When the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves at a former Indian residential school site last month in Kamloops, B.C., it brought the issue of residential schools back into the forefront of discussion in a way that they haven鈥檛 been in years.聽
We had confirmation that a school in Canada had a graveyard in it.
And when this discovery happened, we knew that it was a matter of time until the next one was discovered. The only questions were when, where and how big. 聽
We have our answers. It came last week. It was in southern Saskatchewan. And it was much bigger than what was found in Kamloops.聽
The unmarked graves of as many as 751 children were found at the former Marieval Indian Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation. That would be more than triple the number of children found at the reserve in Kamloops last month. 聽
For even the most jaded of observers, it had to come as a shock.
You can be certain Cowessess won鈥檛 be the last large burial site to be discovered, either in Saskatchewan or in Canada.聽
Perhaps one of the most shocking things about the residential school system is how long these schools were allowed to remain open. This isn鈥檛 just something that belonged to generations long ago, a draconian concept from the late 19th and early 20th century.
The last residential school in Canada didn鈥檛 close until 1996. 聽
Twenty-five years ago. 聽
People blame our first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, for the role he played in the residential school system occurring. And he deserves lots of blame. But government after government allowed these schools to remain until late in the 20th century. 聽
Now we need to ask what鈥檚 next.
One of the biggest things that we need is patience. We have to understand that the things that have happened in our country throughout its history can鈥檛 be erased, and long-standing issues generated by the residential schools can鈥檛 be resolved overnight. It鈥檚 going to take a long time.聽
We need to be there to listen to survivors and to Indigenous peoples.
We must persevere. This issue is going to be in the spotlight for months, maybe even years, because there are more graves that are going to be unearthed. Eventually public interest in this story will fade, as other issues emerge. But this issue can鈥檛 be shuffled to the backburner.
We can鈥檛 pretend this isn鈥檛 our issue, simply because it happened in the past. It is our issue. We鈥檙e living with the consequences of the residential schools to this day, and we鈥檒l continue to live with them for a long time to come. There are still a lot of residential school survivors in this country who are dealing with the trauma; there are many more descendants of those survivors.聽
Yes, our attitude towards Indigenous people is better than it was a century ago. But we still have a lot of strides that need to be made
We need to accept the realities of how terrible these schools really were. We need to listen to survivors and communities. We need to reflect on the role our systems played in allowing these schools to exist.聽
And we need to resolve to do better in how we treat Indigenous peoples. 聽
