That sentiment was echoed by officials at press conference at LSK School in the Sipekne\u2019katik First Nation on April 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marc Miller, the Minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations, announced the federal government would invest $326,700 that will allow the ground searches for unmarked graves to resume at the school site, located adjacent the Shubenacadie River in Shubenacadie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The funding comes from the Residential School Children\u2019s \u2013 Community Support Funding Program and supports the First Nation\u2019s \u201cShubenacadie Residential School Support Project for Sipekne\u2019katik.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What the funding will do will assist with the research, knowledge gathering, commemoration, memorialization, and fieldwork to be undertaken by Sipekne\u2019katik First Nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”2″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”159″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chief Mike Sack reiterated to the public in the wider area who think that the history of residential schools in Canada were hundreds of years ago. They were not, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are still dealing with the effects of it daily and our community has a rough struggle,\u201d Sack told those gathered at the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He welcomed the funding, but added more work needs to be done to see the healing that is needed to be done in Indigenous communities across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping we take bigger steps in the future,\u201d Sack said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only institution of its type in Atlantic Canada, Shubenacadie Indian Residential School was attended by students from all three Maritime provinces and the Restigouche reserve in Quebec. Operated by the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Halifax until 1956, the school was closed in 1967 and destroyed in a fire in the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The federal funding is also earmarked to help with commemorative things like the installation of a plaque to honour the missing children who attended the residential school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCanada has consistently denied the existent scope and pain that has been suffered by communities throughout the country and that is ongoing,\u201d Miller told the crowd. \u201cIt\u2019s important to mark these events with some humility and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said there are about 70 ongoing grave-recovery projects across the country. Canada has 130 former residential school sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean one project, one site,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are still places where people have not decided whether they should go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”127″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”7″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mi\u2019kmaq elder and residential school survivor Dorene Bernard said the funding will help with healing initiatives for the 70 survivors from Sipekne\u2019katik.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSurvivors want thorough research of the (school) site, including all the surrounding areas, and are hoping that it will locate burial sites that will be protected,\u201d Bernard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kings-Hants MP Kody Blois attended Hants East Rural High School, just minutes up the road from the former Residential School site. He admitted he learned more from talking with residential school survivor Roger Lewis then he did in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Laker News asked if there was an opportunity to have more about the Shubenacadie Residential School put into the curriculum for students, especially at HERH. He said he wasn\u2019t ignorant to the fact there were Residential Schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor me one of the most important moments in even understanding what happened here at Shubenacadie was with Roger Lewis, the curator of history at the N.S. Museum and a Residential School survivor himself,\u201d said Blois. \u201cFor him to explain this is where the boys dormitory was, this is where the girls dormitory was. How they went to prayer after breakfast, and on weekends how they were required to go work on farmers fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”111″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”84″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blois said some of the public education is in the provincial domain. The previous day before the funding announcement, Blois, Jaime Battiste, the MP for Sydney-Victoria, and Minister Miller were in Annapolis Valley First Nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe talked about some of the important Treaty education that former Premier (Stephen) McNeil had started and the province has continued,\u201d he said. \u201cThat type of initiative is extremely important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do think its important to learn about this, not just on residential schools but on the path to reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miller said the announcement is just the tip of the ice berg, echoing comments Chief Sack made. He commended Bernard for the work she is doing, saying he couldn\u2019t imagine being in her shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe role is on us on behalf of Canada to keep advocating among our own people in what needs to be done in the next few years,\u201d said Miller in his opening. \u201cIt won\u2019t be an easier or fast way out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”147″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”93″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”156″] [adrotate banner=”78″] SIPEKNE\u2019KATIK: Funding that will see ground searches for unmarked graves at the former site of the Shubenacadie Residential School is a first step towards healing for survivors and families of those who attended school. That sentiment was echoed by officials at press conference at LSK School in the Sipekne\u2019katik First Nation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[965,12],"tags":[1034,1281,3551,3552,1450,3553],"class_list":["post-27888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-hants","category-featured","tag-indian-brook","tag-kody-blois","tag-marc-miller","tag-residential-school","tag-sipeknekatik-first-nation-2","tag-support-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/IMG_6672-1024x683.jpg\")
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