Vancouver mourned when a windstorm toppled trees in Stanley Park, but the city barely noticed when more than 60 women went missing from the Downtown Eastside, a relative of two missing women said Wednesday.

'A tree falls in Stanley Park and everybody runs. A human being gets murdered on the Downtown Eastside and everybody turns his back.'—Pauline Johnson

Pauline Johnson was among hundreds of people who marched through the poor downtown neighbourhood Wednesday in honour of the missing women.

She said Vancouver authorities and citizens for years ignored the plight of the women, many of whom have since turned up dead, including Johnson's niece and sister.

By comparison, Johnson said, a massive fundraising campaign was launched soon after a storm downed more than 1,000 trees in Stanley Park in December.

"A tree falls in Stanley Park and everybody runs," said Johnson. "A human being gets murdered on the Downtown Eastside and everybody turns his back."

The march, an annual event led this year by the beat of traditional native drums, slowly made its way along rain-soaked Hastings Street, considered the heart of the neighbourhood.

Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, was among the marchers.

His presence was fitting, as a large number of the women who have gone missing and turned up dead are aboriginal.

Marchers gather outside the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver Wednesday to mourn the lives of more than 60 missing and murdered women.
(Chuck Stoody/Canadian Press)

"People in authority didn't value our sisters, and our mothers," Fontaine said. "Sadly for these women, they've remained hidden away from people, our people and others. I don't know any good reason for that."

He pointed to how long it took police to begin investigating the missing women as proof of apathy towards to the women.

Police have since charged Robert William Pickton with first-degree murder in the deaths of 26 of the women. He is currently on trial for six of the slayings.

While marchers mourned for the women who have been murdered, many also prayed for the safe return of those who are still missing.

Gladys Rabek hopes she will see her niece again. Tamara Lynn Chipman was last seen in 2005 on a stretch of Highway 16, between Prince Rupert and Prince George in northern British Columbia.

The highway has been called the Highway of Tears because at least nine women have disappeared or been killed while hitchhiking there.

"I pray that some day we will find out where she is and if anything has happened to get closure and lay her to rest," Rabek said of her niece.

The march was first organized in 1991 following the murder of a woman.

With files from the Canadian Press