Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

At least 150,000 Indigenous youths were forced into Indian Residential Schools (IRS) between the 1870s and 1990s. They were run by Canadian/Provincial governments and religious authorities. The aim was to strip the young of their language/culture and force them to adopt to the colonizer's way of life. In other words, cultural genocide, but with the recent discovery of 215 indigenous children at a Kamloops IRS in unmarked graves, with many more to be found all over Canada, it can be argued that it’s more than cultural genocide.   Out of the 139 IRS in Canada, 26 were in Alberta. Among those, six were in Southern Alberta. It is known that thousands of Indigenous children died needlessly while attending IRS. The speakers will describe their experiences with IRS and relate to how the generational trauma have affected large portions of Indigenous Peoples and their communities. Healing remedies and the importance of teaching all kids about the horror of IRS in K-6 and beyond, will also be discussed.     Speakers: D