REGINA, June 25, 2019 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, announced the transfer of the Regina Indian Industrial School (RIIS) cemetery from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to the RIIS Commemorative Association. This land transfer honours the memory of the children buried in the cemetery during the school's 19 years of operation and implements the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #75 to protect and maintain sites where residential school children were buried.
Minister Goodale, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, and Sarah Longman, President of the RIIS Commemorative Association, joined local Indigenous communities, elders and families of the children who attended the RIIS, as well as provincial and municipal representatives in a ceremony that forms part of the RCMP's ongoing efforts to advance reconciliation.
The ceremony included prayers from Indigenous grandmothers, remarks by Minister Goodale, Commissioner Lucki and other representatives. Two students read the names of the First Nations from where the students originated, and an honour song was performed in recognition of the students' descendants and relatives. A reception followed at the RCMP Heritage Centre.
The RIIS was opened by the federal government in 1891 and was run by the Presbyterian Church until the school closed in 1910. Over 500 First Nations and Métis children from 43 Indigenous communities across the prairies were sent to the RIIS ranging in age from three to their early twenties. It is estimated that at least 35 of the children who died at RIIS are buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery.
In September 2016, the cemetery received municipal heritage designation and in April 2017, provincial heritage status was granted. Since then, the RIIS Commemorative Association had been working to suitably commemorate this site in line with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action.
Quotes
"The treatment of Indigenous people is a scourge on our country's history and the residential school system is but one example. The transfer of the RIIS cemetery has been years in the making and I am proud to have witnessed this milestone day for reconciliation in Regina."
- The Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
"The RCMP is humbled to have played a role in this symbolic act of reconciliation. The RCMP recognises that reconciliation is not a single event or speech, nor is it something that can be checked off a list. Reconciliation is constant, a movement towards the future, a reflection of the past, and an ongoing dialogue."
- Brenda Lucki, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
"The RIIS Commemorative Association is honoured and humbled to accept title to the RIIS Cemetery land on behalf of the Indigenous communities who had students at the School and the descendants of those students. We pledge to work with others to restore and beautify the cemetery and to suitably commemorate the children who are buried there."
- Sarah Longman, President, RIIS Commemorative Association
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Backgrounder: The Regina Indian Industrial School (RIIS) and Cemetery
SOURCE Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
Scott Bardsley, Manager of Media and Communications, Office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 613-998-5681, [email protected]; Media Relations, Public Safety Canada, 613-991-0657, [email protected]; RCMP Depot Division Media Relations, [email protected], 639-625-3933
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