Regina, Canada, Jul 6, 2021 / 15:01 pm
The bishops in Saskatchewan on Saturday announced plans for a fundraising effort across the province to support survivors of residential schools, a system set up by the Canadian government as a means of forcibly assimilating indigenous children, many of which were operated by Catholic entities.
“We have heard the strong request, from Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people in various quarters, to initiate a new fundraising campaign to support survivors and engage more deeply in our own ongoing commitment and response to the Truth and Reconciliation process,” read a July 3 letter from the ordinaries of local Churches in Saskatchewan.
They said they ‘have begun consultations … towards a province-wide fundraising effort.”
A reckoning over Canada’s residential schools began this spring when at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, the remains of 215 indigenous children were discovered on the weekend of May 22 with ground-penetrating radar. It remains unclear when or how the children died.