Bradford residents have started to place pairs of shoes outside the downtown courthouse as a way to honour the 215 children whose remains were discovered at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. last week.
The town's flags have also been lowered for 215 hours in memory of the victims, as well as for those of the thousands of children who were sent to residential schools, and for those who never returned home.
Mayor Rob Keffer and members of council also wore the colour orange in Tuesday night's virtual meeting.
In a statement last Thursday, a representative of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said the discovery of the children’s bodies in Kamloops, B.C., was confirmed last weekend using ground-penetrating radar.
Residential schools operated in Canada for over 160 years in every province and territory except for Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick.
The purpose of the schools was to remove children from their Indigenous culture, abandoning their language and traditions, and assimilate them into the European-Canadian way of life and run by the federal government and the church.
There were 139 residential schools identified within the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. The last school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996.
In total, approximately 150,000 students were placed in the schools, with deaths around 6,000.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the discovery in B.C., "heartbreaking" and plans to step up the country's support for survivors, families, and Indigenous Peoples.
To learn more about the residential schools and their effect on Indigenous people and culture, read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
-with files from Shawn Gibson
