Feature Story: A scholar’s perspective on National Indigenous Peoples Day

Abstract

The recent discovery of a mass grave containing 215 Indigenous children at the Kamloops Residential School has once again amplified the national dialogue around Truth and Reconciliation. According to the 2015 landmark report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), there were some 4,100 deaths of children at Residential Schools in Canada, although the number could be considerably higher. For many of those deaths, the student’s name, gender or cause of death was never recorded.