Montreal, October 15, 2021 (AFP) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit the indigenous community of Kamloops, in the west of the country, on Monday, where the remains of 215 indigenous children were found this year in a former boarding school, announced the community this Friday.
This will be the first visit of the head of the Canadian government after the discovery announced at the end of May and which generated a national scandal.
In early June, Trudeau admitted to “Canada’s sin” and placed flowers near the “Centennial Flame,” a monument near the Parliament of Ottawa that has been turned into a makeshift memorial.
Last week, Trudeau admitted making “a mistake” after being filmed with his family on a beach in British Columbia on September 30, the first national “Truth and Reconciliation” day dedicated to victims of boarding schools in which children were sent. . indigenous peoples.
After Trudeau’s public apology, the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc Indigenous community regretted not having received a response to two letters sent to the Canadian leader to attend an honorary ceremony.
“The failure to respond to our invitation was yet another insult,” the community said in a statement.
In recent months, more than 1,000 anonymous graves have been discovered near former Catholic residential schools for Indigenous peoples, exposing a dark side to Canada’s past and its policy of forced assimilation of Indigenous nations.
From the late 19th century to the 1990s, approximately 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly interned in 139 residential schools across the country, where they were separated from their families, languages and cultures.
ast / gen / seb / gm / lm / mr
“Amateur web enthusiast. Award-winning creator. Extreme music expert. Wannabe analyst. Organizer. Hipster-friendly tv scholar. Twitter guru.”