Many public buildings at all levels of government are lowering flags in mourning the gruesome discovery of the remains of 215 children — some as young as three — on the grounds of an old residential school in Kamloops, BC.
Flags at Confederation Building will be lowered from now through Friday, a total of 215 hours. Many municipalities, including the City of St. John’s, are taking similar steps.
Indigenous leaders want ground radar searches done at multiple sites where they say they’ve been informed of potential mass graves.
Andrea Procter, who has studied residential schools in this province, is the author of “A Long Journey: Residential Schools in Labrador and Newfoundland”. She has no doubt that there are more bodies out there.
Procter says residential schools in this province did not fall under the same act as those in the rest of Canada.
In the rest of Canada, it was mandatory under the Indian Act for children ages 7-15 to attend those boarding schools. Some 150,000 children across Canada would have attended those schools according to Procter, so the impact is huge.
