Trudeau acknowledges charges in Nijjar killing, calls for commitment to democracy
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Indigenous advocates in Canada are calling for more cultural and mental-health supports for residential school survivors as communities discover unmarked graves at former sites.
Front-line organizations working with Indigenous people say the need for in-person help has intensified in the past month since the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., announced ground-penetrating radar had found what are believed to be the remains of 215 children buried on the grounds of a one-time residential school in Kamloops.
Cowessness First Nation in Saskatchewan announced Thursday that the same technology had indicated 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School.
Jason Mercredi, executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon, said the disclosures are triggering "troublesome memories" for survivors. He said there has been an increase in visits to the safe consumption site from individuals looking for mental-health support.
"We can't really keep up, and it's tough because some of these folks have been successfully coping for a number of years," said Mercredi, who is Denesuline and Metis.
Pandemic restrictions have limited the number of places offering face-to-face support, so workers have had to refer people to an outside support line, he said.
A national crisis line is available through the Indian Residential School Survivors Society and some groups are offering regional helplines.
Mercredi said the federal government should be funding First Nations, Inuit and Metis-led organizations and communities to ensure appropriate support is provided.
"Each community needs to have the ability to design its own response model and support model," he said. "All these cultures are very different ... (and) they need to have the funding to be able to respond where they need to."
The federal government recently promised $27 million to help locate graves across the country. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have also committed funding.
Tracy Wilson, who manages the Indian Residential School program at Boyle Street Community Services in Edmonton, echoes Mercredi's call for more help.
Wilson, who is Nakota, Cree and Saulteaux, has taken calls from non-Indigenous agencies in the city as well as from the police force asking for guidance on how to support survivors who are retraumatized.
Some who returned home from residential schools are living with survivor's guilt, she said.
"This is not a shock to most of us. It's just a deeper grief," she said.
"A lot of survivors think they could have stopped what happened. You know, that's not the case, but they live with that every day."
Wilson also believes there is a need for more culturally appropriate forms of support such as beading or sewing circles.
"We need more people to understand how our hands can help us more so than traditional western talk-through therapy."
The National Association of Friendship Centres, which represents more than 100 such gathering places across the country, would like to see intergenerational support as well.
"Our youth are in this sea of information about crimes, violence, murders against their ancestors. They need help walking through that and figuring out what does that mean," said Kelly Benning, a Metis woman and the association's vice-president.
If you are a former residential school survivor in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
------
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2021.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged the charges laid Friday in relation to the murder of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Princess Anne paid tribute to veterans buried at a cemetery in British Columbia today, laying a wreath to honour the more than 2,500 military personnel and family members buried there.
Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a photo finish, edging out Forever Young and Sierra Leone for the upset victory.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.