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Warning: The following story contains details of boarding schools that may be disturbing. The Indian boarding school survivor and family crisis hotline in Canada is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.
Earlier this year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited an Aboriginal community in British Columbia, after discovering more than 200 unmarked graves of children at the Kamloops Indian Boarding School run by a nearby church.
On Monday, Trudeau sat next to Rosanne Casimir, the aboriginal chief of Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, and said that he hoped to “cooperate” with the indigenous communities to resolve historical mistakes. He did not announce new funding for boarding school survivors or other specific initiatives.
Discovery of remains Approximately 215 childrenSome children as young as 3 years old were buried under the old school, sparking a storm of anger and a national movement called “Every Child Is Important”.
“Words are really important,” Trudeau said. “Apologizing for the harm done is the first step…but it’s not just about words, but about actions.”
A dozen other indigenous communities in Canada Start looking Following the grim revelation of Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in May, mass graves using ground penetrating radar revealed thousands of remains.
“There is no language that can express the grief and grief that the confirmation of the unmarked graves of missing children from Kamloops Indian Boarding School (KIRS) and other boarding schools has brought to indigenous peoples across the country,” Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation is located in Western Canada in Britain. Central Columbia, said in a statement earlier this month.
Before Trudeau visited Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation, he was criticized for going to the beach on Canada’s first National Day. Truth and reconciliation On September 30th, the earlier invitation to visit the indigenous community was ignored.
Trudeau, who was re-elected as Canada’s prime minister in September, said again on Monday that it was a mistake to go on a family vacation that day. He first apologized for this trip in early October.
Trudeau said on Monday: “I am very sorry about September 30 and my travel decision.” “People are not talking about truth and reconciliation, but about me. It’s on me.”
He said he “thanks” Chief Casimir for welcoming him to the community. “She could have chosen to turn her back on me and the federal government,” Trudeau said. Instead, “she said,’Please come and study, we will walk this road together’, that’s why I am here.”
Trudeau also stated that in the future, Canada will “always” lower its national flag by half on September 30.
For more than 100 years, Canadian authorities have forcibly separated thousands of indigenous children from their families, and Let them participate The boarding school aims to cut off the ties between indigenous families and culture and allow children to integrate into the Canadian white society.
These schools were run by the church from the 1870s to 1996, and were full of physical, mental and sexual abuse, neglect and other forms of violence, and they caused a cycle of intergenerational trauma to Aboriginal people across Canada.
Was established in 1890, Operated by The Catholic Church, Kamloops Indian Boarding School eventually became the largest school in the Canadian boarding school system, with 500 children at its peak enrollment in the early 1950s.
In 2015, a national boarding school investigation committee called the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” found that the policy was an act of “cultural genocide”. It also issued 94 calls to action to address the harm caused by the system.
According to an analysis conducted in June by the conservative newspaper National Post: 13 of these recommendations have been issued, the government has taken some actions on 60 recommendations, and no actual steps have been taken on 21 calls for action.
The community stated that members of Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation also pressured Trudeau on Monday to provide funding for a new indigenous rehabilitation center to address the mental health crisis and “intergenerational trauma caused by boarding schools and other colonial practices. “. In the statement Before Trudeau’s visit.
At Monday’s event, the reporter also asked Trudeau what the government plans to do with the large number of indigenous children who are currently being taken away from their families and communities by social service agencies and fostered.
He did not announce any new or specific promises.
According to government data, more than half of Canada’s foster children are aboriginals, even though they make up less than 8% of the child population.
More than 14,000 Aboriginal children in Canada have been taken away from their native parents after complaining of neglect, abuse, or other problems, and they live in private homes with foster families.
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