Canadians honour children found buried in Kamloops as calls for more action grow

KAMLOOPS (NEWS 1130) – Teachers in schools across Canada will be wearing orange and teddy bears will be placed outside porches on Monday in memory of the 215 children whose remains were discovered at a former residential school in Kamloops earlier this month.

We will be working with our #bced locals across BC next week to organize orange shirt walk-ins to honour the 215 dead children found at the Kamloops Residential School. We are also asking school districts to lower all flags to half-mast. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/a55hPi5mUA

— BC Teachers’ Federation (@bctf) May 30, 2021

Flags across the country are also flying at half-mast as calls for searches at all other former residential schools grow.

To honour the 215 children whose lives were taken at the former Kamloops residential school and all Indigenous children who never made it home, the survivors, and their families, I have asked that the Peace Tower flag and flags on all federal buildings be flown at half-mast.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 30, 2021

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who leads UBC’s Residential School History centre, is calling on a formal framework to investigate mass grave sites in Canada.

“Really a concern that Indigenous people in Canada have been left very vulnerable by the lack of a proper framework here, and this needs to be put in place urgently. Certainly, I’m speaking with First Nations leaders and others about whether the prime minister needs to appoint a special rapporteur or some sort of lead here to take some immediate measures,” she explained.

Turpel-Lafond says without a framework, Indigenous people are left vulnerable.

“This needs to be put in place urgently.”

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Related articles: 

• Indigenous families of residential school survivors in B.C. continue to feel pain, trauma

• Advocate calls for framework to investigate mass grave sites in Canada

• ‘We know they didn’t go home’: B.C. residential school survivor mourns discovery of children’s remains

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The remains of the children in Kamloops were confirmed a week ago with the help of ground-penetrating radar, paid for through a private grant the local First Nation received. The children’s deaths are believed to be undocumented.

“We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify,” said Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir on Thursday, May 27. “Some were as young as three years old. We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk’emlúps te Secwe´pemcis the final resting place of these children.”

Last week, federal Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett suggested to NEWS 1130 that support for additional searches would be coming, and that they would be supported with funding.

“We know in other communities coast to coast to coast, they are asking for support and research. Over this past little while we as the government have done the engagement as to what they’re going to need,” she said.

She tells NEWS 1130 the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc undertook work to search for remains “a long time ago,” adding other communities are also wanting to conduct their own.

“They’ve been very clear: it needs to be a Indigenous-led, community-based ceremony, and we are there to support them in whatever way we can. Some of the registry of burials and deaths, the National Centre on Truth and Reconciliation, we have helped them with some funding and now it comes to the difficult work community by community,” Bennett explained.

The BC Assembly of First Nations says plans are underway to identify and bring home the remains discovered in Kamloops.

-With files from Nikitha Martins and Yasmin Gandham