TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st March, 2022) Canada's Federal government has allotted $2.3 million for indigenous communities in the province of British Columbia coping with discovery of unmarked graves on the site of a former residential school, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced.
In January, the preliminary findings at the former St. Joseph's Mission Residential School site near Williams Lake, British Columbia, revealed the discovery of 93 unmarked grave sites likely belonging to children, who attended the forced assimilation school.
"Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and Chief Willie Sellars of Williams Lake First Nation today announced C$2.9 million (US$2.3 million) in additional funding to continue supporting healing for First Nations communities in British Columbia whose children were taken from their families and sent to St. Joseph's Mission Residential School," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement on Wednesday.
The announcement follows a tranche of $1.1 million that the federal government allotted earlier this year to the same community.
From the 1880s through most of the 20th century, the government removed more than 150,000 indigenous from their parents by the government and sent them to residential schools where they were mistreated and brutalized. Financed by state government and operated by Catholic churches, the schools were designed to assimilate indigenous children.
To date, more than 1,800 unmarked graves have been found at former residential school sites across the country.
Trudeau's trip to Williams Lake First Nation coincides with the meeting between a delegation of Canadian indigenous leaders and Pope Francis at the Vatican. The Prime Minister said in response to reporters' questions that his trip had anything to do with the politics or timing of the meeting in the Vatican.
The Prime Minister repeated his stance that the Catholic Church must apologize for its role in what some have termed a genocide.
While Trudeau's excursion to Williams Lake First Nation was defended by officials, many former residents were not enthused by the Prime Minister's arrival.
"An apology would mean nothing to me." Frank Robbins, a St. Joseph's Mission Residential School survivor told Global news. "The damage is done and you can never fix what happened, you know? He'll never know the pain and hurt that we went through."
