Montreal City Hall flags to be lowered following discovery of 751 graves in Saskatchewan

Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme announced this morning that 751 unmarked graves have been identified near the former Marieval Residential School in Saskatechewan, 140 kilometres east of Regina. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante reacted to the news by announcing that City Hall flags will be lowered to half mast tomorrow. “My heart is broken,” she added.

751.

751 tombes anonymes ont été trouvées aux abords d’un pensionnat autochtone en Saskatchewan. J’ai le cœur brisé. J’annonce que les drapeaux de l’Hôtel de ville seront en berne dès demain. #polmtl

— Valérie Plante (@Val_Plante) June 24, 2021

Native Women’s Shelter executive director and Resilience Montreal co-founder Nakuset shared her personal connection to the residential school system:

My mother went to Residential school in Saskatchewan. Her experience was devastating, and all her children were deeply affected by generational trauma…but she survived.
????for these children and their families???? https://t.co/6rAZEB94VZ

— Nakuset S (@NakusetS) June 23, 2021

Meanwhile, Quebec Premier François Legault called the news “shocking and sad” and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opened his official statement on the news by saying that he is “terribly saddened.”

The Catholic-run Marieval school operated from 1899 to 1997. As with the discovery in Kamloops earlier this month, ground-penetrating radar enabled the identification of the graves in Saskatechewan. Chief Delorme specified that there was no mass grave as there was in B.C. (though some graves may contain more than one set of remains), and that at least some of the graves may have had markers that were removed by the church in the 1960s. Some remains of adults were found, too — these were possibly people who attended the church, or lived in nearby towns.

The community is now working on identifying the remains, and Delorme hopes a monument can be erected at the site featuring the names of the victims. ■

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