The Social Justice 12 class at Hugh Boyd Secondary School is calling upon the Government of British Columbia to construct a monument dedicated to residential school victims and survivors in the capital city of Victoria, to honour call to action #82 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 

TRC Call to Action #82 states:

"We call upon provincial and territorial governments, in collaboration with Survivors and their organizations, and other parties to the Settlement Agreement, to commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools Monument in each capital city to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities."

While two Capital Cities have installed monuments for the victims and survivors of residential schools, the majority have not yet begun the process. By signing this petition, you can help hold our government accountable to its promise of reconciliation for the victims and survivors of residential schools.

In 1831, the first residential school opened in Canada. It took over one hundred years, in 1996 for the final school to close. During this period over 150,000 First Nation Children attended. Of these, over 6,000 children perished from the brutal conditions they experienced, including verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Residential schools were designed to remove First Nations children from their Culture and assimilate them into European/Western Culture. These methods left lasting psychological trauma on the children who attended, negatively impacting their lives once they left the schools.