Métis Nation BC advocates for acknowledgment and education on residential school system impacts

TK’EMLUPS — Out of the recent discovery of more than 200 burial sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds, B.C.’s Métis people are advocating for continued education about the school system. In particular, who attended these institutions, and how survivors and their families are still feeling the effects today.

(Please note: Some of the content in this story may be triggering to certain readers. Discretion is recommended.)

As surveying work continues on Tk’emlúps land, Métis Nation B.C. expects more unmarked graves will be revealed at other sites around Canada – with some belonging to Métis children.

“Our people were also in these residential schools.” noted Thompson-Okanagan Regional Director for Métis Nation B.C. Dean Gladue.

Gladue said after the grim findings at Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, there needs to be more education about the residential school system, and who it impacted.

“Finding these children in unmarked graves, the question is how did they end up there?” noted Gladue, “I had somebody ask me, well what if they died of a disease and had to be buried? Okay even that, let that sink in. The parents weren’t even notified. Let that sink in.”

Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada previously estimated that out of about 105,000 former residential school survivors alive in 1991, nine per cent were Métis. And the Truth and Reconciliation Commission included Métis experiences in its finished report on the Residential School system.

The report explains how federal government policy on Métis attendance wasn’t consistent over the years. It cited when the federal government was trying to ban Métis children from the schools, while at the same time the church leaders running the institutions were trying to recruit them as students. It also noted that because public schools often didn’t allow Métis children to attend, many parents had no choice but to send them to residential schools. (see report here)

“As a Métis leader in this province, and as a Métis person in this country, we have to ensure that our children are found as well because some of our children are missing.” reiterated Gladue.

According to Gladue, the impacts aren’t limited to what went on within the walls of residential schools, and that trauma has spread through generations. The Métis leader speaks of people who have repressed their memories, avoided speaking of their time in school, others who denied their heritage to avoid negative treatment, those who have turned to substances, or those who have suffered from mental health issues.

Dean Gladue explains how Metis people were forced into the residential school system. (Image Credit: Kent Simmonds / CFJC Today)

“Indigenous people are the highest per capita rate of incarceration, when you look at that and suicide and addiction (rates) – but we’re five per cent of the population in Canada,” he said. “There in itself, you’ve got to ask the whys as well.”

Out of the Tk’emlúps discovery, Gladue is hopeful people will continue to acknowledge, listen, and learn more about how Indigenous, Inuit, and Métis people are impacted to this day.

“People say just get over it, I’d love to get over it. But when you’re reminded every day when you walk the streets you see the remnants of the pain of it.”

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For more information:

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Support Resources:

KUU-US Crisis Line: 1-800-588-8717

Tsow-Tun-Le Lum: 1-866-403-3123

Indian Residential School Survivors Society Toll-Free Line: 1-800-721-0066

24hr National Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419