Where’s the national monument to residential school victims?

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in 2015 that there should be monuments across Canada commemorating and honouring residential school victims and survivors, but there’s no indication that a national marker of any sort is even close to being started in Ottawa.

The TRC’s calls to action 81 and 82 — two of 94 recommendations the commission that was looking into the grim legacy of residential schools made — say every provincial and territorial capital, plus the national capital, should have a commemorative monument.

“Preliminary discussions” are underway for Ottawa, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada says, but there is no timeline and no budget. “The Government of Canada will work in partnership with the National Capital Commission and local municipalities to advance” this particular “call to action” from the TRC, it said.

A spokesman for the National Capital Commission referred queries about the proposed monument to Canadian Heritage: “I invite you to call them.” Canadian Heritage provided no additional information beyond what INAC had said.

Marc Maracle, chair of the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition, says the city’s Aboriginal working committee is focusing on the handful of calls to action that are municipal responsibilities. But he’s heard nothing on a national monument.

“Given the number of Aboriginal people in the National Capital Region, I think it would for sure be appropriate that the federal government … come forward, but I’m certainly not aware of any conversation with federal officials about realizing a formal monument in Ottawa yet,” Maracle says.

Meanwhile, the Ontario government has committed $1.5 million over three years for a provincial monument in Toronto; the project is being handled by Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre. It is planing for “Restoration of Identity,” a 12-foot snapping turtle structure, which is to be unveiled next fall. Andrea Chrisjohn, with the centre, says it both addresses call to action 82 and educates people about inhabiting Turtle Island: “We’re expanding it even further, it will be an ongoing education piece.”

In June 2015, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson’s office suggested he’d be happy to have discussions with the federal government about where a monument should go in Ottawa.

But since that chatter more than two years ago, little has happened or been said about an Ottawa monument. “Our office is not aware of new developments regarding a national monument in Ottawa to commemorate residential school survivors,” said Livia Belcea, Watson’s spokeswoman, in an email.

“City staff have not been asked to participate in discussions regarding a statue commemoration for victims of residential schools,” said a statement from Dan Chenier, general manager, recreation, cultural and facility services.

To many (at least until there is generational turnover), the newly renamed Prime Minister’s Office building will still be known as the Langevin Block, named after Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation and one of the architects of residential schools. The statue of Sir John A. Macdonald on Parliament Hill, and the grave of Nicholas Flood Davin, who wrote the early report suggesting “industrial” schools for Indigenous children, in the Beechwood Cemetery are — and should be — reminders of how residential schools came to be.

A new monument would be something far more than a reminder. Monuments call upon people to ponder something, to consider the weight of a past injustice or victory or heroics.

This would be a testament to the strength of those who endured residential schools, a sobering admonishment of our past, a tribute to those who didn’t survive and the legacy of trauma that remains. The provocation of reflection is tangible, and therefore meaningful, as each person experiences it differently. Without this there can be no reconciliation.

On the Indigenous file, the Liberals have attempted a brazen con, promising the apple yet giving only the stem. It is crass politicking of the worst kind.

The least, then, this government could do is fulfil the call to action for a national monument.