In 1999 Stephanie Harpe’s mother was murdered and Harpe’s life has been threatened, too.
She’s working to stop the historical patterns hurting people like her.
“I’m with the people, I capture their voice and I’m just trying to help as much as I can in these dire and critical situations,” said Harpe, who is an international advocate for murdered or missing and exploited Indigenous Peoples.
These situations continue.
The search for Frank Young is now in its third week and no Amber Alert was published when he went missing. Police send them when they believe children are in imminent danger, they said.
RCMP added all provincial amber alert criteria must be met, including that investigation confirms either abduction by a stranger or abduction (parental or non-parental) where circumstances lead police to believe that an abducted person is in danger of bodily harm or death.
Harpe says a new system would better protect and reflect what’s happening.
“This national alert system is really dire and critically needed because we are not treated the same in this country,” Harpe said. “We are highly targeted and don’t have the supports that we need.”
Sharing Harpe’s dissatisfaction is Dan Martel. It’s why he and his wife founded Aboriginal Alert, a grassroots website with profiles of missing people.
“What we want to do is to be that hub that gathers information that can be that second point of contact to make sure that these things get out so that people aren’t always struggling and getting lost,” Martel said.
Just this week, the website launched its own alert system.
“When people sign up to be a member, for example – or we call them a community champion – we give them instructions that we will alert them when people go missing in their area within a 100-kilometer radius,” Martel said.
It’s a start, they say. Martel and Harpe want a government-run national alert system that can reach phones across provinces.
Saskatchewan public safety minister Christine Tell says the current Amber Alert program is under review.
“It doesn’t differentiate between a First Nations person and any other person when we’re looking at Amber Alerts,” Tell said. “What are the circumstances, that is what they’re looking at. But as I said, they’re doing a review, when that happens, I don’t know.”
Until change happens, Harpe and Martel say they will keep pushing to sound the alarm about alarms that are not being sounded.
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