A man walking from La Ronge to Regina as part of an anti-abuse campaign runs no risk of feeling déjà vu as he undertakes his second annual Saskatchewan Rise Up Against Abuse walk.
Prince Albert man Conrad Burns made it to his home city on Thursday after four days of walking, and paused to reflect on how different this year is from last.
First off, this year he started in La Ronge rather than Prince Albert. Second, he’s expanded his walk from a provincial to national scope.
Instead of walking for nine days, Burns is walking for four and a half months. He started in St. Johns on April 1 and is going to Victoria, BC.
“We’re reaching out to different people because it’s not only a local problem, it’s a national problem that has escalated and become an intergenerational problem. We can look forward to achieving zero tolerance against abuse if we work together,” he said.
Speaking to about 20 people in front of Prince Albert’s City Hall on Thursday, he reiterated that by pointing out a sign his fellow walkers passed as they crossed the Diefenbaker Bridge.
“There’s a sign on our bridge saying ‘Prince Albert is a violence-free zone.’ Prince Albert is not violence-free, but it’s one hell of a goal. You showing up here today shows us we’re on that path to make this city a violence-free place,” Burns said.
He said social media has played a big role in getting people to join in – most notably, a group of youths and the local YWCA who joined him on the walk across the bridge.
“It’s overwhelming to see young kids stepping up to the plate. Because really, we talk about one in four women have been abused and one in six men have been abused And that’s, abuses can never be taken away, those numbers will always be the same. But we try to change those numbers for our kids so they won’t be affected by that,” he said.
Burns’s national walk has involved a bit of leapfrogging, because he had previously committed to do the Saskatchewan walk at the same time as last year before he realized he had time to cover a total of 7,400 kilometres this summer.
After he’s made it to Regina, he’ll be flying back to Ottawa to continue his path and will bypass Saskatchewan as he works his way west.
Burns’s plan is to cover 60 kilometres per day on average.