No plans underway for provincial monument to residential schools
The province said it has not yet received any proposals to build a residential schools monument in Regina.
One of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations calls upon provincial and territorial governments “in collaboration with Survivors and their organizations, and other parties to the Settlement Agreement, to commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools Monument in each capital city to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities.”
Ken Cheveldayoff, minister of parks, culture and sport for the province, said the province has not received any proposals for “any type of recognition or site or sculpture.”
“There is work to be done in that area, but as a province we’re certainly open to that direction,” he said at a ceremony designating the site of the Regina Indian Industrial School cemetery — where roughly 38 residential schoolchildren are buried — with provincial heritage status.
The minister said the province is “looking at all the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it’s something that we take very seriously.”
NDP MLA Warren McCall said he was glad to see the Regina Indian Industrial School get heritage status from the province, but that “we don’t hear about responding to the calls to action from this government” unless the topic is brought up by others.