Allie Pev, Métis Cree, Treaty 6, is a member of Socialist Alternative Canada.
Allie Pev, Michif Nēhiyaw, Treaty 6, currently residing on the Unceded Homelands of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, sel̓íl̓witulh and sḵwx̱wú7mesh Coast Salish peoples.
This is a loss that cannot be quantified. The deep pain that runs through the blood memory of Indigenous peoples has been re-ignited.
Survivors, families and nations are re-living intergenerational trauma. Little shoes have been placed on the steps of government buildings, churches and public spaces across so-called Canada since the news was released. Indigenous people already knew of these mass graves, the ones that did make it home told us their stories. So, shock is reserved for anyone who has not been paying attention. Stories of the unspeakable evil that took place in these schools have been captured by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) – a report every Canadian should read, along with all other reports pertaining to Indigenous peoples like the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Elders bravely shared graphic details of the atrocities for the TRC report, sometimes breaking their decades long silence on the issue. The hope was that once the true history of Canada was exposed, in the open for all to see the next generations, Indigenous and non-Indigenous would embark on a path of reconciliation through addressing 94 Calls to Action. To date only 10 have been completed. Reconciliation is dead.
The Canadian government does not have the will to pursue any calls to action. Clearly, they do not lack information. The federal government has not developed or implemented strategies and procedures for the ongoing protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children are buried (Call to Action #75). There are demands for the immediate searching of all residential school grounds for remains; there were 139 residential schools identified in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement not including those run by provincial governments and those run solely by religious orders.
Residential schools were one of the primary means of assimilation utilized by the government and the RCMP who forcibly took children away at gun point. Although the last school closed in 1996, this isn’t history, this is now. As much as Trudeau would like everyone to believe this was an unfortunate “dark chapter,” the whole book of Canada’s existence is dripping in blood. Colonization today looks like the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care, adults incarcerated and the higher rates of violence and murder of Indigenous women. All amounting to ongoing genocide. Church and state, oil and gas, fishing, lumber and hydroelectric corporations have intertwined themselves so tightly around Indigenous people, their lands and rights, suffocating cultures, killing people and the land for profit. A lowered flag means nothing on unceded territories but a disingenuous gesture from a government intending no further action.
This is a loss that cannot be quantified. We can’t quantify the loss of so many, many who would be Elders by now with generations below them flourishing, raising children of their own. Speaking the languages, thriving on their lands. Change will not come from parliament buildings. Change will come from below; the rumblings of generations will boil over, and it will not be the government who decides anymore – it will be the people who make the demands and see them through. These systems will end, every arm of the colonial state will be dismantled to make way for Indigenous governance and systems to flourish. We carry on, armed with ancestral knowledge and the undying perseverance towards liberation.
Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line 1-866-925-4419
KUU-US Crisis Line Society 1-800-588-8717
