Recent discoveries that the bodies of Indigenous children lie in unmarked graves throughout Canada — 215 graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School on the lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, 751 at the Marieval Indian Residential School on the lands of the Cowessess First Nation, and 182 at the St. Eugene’s Mission School on the lands of the Ktunaxa Nation — are reminders that for over 100 years, the Canadian government and the Catholic Church, among others, forcibly separated approximately 150,000 Indigenous children from their parents. The children were placed in residential schools, which worked to sever their ties to their families, their languages, and their cultures. They were often subjected to psychological, sexual, and physical abuse, and their untimely deaths were in many cases undocumented. The Department of English extends its condolences to Indigenous families and communities on the unimaginable loss of their children, and on the pain inflicted by a long and continuing practice of institutional denial and disavowal. We share in their sorrow and outrage, and as scholars take seriously our responsibility to ensure that this history is not forgotten, and that our courses and universities work to redress the wrongs of anti-Indigenous violence and racism. Living on the traditional territories of numerous Indigenous nations, we have a responsibility to honour these lands, the original inhabitants, and their descendants, and we join those demanding a full investigation and a long-delayed serving of justice.
