On June 21, 2021, CoDevelopment Canada issued the following statement in the wake of the discovery by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc nation of 215 unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of children interned at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Today, we reissue this statement, as many of the calls outlined in our original statement are yet to be fulfilled.
CoDevelopment Canada expresses its grief and horror at the discovery by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc nation of 215 unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of children interned at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Government of Canada. While we are saddened and horrified by the discovery, we are not surprised. Canada and the Catholic Church have for too long ignored the rights of First Peoples to access residential school records and receive an explanation as to the treatment and whereabouts of their children.
It has been 6 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its final reports which noted inaction around the high numbers of children who were forcibly taken to residential schools and never returned home. The Commission urged the Canadian government to assist Indigenous communities search for their children. To date, there have been no such efforts supported by the Federal government. It was the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc alone who hired a company to carry out a ground-penetrating radar examination of the old schoolgrounds.
CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev) is a defender of human rights across the Americas. CoDev has fiercely advocated for the release of abducted human rights defenders by various Latin American state security forces and has worked to discover the fate of those forcibly disappeared. We have accompanied indigenous communities and particularly indigenous educators in Latin America to support their struggles to develop education systems that reflect their practices and worldviews. CoDev is committed to do the same in Canada.
CoDev calls on the Catholic Church and any others to release records that reveal the fate of the children and those responsible for their mistreatment and death. What happened to the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and other residential schools is genocide, and the legacy of that continues through denial and inaction.
The Canadian government must:
Stop fighting residential school survivors in court. Provide access to information related to their tenure and mistreatment in the schools.
Stop fighting the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruling that provides Indigenous children with the same access to health, education, and other social services as non-indigenous children.
Stop resisting the CHRT ruling that orders Ottawa to compensate approximately 50,000 Indigenous children who were unnecessarily placed in child welfare and separated from their families and culture.
Greatly accelerate the execution of recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Six years since the Truth and Reconciliation issued its 94 Calls to Action the Canadian Government has only just begun to implement a small handful.
Closely linked to the inter-generational trauma and disempowerment that is the legacy of Canada’s Indian residential school system is the ongoing violence perpetrated against indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people. CoDev urges the Canadian government and all others, including media, health, education, and social services, to implement the 231 Calls for Justice included in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
As an organization, CoDevelopment Canada recognizes that we too must do more. CoDev staff, Board Directors, and members are committed to move forward with cultural humility and to educate ourselves about past and present indigenous peoples of Turtle Island: we commit to step up our work facilitating partnerships between indigenous peoples and communities in Canada and Latin America: and we commit to act when the Canadian government violates the rights of indigenous peoples across the Americas.
Resources and Actions for Indigenous Solidarity
Actions
Read and support Independent indigenous Media such as as Indiginews
Take the free course Indigenous Canada offered by the University of Alberta
To show your solidarity with an orange shirt and start conversations with your neighbours about why you are doing so.
Resources
In late October 2019, Honduran teacher activist Jaime Rodriguez was abducted, tortured, thrown off a bridge and left for dead. He survived, and when well enough to travel, went into exile in Mexico just before the Covid 19 pandemic began. CoDevelopment Canada called on supporters to help Jaime through these difficult months of exile. As organizations and as individuals you responded with an outpouring of solidarity. On November 26 2020, Jaime will take his chances and return to his country. This is his message to you:
Message of Thanks
On my first day of pedagogy class when I began my primary school teacher studies at the Western Normal School in La Esperanza, Intibucá, my teacher Marco Tulio, congratulated us all for choosing a profession that involves so much social commitment. At the time I did not grasp the significance of his statement, but little by little this noble profession taught me the realities of our children and youth, and they become a reflection of my own reality. This makes it easier to understand the commitment of teachers all over the world to defending the rights of the people; the right to health, water, land, the rights of women and, of course, the right to education.
There are consequences for struggling for a better future for our peoples and against policies of privatization and the looting of public resources. Various colleagues have given their lives for this in Honduras, and in almost every country of the Americas. In my case, it brought exile. But with exile came a wonderful experience of great learning.
Today I want to thank my fellow teachers, and others, in the republic of Canada, the teachers of Mexico, and educators from many countries of the Americas who supported and sheltered me with their solidarity. You, compañeros and compañeras, have shown me the true value of that word.
I want to give special thanks to CoDevelopment and the IDEA Network, to the BC Teachers' Federation and the Surrey Teachers' Association, to Steve, Maria Ramos and the teacher Dilcia Díaz – and to so many compañeros and compañeras who I have never met, and to whom I beg forgiveness for not naming, because that list would be very long.
I am returning to my country.
My commitment to free my homeland is today even stronger than before. I return bringing more experiences and the knowledge that, with your solidarity compañeros and compañeras, they will never break us.
But the repression will surely continue in Honduras, so I ask of you to simply follow the song of our resistance that says, “Promise me you will continue to fight.”
Gracias maestras y maestros
Jaime Rodríguez México City, November 25, 2020
CoDevelopment Canada stands with and supports the black community and all racialized communities; every day, everywhere to end racism in all forms.
Recent deaths of members of the black community in the US and indigenous communities in Canada at the hands of law enforcement leave us heartbroken. Their lives, and the lives of black, indigenous and all peoples taken by violence, matter.
CoDevelopment Canada is founded on principles of social justice and global solidarity. We know that expressions of racism in the Americas are a result of colonization, and structural violence is prevalent throughout the Americas. Our partners in Latin America also fight these forces of oppression in their governments, institutions and societies.
We stand with black, indigenous, and all communities facing injustice. We pledge to continue to work to enforce international human rights and basic human dignity everywhere, especially in our own backyard.
Show your solidarity by supporting Canadian organizations working for Black and Indigenous communities.
https://blacklivesmattervancouver.comhttps://blacklivesmatter.ca/
https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/en/http://www.idlenomore.ca/
https://www.nwac.ca/https://www.ubcic.bc.ca/https://stopracism.ca/
