Frustration continues to flow across Manitoba after an 11 person jury found Raymond Cormier not guilty of 2nd degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine.

Hundreds of people turned out today to march from the Manitoba Courts building to the Oodena Celebration Circle at The Forks to support Fontaine’s family.

Fontaine’s body was discovered in the Red River in Aug. 2014 wrapped in a duvet weighed down by rocks. Her death sparked renewed calls for an inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

The 56-year-old Cormier pleaded not guilty to the charges and the verdict came down late yesterday afternoon.  

Tina’s great aunt, Thelma Favel was her primary caregiver at the time of her disappearance and fought back tears as she spoke to the crowd today.

She called for peace and harmony, but said something needs to be done to keep Indigenous women safe.

“Please, I just want the violence to stop and I want it to be safer for our younger children in this world,” Favel said. “I know she (Tina) is right here beside me right now looking up at all of you kindly and appreciating everything you’re doing.”

“My heart is just overflowing with love and gratitude for each and every one of you.”

Indigenous leaders spoke passionately to reporters outside the Manitoba Courts building after yesterday’s verdict.

“We can no longer maintain the mechanisms that are prescribed to us and if we truly want reconciliation to protect our children and families we can no longer allow the status quo to exist,” Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Arlen Dumas said. “We must hold those people who have allowed this to happen accountable and we must do so with strength and honour.”

Southern Chiefs Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels pleaded for people to focus on love for each other in the future.

“We are asking you to stand with us to find solutions,” Daniels said. “Let’s work to change the justice system. Every person in this country has to come together and focus on solutions so our most marginalized people are not discriminated against because it’s absolutely not acceptable.”

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson said many systems throughout Tina Fontaine’s life failed her, but this is not the end and there is still an obligation to bring her killer to justice.

“Everything from the child welfare system to the poverty levels her family was subjected to are responsible for this,” North Wilson said. “But there is one person out there responsible in her death and if it wasn’t him (Cormier), who was it? We want to know.”  

Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson said his community is reeling after the verdict. Tina was from Sagkeeng, but was visiting her birth mother in Winnipeg in the summer of 2014.

Henderson said the fact Fontaine had interactions with child welfare workers, medical personnel and police before she was murdered proves the entire country needs an overhaul in how it operates, not just the justice system.

“It’s so disheartening, all the Indigenous people we’ve lost in Canada,” Henderson said. “How many of our children are in care? Why are our jails full of Anishinaabe people? Let’s help them out in our communities and rehabilitate them.”                

“The housing conditions we live in are horrible and we still have communities without running water,” he continued. “Canada needs to wake up. You talk about reconciliation, but now is the time to do it. Talk is cheap but action needs to happen so justice can be served.”

The Crown’s case had no physical links between Fontaine and Cormier. The main evidence the Crown presented was audio recordings obtained by undercover police officers and testimony from multiple witnesses who said the two were together at a hotel in downtown Winnipeg before she disappeared.

The Crown framed those recordings as Cormier’s admission of guilt, but the Defence framed them as him being concerned with finding her killer.

In the audio recordings, Cormier discussed Fontaine’s death and expressed concerns about being outed for his alleged inappropriate sexual relationship with her. He also worried she was going to turn him in for allegedly stealing a truck.

David Milward, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Manitoba said he was surprised by the verdict because he thought the audio recordings the Crown presented pointed to intent, motive and means.

In past cases he’s followed, evidence similar to the recordings ended up being more than enough for juries to convict.

“Statements like these tend to be quite powerful and juries tend to give them enough weight that it pretty much assures conviction,” Milward said. “The fact of the matter is the Crown had evidence of extensive interactions between Tina Fontaine and Raymond Cormier.”

Milward likened it to the case of Travis Vader, who received a life sentence in Alberta for murdering Lyle and Marie McCann, whose bodies were never found.