On Monday August 16th, the installation was returned to the stone wall surrounding the library and Boyd Museum in Bobcaygeon.
The importance of keeping solidarity with First Nations top of mind is one of the reasons that this tangible reminder plays a role in the community. The following article from CTV news highlights why this matters as we face a federal election.
As headlines from the Tokyo Olympics shifted public focus away followed by the news of the looming federal election on September 20, First Nations community leaders are concerned that the residential school graves – and the horror they represent — may fall to the wayside in coverage, public memory and election campaigns.
Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, member of Gitxsan First Nation and professor at McGill University Cindy Blackstock said the federal election is an opportunity for Canadians to give action to “their growing outrage” about the past and ongoing injustices facing Indigenous communities.
“First Nations peoples are of concern to every Canadian voter,” Blackstock said in a telephone interview with CTVNews.ca Monday. “So far they’ve [the government] counted on the Canadian public not caring or not caring enough – that allowed them to perpetrate these injustices.”
Blackstock cautioned against public momentum for change stalling – calling it “dangerous.”
“We know from historical precedent there was national news coverage in 1907 of Indian Affairs Public Health Inspector Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce’s findings that the [Indigenous] children were dying at a rate of 25 to 50 per cent owing to inequitable healthcare funding by the federal government,” Blackstock said. “And that was with blazing headlines like ‘children dying like flies,’…but then the coverage waned and children continued to die.”– CTV news
