Monument for victims of residential schools

City officials are planning to commemorate residential school survivors and those who died with an artistic monument in Edmonton.

“It’s not as simple as using the traditional public art call,” Mike Chow, director of Indigenous relations for the city, said last week. “What we’ve learned from our work around reconciliation is you have to take the time to build the relationship before you do any said action.”

Establishing a monument in Edmonton — and every other provincial or territorial capital — is one of the 94 calls to action set out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015.

Provincial and territorial governments were tasked with creating publicly accessible, highly visible monuments to honour victims.

The provincial government has had discussions with the city about the creation of a commemorative installation, the Indigenous Relations Ministry said in a statement.

“All parties agree that before moving forward with such an installation there is a need to first engage with Indigenous people on what a commemorative installation could or should be,” said the statement.

Chow said he expects the province to be involved — “They haven’t dedicated any funds yet and that’s wise because there are a lot of variables.”

A city “exploratory committee” received $200,000 in municipal funding to start the process in 2014, he said, noting funds were allocated before the commission released its final report. The committee still needs to discuss details such as site location, artistic form, budget and timeline.

For Indigenous activist Muriel Stanley Venne, it’s essential that Alberta memorialize the victims of Canada’s horrific residential school system, which tore Indigenous families apart and resulted in decades of intergenerational trauma due to sexual, physical and

All parties agree that before moving forward with such an installation there is a need to first engage with Indigenous people ...

emotional abuse. “It’s to remind people this happened and it was ... tragic, important to all of Canada,” she said Friday.

Stanley Venne, who is Métis and vice-president of advocacy group Remembering the Children Society, said it’s common for people to live near former residential schools without knowing the dark history of the land.

“If you don’t learn from the past, you are destined to repeat it,” she said, explaining the group is unveiling a memorial in Red Deer in September.

The piece will remember four children — Georgina House, Jane Baptiste, Sarah Soosay and David Lightning — who died in dormitories at the Red Deer Industrial School in 1918 after the Spanish flu swept through the area.

“They currently lie in unmarked graves,” Stanley Venne said. “We haven’t been able to find the families of these four children.”

Memorials across Canada have sought to recognize the lives destroyed in Canada’s residential schools.

Chow echoed the importance of memorializing the tragedies of the past — “So we never forget and never make the same mistakes again.”