Residential schools: We should read the Commission reports – IRPP

July 14, 2021

In late May 2021, Canadians seemed to have received a shock when they learned that the remains of 215 children had been found by ground-penetrating radar in an unmarked mass grave next to the former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. A few weeks later, in June 2021, a similar operation in an old graveyard stripped of its headstones revealed 751 human remains next to the former Marieval residential school in Saskatchewan. Other sites are being investigated and the list will continue to grow.

The terrible history of residential schools, brought to light by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), which operated from 2007 to 2015, has thus taken on a reality that previously eluded most non-Indigenous people. But the excavations were not ordered by the federal government: they were conducted at the request of the First Nations directly concerned.

Read More: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2021/residential-schools-we-should-read-the-commission-reports/