Friday, September 30th marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
September 27, 2022
On June 21, 2021, CoDevelopment Canada issued the following statement in the wake of the discovery by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc nation of 215 unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of children interned at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Today, we reissue this statement, as many of the calls outlined in our original statement are yet to be fulfilled. Please find our post-script following the statement.
June 21, 2021
CoDevelopment Canada expresses its grief and horror at the discovery by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc nation of 215 unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of children interned at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Government of Canada. While we are saddened and horrified by the discovery, we are not surprised. Canada and the Catholic Church have for too long ignored the rights of First Peoples to access residential school records and receive an explanation as to the treatment and whereabouts of their children.
It has been 6 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its final reports which noted inaction around the high numbers of children who were forcibly taken to residential schools and never returned home. The Commission urged the Canadian government to assist Indigenous communities search for their children. To date, there have been no such efforts supported by the Federal government. It was the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc alone who hired a company to carry out a ground-penetrating radar examination of the old schoolgrounds.
CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev) is a defender of human rights across the Americas. CoDev has fiercely advocated for the release of abducted human rights defenders by various Latin American state security forces and has worked to discover the fate of those forcibly disappeared. We have accompanied indigenous communities and particularly indigenous educators in Latin America to support their struggles to develop education systems that reflect their practices and worldviews. CoDev is committed to do the same in Canada.
CoDev calls on the Catholic Church and any others to release records that reveal the fate of the children and those responsible for their mistreatment and death. What happened to the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and other residential schools is genocide, and the legacy of that continues through denial and inaction.
The Canadian government must:
Stop fighting residential school survivors in court. Provide access to information related to their tenure and mistreatment in the schools.
Stop fighting the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruling that provides Indigenous children with the same access to health, education, and other social services as non-indigenous children.
Stop resisting the CHRT ruling that orders Ottawa to compensate approximately 50,000 Indigenous children who were unnecessarily placed in child welfare and separated from their families and culture.
Greatly accelerate the execution of recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Six years since the Truth and Reconciliation issued its 94 Calls to Action the Canadian Government has only just begun to implement a small handful.
Closely linked to the inter-generational trauma and disempowerment that is the legacy of Canada’s Indian residential school system is the ongoing violence perpetrated against indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people. CoDev urges the Canadian government and all others, including media, health, education, and social services, to implement the 231 Calls for Justice included in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
As an organization, CoDevelopment Canada recognizes that we too must do more. CoDev staff, Board Directors, and members are committed to move forward with cultural humility and to educate ourselves about past and present indigenous peoples of Turtle Island: we commit to step up our work facilitating partnerships between indigenous peoples and communities in Canada and Latin America: and we commit to act when the Canadian government violates the rights of indigenous peoples across the Americas.
Resources and Actions for Indigenous Solidarity
Actions
Read and support Independent indigenous Media such as as Indiginews
Take the free course Indigenous Canada offered by the University of Alberta
To show your solidarity with an orange shirt and start conversations with your neighbours about why you are doing so.
Resources
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry: 231 Calls for Justice
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations: Perry Bellegarde
Post-Script:
The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations is presently Chief RoseAnne Archibald.
The link to donate to the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops Indian Band) to support further investigation and memorialization can be found here.
There are many local events commemorating the legacy of residential schools, of resistance to them, and of efforts towards truth, healing, reconciliation, and justice. These events offer a space to be in community, actively listen, learn with humility, and meaningfully connect. Some events include
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at New Westminster Pier
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation at Holland Park, Surrey
This list is not exhaustive. Please search for local events in your community.
CoDevelopment Canada respectfully acknowledges that the land on which we gather and work is the traditional ancestral unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.