For members of Tsatsu Stalqayu — Coastal Wolf Pack — Canada Day this year will not be a celebration; rather, it’s a time for education and mourning.
The Coast Salish Indigenous group that performs traditional songs and dances in their regalia will be part of Richmond’s virtual Canada Day events this Thursday.
“We’re here to educate society and let society know we are here, we’re alive, we’re strong and we will heal from the residential schools,” said Iona Paul, one of the lead members of the group and a Richmond resident.
The recent discoveries of unmarked graves in Kamloops and Saskatchewan on the grounds of residential schools has cast a sombre mood on the annual July 1 holiday with some cities cancelling Canada Day festivities all together.
“When it comes to Canada Day, yes, we will sing, but we’re not singing in celebration, we are singing in sorrow, we are singing in mourning,” Paul said.
In Kamloops, it’s estimated there are 215 bodies buried outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, some may be as young as three years old.
Last week, more unmarked graves were found outside another former residential school in Saskatchewan.
Paul said the effect of the news is still a “fresh, open wound.”
“Communities across Turtle Island mourn these babies,” Paul said.
(Turtle Island is what Indigenous people call North America.)
“We just need to mourn these babies for a moment, we need to take care of them spiritually. After we’ve done that, then we’ll discuss what needs to be done,” she added.
About 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, run by churches, across Canada and many suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
Paul said she thinks a lot more is still going to be revealed about Indigenous experiences at these largely Catholic-run institutions.
“What they did to us, our health, when we were in those residential schools, there’s so much more ugly that’s going to come out,” Paul said.
But Indigenous people don’t want pity as they are strong people, having survived the residential school system, she added. Instead, they want acknowledgment of past wrongs.
“We want the acknowledgment that is what the Catholic school system has done to us,” Paul said. “We want the acknowledgment that they need to be accountable for the deaths of our people.”
Paul said she hopes people “really listen to us” this Canada Day, but living in Richmond, she doesn’t see much input about Indigenous people in society and no acknowledgment of living on Musqueam land, something she’s brought up with the local government.
“Richmond, you’re living on Musqueam land and you don’t acknowledge the Musqueam people — shame on you, shame on you,” she said.
Part of the reason they formed Coastal Wolf Pack was to educate the public that Coast Salish people reside in the Lower Mainland.
The mayor of Richmond, Malcolm Brodie, has previously said, because of on-going litigation between several First Nations bands and the City of Richmond, there can’t be a land acknowledgment at the city’s public meetings.
But Brodie said he’s hoping to meet in the near future with the chief of the Musqueam Indian Band for discussions about a variety of issues, possibly the lawsuit as well.
“My ambition is we can talk it out,” he said. “I would like a fuller relationship (with the Musqueam).”
He sees this meeting as a “first step” in building that stronger relationship.
Canada Day this year should be about reflecting on various cultures but especially the Indigenous culture, Brodie said, “and to make sure that our thoughts reflect the various aspects of the situations they’ve gone through and the very difficult journey to today.”
To watch Richmond’s Canada Day virtual event, jointly organized by the Steveston Salmon Festival Society and the City of Richmond, go to StevestonSalmonFest.ca.
