Vancouver Catholic school alumni want apology for link to residential schools

A time of reckoning for a Vancouver Catholic school, as alumni call for an apology after learning its founders also staffed the Kamloops residential school. Little Flower Academy alumni held a ceremony for the children whose remains were recently found, as they push for action. Martin MacMahon reports

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Former students of a Vancouver Catholic school are calling for it to formally say sorry for its connection to the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops where the unmarked graves of children were discovered. Little Flower Academy was founded by the same order of nuns who provided staff in Kamloops.

In a tribute to the 215 children whose remains were found at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, dozens of Little Flower Academy alumni lit candles, laid down flowers, or brought stuffed teddy bears and toys.

Some shared emotional statements, like Abigail Balisky, who wants the school to issue a formal apology.

“However you pray, if you pray, whoever you pray to, please, please, please keep a tender heart for these children of the Indigenous community,” she said.

“I don’t think any of us here, who are not Indigenous, can even begin to comprehend the sorrow and the pain that the people are going through,” Balisky added.

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The all-girls Little Flower Academy was founded by the Sisters of St. Ann in 1927.

In addition to staffing the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the order founded and operated a residential school in Duncan. The nuns staffed many others in the province including St. Mary’s Indian Residential School, Kuper Island Indian Residential School, and Lower Post Indian Residential School.

Principal Diane Little says the school is no longer run by the Sisters of St. Ann. It is operated by the Jane Rowan Society, which took over in 1990.

“The apology, to be authentic and sincere, would have to come from the people that ran the residential schools and I cannot speak on behalf of the Sisters or the Catholic Church,” Principal Diane Little said Friday.

Still, Little insists the school will do more to acknowledge its past. She insists the school will go beyond the B.C. curriculum, in terms of teaching about Indigenous history and communities.

With files from Lisa Steacy

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