After mass grave discovery, Trudeau says Canada must 'own up'

Agencies | Montreal

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday pledged to give more support to survivors of residential schools after a mass grave of 215 Indigenous children was discovered.

Trudeau promised "concrete action" to support survivors, families and Indigenous people, but did not detail what that would be.

"Sadly, this is not an exception or an isolated incident. We're not going to hide from that. We have to acknowledge the truth. Residential schools were a reality - a tragedy that existed here, in our country, and we have to own up to it," Trudeau said.

The discovery of the remains at the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia, which operated between 1890 and 1978, was first confirmed on Thursday by Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc, formerly known as the Kamloops Indian Band, according to Deutsche press agency (dpa).

Some of the children were as young as 3 years old and the cause of their deaths is still unknown.

The case has prompted calls to probe all former residential schools. The institutions run by the government of the Church were designed to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children.

"A thorough investigation into all former residential school sites could lead to more truths of the genocide against our people," the national chief of Canada's Assembly of First Nations Perry Bellegarde said, as reported by The Globe and Mail newspaper.

For decades, thousands of children were taken from their families and placed in residential schools, where they had to learn the traditions of European colonialists to forget their own culture. Violence and sexual abuse were common in these schools.