June 18,2021
Tânisi nitotem,
As I put words to paper my heart is heavy and my stomach cannot settle. The past few weeks the news about the bodies of indigenous children found buried on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School have troubled me as well as many in this country. This school is located on the unseeded traditional territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc peoples. Society has been heart broken and horrified to hear of this discovery. Sadly, this discovery does not come as a surprise. Survivors of residential schools have shared their stories for decades and to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) about their siblings and cousins who went missing at the residential school and were never seen again. These schools were designed by the State to eliminate the indigeneity from the Indigenous peoples of this country. The church acting as the agents of the State would be given the contracts to operate, and to force the assimilation of Indigenous children to a white European culture: the TRC called this cultural genocide.
As the Canadian colonial project continues to unfold, horrors like the mass grave found by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation continue to emerge. But to uncover and face the truth is part of the way forward, and we hear and join the call from many Indigenous leaders to find and document the gravesites of the many more children who were stolen from their families, denied their language, denied health supports and respect, abused and then buried without dignity, all by our colonial system. All children deserve love and respect, as do all survivors of the residential school system.