BREAKING Police arrest 3 in killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Wrapped snuggly in a quilt handmade by her childhood best friend, Carol Smith is overwhelmed with comfort.
After 45 years apart, Smith and her best friend Robin Chapman, have been reunited, brought back together by a Facebook group dedicated to supporting survivors of Canada’s residential school system.
“Robin said when I start feeling scared to wrap that blanket around me and pretend she's sitting there holding me,” Smith told CTV National News over Zoom, where she and Chapman were able to connect face-to-face.
“I love you robin… [I’m] happy to look at your face."
Smith and Chapman became best friends after meeting at the Kamloops Residential Institution. The two became inseparable, navigating the traumas of residential school after being ripped from their homes as young girls.
"I had no name. I was given a number. To this day I remember that number, it was 131,” Smith said.
Both women are still scarred by the experience, grappling with deep depression at several points in their lives.
"I used to wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and see someone waking up a kid and then that kid following them. I never knew where they went. I don’t even remember if they even came back,” Chapman said.
After the discovery of 215 unmarked graves were uncovered on the grounds of the former Kamloops Residential Institution last year, Smith and Chapman joined the Facebook group “Quilts for Survivors,” an initiative that relies solely on volunteers and donations to craft full-sized blankets for residential school survivors.
The group was started by Vanessa Genier, an Indigenous mother from Missianbie First Nation in Ontario. Built on Genier’s belief that “a quilt is love sewn together,” she began sewing quilts to honour the lives of the children who never made it home from residential schools, while offering comfort to the survivors.
The group, with over 5,000 members, started with a goal of making 18 quilts.
"But here we are almost 11,000 quilts later, and still going,” Genier told CTV National News. “We have over 600 people waiting for quilts.”
For Smith and Chapman, the quilts offer a symbol of comfort and advocate for sorely needed mental health resources for survivors.
“At the site where 215 babies were found; my hair was cut; my clothes were taken away and I was given a uniform,” reads a poem written by Smith, detailing her experience at the residential school.
“I had no name; I was given a number – 131; I was starved; I was slaved… no more hugs; no more comfort of home…I learned not to be Indigenous; but I am strong and resilient…I am proud of WHO I am; they couldn’t take ME away.”
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Foreign interference by China did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections won by Justin Trudeau's Liberals, a federal commission of inquiry has found.
Skyrocketing airfare prices are linked to heightened competition and rising food and fuel, according to the CAA.
A funeral is being held today for hockey broadcasting legend Bob Cole in his hometown of St. John's, N.L.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
Hope Hicks, once a longtime trusted aide in Donald Trump’s inner circle, is testifying Friday in the New York hush money trial after being subpoenaed.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake was reported west of Vancouver Island Thursday evening.
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.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.