Image Credit: CFJC Today/File Photo

By The Canadian Press/Adam Donnelly

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION

Disappointment after PM skips Truth and Reconciliation events at Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc

Sep 30, 2021 | 4:38 PM

KAMLOOPS — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent part of Canada’s first national day for Truth and Reconciliation flying to Tofino, B.C., where he joined his family.

His office says Trudeau also spent hours on the phone during the day speaking with survivors of residential schools across the country.

The prime minister’s itinerary for the day initially said he was in private meetings in Ottawa.

But spokeswoman Ann-Clara Vaillancourt later confirmed that Trudeau had in fact flown to British Columbia to be with his family for a few days.

She pointed out that he had participated in a ceremony on Parliament Hill on Wednesday night, the eve of Canada’s inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day.

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During a media event at the powwow arbour at Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir said the band sent two written invitations to the Prime Minister to take part in Truth & Reconciliation Day events in Kamloops.

“I did hold out hope that he would be here today,” Casimir said. “I do know that moving forward, it’s really important that he uphold those ten principles – guiding principles of working with us as First Nations. Those principles of true collaboration and that positive path forward.”

Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Conservative MP-elect Frank Caputo also expressed disappointment in the Prime Minister’s failure to appear in Kamloops, where 200-possible gravesites were confirmed at the former residential school site back in May.

“It’s deeply disappointing. He’s in the province, but not here, on a day that was instituted by his government,” Caputo said. “Not just today, but there have been months where the Prime Minister could have came to recognize the 215 children that were found on these traditional grounds. I’m deeply disappointed.”

Trudeau’s government created the day to commemorate the estimated 150,000 Indigenous children forced to attend the church-run residential schools, where many suffered physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition and neglect and more than 4,000 are believed to have died.