Town councillors in Port Hawkesbury acknowledged the discovery of 215 children’s bodies at a former B.C. residential school site.
They held a moment of silence during June’s regular town council meeting Tuesday night.
After, Brenda Chisholm-Beaton, Port Hawkesbury’s mayor, said the news is felt right across the country.
“It is a national tragedy,” she said. “Although it is a story that broke in British Columbia, I think it really has to be everybody’s story if we’re going to make progress with regard to truth and reconciliation.”
Chisholm-Beaton said her stomach is still sick at the absolutely unimaginable thought of what those children experienced.
She said Annie Bernard-Daisley, the chief of the We’koqma’q First Nation in Inverness Co., contacted her shortly after she heard the news, asking her to help get flags lowered across the province.
“We had, within the first 48 hours, about 90 per cent of municipalities agreeing unequivocally that they’d be more than happy to observe that flag lowering.”
Councillors passed a motion to lower the town flags to half-mast for nine days- one hour for each of the 215 children.
