Mackenzie Moonias in a photo from the Thunder Bay Police Service. The body of 14-year-old was found near the city’s marina area on Dec. 18, about eight kilometres from where she was last seen.Handout
First Nations leaders in Northwestern Ontario say they have concerns about the Thunder Bay Police Service’s missing persons procedures following the sudden death of a high school student.
The body of 14-year-old Mackenzie Moonias was found near the city’s marina area on Monday, about eight kilometres from where she was last seen last Wednesday. Police issued a missing persons release on the weekend and a volunteer search party set out with hopes they would find the teenager safe.
Mackenzie was a high school student from Neskantaga First Nation, a small fly-in community about 430 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. She was attending the Matawa Education and Care Centre, a boarding school in Thunder Bay for students from nine First Nations, including Neskantaga.
In a statement Monday, Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler and Neskantaga Chief Chris Moonias said their worst fears were confirmed with the tragic news and that they have concerns surrounding the circumstances of the youth’s death as they try to piece together what happened to Mackenzie.
“This disappearance has raised serious questions about the protocols and procedures around missing person investigations involving Indigenous youth,” Mr. Fiddler said. (NAN represents 49 First Nations in Northern Ontario.)
A media release by the Thunder Bay Police on Monday afternoon said the girl had been located and that it was “now a private matter between investigators and family.”
In a statement to The Globe and Mail, Thunder Bay Police Chief Darcy Fleury offered condolences to Mackenzie’s family and community and said the investigation is continuing as they continue to support the family.
The concerns of Mr. Fiddler and Mr. Moonias are nothing new and go back decades. A public inquest in 2015-2016 looked into the sudden deaths of seven students from the Nishnawbe Aski Nation region living in Thunder Bay for high school between 2000 and 2011.
Five of those students were found in city rivers and the 2018 report by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, entitled Broken Trust, revealed police did not conduct complete death investigations in those cases and several others of Indigenous people. Their conduct was often tainted by racial discrimination, the report found.
Since the inquest, the Thunder Bay Police Service and its board have been given the task of going through hundreds of recommendations aimed at providing better policing and improving relations with the large, growing Indigenous population.
“We are extremely concerned that gaps in the process for reporting missing persons, identified through the Seven Youth Inquest, are apparently still at play when Indigenous youth are reported missing,” the statement from Mr. Fiddler and Mr. Moonias said.
The Matawa Education and Care Centre, which Mackenzie attended, was developed to provide a safe and culturally appropriate environment for youth from its nine communities, with programming to help support physical, mental and spiritual needs. Many remote communities in the NAN region don’t have high schools that offer secondary school diplomas.
“Many of our youth are forced to leave home as young as 13 or 14 years old in order to pursue their education. They are often faced with challenges they are not prepared for, and it can be an overwhelming experience,” said Mr. Moonias, who is not directly related to Mackenzie.
“It is unacceptable that we continue to bring our youth home in coffins. We fully expect that Mackenzie’s death will not simply be ruled an accident before a thorough and competent investigation is conducted.”
At the start of Tuesday’s police board meeting, board chair Karen Machado offered condolences to Mackenzie’s family and community.
Willow Fiddler