“We have not done all our grounds, and we do know that there is still more to be discovered,” Chief Casimir said. She said that the radar scanning is not yet complete. “It’s about bringing in the advanced technology today to be able to look beneath the surface of the soil and to confirm some of the stories that were once told.” “There had to be more to the story,” she said. Geraldine Bob, a former student, told the commission that the staff members “would just start beating you and lose control and hurl you against the wall, throw you on the floor, kick you, punch you.”Ĭhief Casimir said the search for remains at Kamloops began in the early 2000s, in part because official explanations - including suggestions that the missing children had simply run away - did not match with the stories conveyed by former students. In 1918, a government official who inspected the school reported his “suspicion that the vitality of the children is not sufficiently sustained from a lack of nutritious food.” The commission found evidence of neglect and maltreatment spanning decades at Kamloops. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded in 2015 that residential schools were a program of “cultural genocide.” The use of Indigenous languages was banned at the schools, sometimes through the use of violence, as were Indigenous cultural practices. “After carefully considering the request and extensive dialogue with the Bishops of Canada, he felt that he could not personally respond,” Bishop Gendron wrote. Bishop Lionel Gendron, who is president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote in an open letter to Canada’s Indigenous people an explanation for the pope’s refusal to apologize. In 2015, the archbishop issued a letter repeating the archdiocese’s apology for the role the church played in the federal government’s residential school policy.īut in 2018, Pope Francis rejected a direct appeal for an apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“The passage of time does not erase the suffering.” Michael Miller of the Vancouver Archdiocese said in a statement. “The pain that such news causes reminds us of our ongoing need to bring to light every tragic situation that occurred in residential schools run by the Church,” Archbishop J.
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