A First Nations chief in the Quad Counties says she wants federal officials to act on their promise of reconciliation.
The bodies of 215 indigenous children were found buried on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops recently.
Annie Bernard-Daisley, the chief of the We’koqma’q First Nation in Inverness Co., tells The Hawk all former residential school sites in the country should be searched using ground penetrating radar technology.
“The children who are possibly buried (on other sites) need to find their own home,” she says. “Their souls need to be free from the location where they were murdered.”
Bernard-Daisley says some progress has been made toward reconciliation, but more action is required.
She says she laid flowers on a monument in her community to help process the discovery, which hit especially close to home as a mother.
“You look at your children as a mother, as parents, and you can’t help but cry.”
Bernard-Daisley says band members will hold a tribute at We’koqma’q’s community school Wednesday afternoon.
She says residents are encouraged to come out and paint a rock to lay by the monument to help process their emotions and remember the 215 lives lost.
