By Kayla Bruch

VIDEO: Devoted brother honours Monica Burns, missing and murdered aboriginal women

Jan 30, 2015 | 6:05 AM

Family members and friends of 28-year-old Monica Lee Burns trekked down Highway 11, walking with sadness in their eyes but hope in their hearts.

“It’s a healing journey for everybody, even the family [and] myself, in memory of my sister. It’s just a healing journey instead of going to alcohol and drugs. We’re going to make it into a positive thing,” said Monica Burns’ eldest brother, Pernell Ballantyne, 35.

The 48-hour Pernell Ballantyne/ Monica Burns Memorial Walk for Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women started on Tuesday morning in Saskatoon and ended in Prince Albert on Thursday afternoon at the John E. MacDonald Building.

“We made it and I did it for every woman that can’t speak no more. I think the spirits came and gave us a boost to make that extra mile,” he said. “They [aboriginal women] deserve the honour and respect.”

Dionne Doucette is Ballantyne’s partner. Doucette said the walk was for missing and murdered aboriginal women, but they were also sending out a strong message about the importance of acceptance.

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“Anyone, everyone, doesn’t matter if you’re Chinese, black … Doesn’t matter if you’re white or black, yellow, nothing we’re all equal, we all bleed the same, laugh and cry the same and smile the same, we’re all equal,” she said.

Doucette said Burns and herself were close and Doucette had nothing but good things to say about her.

“She was always happy, she was nice, she never judged or put judgment across anyone, she always made you feel welcome,” said Doucette.

Ballantyne was inspired to start the walk after his sister was murdered earlier this month. He had no words to say to the suspect in his sister’s murder, other than he was shocked this could happen.

Ballantyne struggled to come up with one word to describe his sister, who he said he was so close to growing up, instead of one word he just said “I love her.”

“She was into anything you know she liked playing outside, sliding. She’s a wonderful person to do anything. Like to go play baseball, going down to Little Red sliding, oh anything outdoors she’s … the one to go [with],” he said.

Henri Felix wiped tears from his eyes as he stood in front of City Hall surrounded by supporters of Burns. Felix is from Sturgeon Lake First Nation and a couple of years ago he adopted Pernell.

“I adopted Pernell as my son so this is how I became involved with their family. Needless to say when we had this incident happen to Monica, I was with them at all times to share their grief and to give them comfort,” he said.

Felix said he really stepped into the father role after Monica’s death, meeting all of Ballantyne’s brothers and sisters as well as their extended family.

“You know I didn’t really know her [Burns] but according to Pernell and them she was [a] very active girl. It’s unfortunate that these things happen … but there’s almost some things we can’t help … some addictions we can’t help. It kind of bothers me that they keep saying that she’s a street worker … and you know it’s not even nice,” he said.

Felix hopes the walk helped his son and the family to get one step closer to healing. However, Felix is hoping the walk made an even larger impact. 

“I think the First Nations have to be viewed differently than how they’re being viewed right now. It’s unfortunate that we still have people viewing us as different people,” he said.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter: @KaylaBruch1