Canadians invited to virtual Moose Hide Campaign Day ceremony

A campaign aimed at ending violence against women and children is set to livestream a national event, calling on Canadians to commit to stopping violence in their communities.

The Moose Hide Campaign was founded by Paul Lacerte and his daughter Raven in 2011.

The two were hunting together on their traditional Carrier territory near the Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia, where many women, particularly Indigenous women, have gone missing or were murdered.

The father and daughter hunted a moose and decided to use its hide to create moose hide pins as a symbol of the anti-violence movement.

“We cut it up into the first 25,000 squares and gave them out and asked people to wear it and commit not to harm the women and children in their lives,” recalled Sage Lacerte, another of Paul’s daughters and a co-founder of the campaign.

Since then, the movement has grown, with millions of moose hide pins distributed across North America and a national campaign day to promote anti-violence dialogue.

This year’s Moose Hide Campaign Day on May 12 invites Canadians from across the country to attend via livestream. It will feature keynote addresses from the Governor General of Canada Mary Simon and the Honourable Murray Sinclair, who was the recent recipient of the three-millionth moose hide pin.

Co-founder Paul Lacerte said the event serves as a day of collective healing.

“We spend the day setting down our intentions and making those commitments to ourselves and to the ones we love, to ensure that we're coming from a place that's love-centered, rather than from that place of harm,” he said.

Anyone looking to participate in the event is asked to register on the campaign’s website.