. AMC is an authorized representative of all 63 First Nations in Manitoba with a total of more than 172,000 First Nations citizens in the province, accounting for approximately 12 percent of the provincial population. AMC represents a diversity of Anishinaabe, Nehetho / Ininew, Anisininew, Denesuline, and Dakota Oyate peoples.