Thank you to the Tsimshian people for allowing us to operate on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory belonging to the Tsimshian people of Kitsumkalum and Kitselas.

In unity, Ksan Society and Kermode Friendship Society would like to call upon John Horgan and the Government of British Columbia to identify, investigate, and commemorate all Indian Residential School burial sites within the province.

In order to begin the process of legitimate reconciliation, it is the duty of our province to respond to the unanswered questions our Indigenous communities have been posing for over a century regarding the whereabouts of their loved ones who were taken and never returned home. Recognition and acknowledgement remain deceitful until the Government of British Columbia attends to their lack of transparency for their acts of elimination and assimilation against Indigenous communities; but most crucially, cultural genocide.

The discovery of the remains of the 215 children from Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation who attended Kamloops Indian Residential School was devasting, heart-wrenching, and re-traumatizing; however, this is just the beginning. It is imperative that the other children who suffered abuse, neglect, violence, and ultimately, death, be found and returned home. It is not just out of human compassion that our children must be found, it is also in respect for their dignity and human rights.

We stand in solidary with the children whose souls were taken, and names were forgotten by our government.

We stand in solidarity with the survivors whose experiences continue to be invalidated by the organizations responsible for their trauma.

We stand in solidarity with our Indigenous communities across British Columbia whose relatives never made it home and have tried for many years to find them.

We stand in solidarity with citizens who are committed to truth-telling, reconciliation, and aid in the process of creating equitable structural change. We invite all citizens of Northern British Columbia to add their voices to this petition to call upon John Horgan to check every Indian Residential School.

John Horgan, it is now your duty.