Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he met Monday with his cabinet to discuss next steps on “concrete action” to support survivors, families and Indigenous peoples. Speaking Tuesday to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Trudeau said, “Our country failed them.” He added that repairing the “terrible wrongs” of residential schools can only occur if every order of government takes action alongside Indigenous peoples.
As the discovery last week of the remains of 215 children at one of Canada’s largest residential schools continues to reverberate around the country, Indigenous leaders and community members say it is only the beginning of an important national reckoning.
Meanwhile, a survivor of the largest residential school in the Maritimes says the search will continue for unmarked graves at the site north of Halifax. Mi’kmaq elder Dorene Bernard said ground-penetrating radar was used at the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential school in April and December of last year, but no graves or human remains were found. She says there is an official list of 16 students who died while attending the school, but she says survivors have come forward in the past three years to provide names of more missing children.
In Saskatchewan, elders and members of Muskowekwan First Nation will place 35 children’s moccasins and shoes to honour those who disappeared from the Muscowequan Indian Residential School. The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations says unmarked, unidentified graves were discovered on the site of the Muscowequan Indian Residential School in the early 1990s. In 2018 and 2019, with the use of ground-penetration radar, the First Nation found at least 35 unmarked graves on the site. Officials say that with further research they expect to find more.
And, Quebec’s Indigenous Affairs Minister says the province is open to searching the grounds of former residential schools for graves if survivors and their families are in favour. Ian Lafreniere says Quebec must confront its own role in that history. He says he has seen no evidence that there are unmarked graves on the grounds of the six former residential schools that operated in the province, but he cannot exclude the possibility.
Tags: First Nations
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Tags: First Nations
© All Rights Reserved