The Board of The First Unitarian Church of Hamilton approves and supports the following statement made by our minister, The Reverend Victoria Ingram.
While on a tour of the Mohawk Institute, a residential school on the Six Nations, the tour guide points to a cluster of over thirty trees in the middle of a field behind the building. She says that the staff buried children who died in that field, then planted small trees over the bodies.
We feel shocked at last week’s revelations of the burials in Kamloops, but we should not be surprised. Ontario has its own buried stories, as do other Provinces. We hope there are no more graves at residential school sites, but we know that in the months and years to come more graves will be found. There are more graves. There is more pain and memory. There is more trauma. There are families that need to know if those are their children, the children who held their hopes and dreams and stories. There are people who knew those children, loved them, and carry the pain of their loss every day of their lives.
It is hard to hold history accountable; time moves on and things change. Those of us alive today are the accountable ones now. We must redress the wrongs of the past. We must demand our government fulfill its promises to its First Nations and help find the lost children. We must demand that every effort be made to identify and return them to their families and communities, so they can be honoured and laid to rest with respect and ceremonies.
There are records of what happened at residential schools. We need to demand that those records be turned over, preserved and shared. There are people who worked at those schools. They must speak up about what they know, about what was done. There are people who have stories of their own suffering and of the terrors they heard about from their friends and loved ones. We must advocate for the resources to open the way for survivors and families to tell their truth, if they wish and when they are ready. We must listen to and work with Indigenous communities to respect their Treaty and human rights. We must work to end systemic oppression, racism, and inequality.
As Unitarian Universalists, our respect for the worth and dignity of all asks us to take our shock and grief and channel it into speaking up, demanding action, and staying firm in our support for the implementation of the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We must hold ourselves accountable to this goal.
Canada’s new oath of citizenship requires that new Canadians swear to uphold Treaty rights. It isn’t just new citizens that need to take and live this oath. It is all Canadians, starting today and continuing for generations to come.