Statement on the Mass Grave Found at Kamloops Residential School
The School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) continues to mourn the 215 children found in the mass grave at the Kamloops Residential School.
The School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) continues to mourn the 215 children found in the mass grave at the Kamloops Residential School.
SCARP honours the collective strength of Tk’emlups te Secwepemc for leading - and spending their own resources on - the recovery efforts. We offer our condolences to all survivors of the Indian residential school system and their families. While this news is shocking, it is not surprising. Residential school survivors, families, and community leaders have known the reality that far more Indigenous students died in these schools than has been documented. As several Indigenous leaders and experts have said, including former senator Murray Sinclair, Canadians should be prepared for more discoveries like Kamloops.
SCARP recognizes the role of professional planning in perpetuating acts of settler colonialism that continue to impact Indigenous people and communities today. From municipal plans and provincial infrastructure projects that threaten to destroy ancestral burial sites and villages, to the illegal removal of reserve land for the creation...