ABOVE: A memorial at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia where a mass grave was discovered.
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Today (September 30) marks the first year that Canada observes a new federal holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation meant to honor the experiences of Indigenous people who attended the country’s residential schools, government-sponsored facilities tasked with assimilating and erasing Native culture. The last of such schools closed in 1996, but for many decades attendance was compulsory for Indigenous children between the ages of 7 and 15, and it’s estimated that roughly 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended. The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation has documented thousands of accounts from survivors detailing physical and mental abuse that students experienced, bolstered by the recent discovery of mass graves at several residential schools throughout the country.
Researchers are now beginning to quantify the longstanding ...
