Cancel Canada day: ‘Nothing to celebrate’ amid unmarked graves

National holiday on Thursday comes after hundreds of Indigenous children’s remains found at residential school sites.

Warning: The story below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.

“Nothing to celebrate.” That is the message from many Indigenous people across Canada, which is marking its national Canada Day holiday on Thursday only weeks after hundreds of Indigenous children’s remains were discovered in unmarked graves. The remains were discovered in preliminary searches at the sites of former “residential schools” – forced-assimilation institutions at which Indigenous children were subjected to physical and sexual violence, psychological harm, starvation, and other forms of abuse. In the days leading up to Canada Day, Indigenous community leaders and advocates have urged people to cancel any celebrations. Instead, they are asking for the day to be one to reflect on the real history of Canada and to support Indigenous people.

“We need to recognize there is nothing to celebrate about this country right now, especially considering the empty words and inaction of the @JustinTrudeau government.

It’s a day where we can mobilize to figure out how we can make this country one that IS worth celebrating,” Indigenous novelist David A Robertson wrote on Twitter.

The Oshkaatisak Council of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents dozens of First Nations across northern Ontario, said it would not acknowledge Canada Day and instead plans to “wear orange and spread awareness about the shameful history of Indian Residential Schools and the devastating legacy that continues today”.

“As a nation of Indigenous Peoples, we must stand strong and shout this out to the rest of Canada. This country’s true history is finally being revealed, and it’s time to stand together and demand justice and accountability,” Oshkaatisak Council member Mallory Solomon, of Constance Lake First Nation, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Several Canadian cities have scrapped their Canada Day celebrations in response to the recent discoveries of 215 Indigenous children’s remains at Kamloops Indian Residential School in the province of British Columbia (BC) and as many as 751 unmarked graves at Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Chief Jennifer Bone of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, in the central province of Manitoba, also said in June that the community believes 104 potential graves exist in three cemeteries at the site of the Brandon Residential School, which was open from 1895 to 1972. Canada’s residential school system operated from the late 1800s until the 1990s. It was part of a wider colonial project that aimed to take over Indigenous lands and forcibly assimilate First Nation, Metis and Inuit children into mainstream Canadian society. Various churches, including most notably the Roman Catholic Church, ran at least 139 residential schools across Canada.