Send Prime Minister Trudeau a letter asking for accountability about residential schools in Canada

Content written by Evans Yellow Old Woman and Steven Crowchild.

​After the disturbing yet sadly obvious news about the remains of 215 innocent Indigenous children's bodies found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, here is a letter template addressed to Prime Minister Trudeau, that everyone can use asking his government to commit to action. Please add your information and send it to his office. Help us flood his mailbox in order to hold our government accountable. We encourage you to mail a letter in, but if that is not possible you can send via email: justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca.

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

To Prime Minister Trudeau,

​The discovery of the bodies of 215 innocent Indigenous children in a mass grave at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School is physical evidence of the genocide committed by the Canadian Federal Government against the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. This is the time for action and justice, no more empty platitudes and apologies without change. Justice must be served for these 215 innocent children and the countless other lives taken by the deliberate actions of the Canadian Government and Churches. The Federal Government of Canada has known of these atrocities not only through the work of Truth and Reconciliation, but because you have legislated and funded the institutions. It is the responsibility of this government to ensure the harm committed is amended. I am calling on the Canadian Federal Government to act now.

We call on you, the leader of the Canadian Federal Government, to publicly commit to the following:

• Publicly commit to providing financial support and adequate resources to assist Indigenous Communities in searching all sites of Indian Residential Schools, Hospitals, Industrial Schools, and any other potential mass grave sites. These efforts must be Indigenous led and the Federal Government must quash all bureaucratic roadblocks that may exist to prevent this work from being expedited swiftly.
• Publicly commit to funding proper cemeteries, resting places, and memorials for those lost in residential schools. These children were stripped of their dignity in death, and the Canadian Federal Government has an enormous moral obligation to ensure they are laid to rest with all the proper respects and dignity by their loving communities.
• Publicly commit to launching thorough criminal investigations and/or post-humous trials for all known offenders, in an effort to bring justice to the 215 Indigenous children and the countless others killed in the Indian Residential Schools.
• Publicly commit to utilizing the term “Genocide” as opposed to “Cultural Genocide” moving forward in an effort to be truthful about the atrocities committed by the Church and State against Indigenous Peoples.
• Lastly, I call on the Federal Government to honour the Treaties made with Indigenous Peoples. Treaty obligations are still not being fulfilled. Communities are still without clean water. Children continue to be displaced from their communities by the Child Welfare System. Indigenous Peoples continue to be brutalized by police and the incarceration rates continue to climb. Indigenous Women are disproportionately murdered and missing without justice. Education is still drastically underfunded. And this government continues to dispute children and residential school survivors in court. This is but a small list of examples that show the atrocities Indigenous people face. This government needs to stop paying lip service and act boldly in implementing the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action, as well as honouring the treaties according to their true spirit and intent.

The Government of Canada can no longer deny the crimes of genocide committed against Indigenous Peoples. There can be no reconciliation without truth and action or it continues to be an injustice.

​Please do the right thing.
Thank you,