*** In honour of the first ever National Day of Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th, we are re-posting this interview with Marie Wilson, who was a Commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. This interview was originally published June 3, 2021. ***

***The subject matter and content of this episode may be triggering for some listeners. The National Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is accessible 24 hours a day at: 1-866-925-4419 ***

"We did hear of children's bones being found in the foundations of buildings when (Residential) schools were dismantled. We heard of children being thrown into furnaces. These were children. The little ones who have woken up in Kamloops this week, these are children calling out to all of us now."

Marie Wilson, former Commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which gathered testimony on the crimes and abuses against Indigenous children at Residential Schools in Canada, joins the Ahkameyimok Podcast from Yellowknife to discuss the shocking find of a mass grave of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The grave was found on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School at the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in British Columbia. Dr Wilson discusses her feelings on hearing of the the Kamloops mass grave, her memories of visiting that site as Commissioner, why her work on the TRC from 2009 to 2015 means she is shocked but not surprised by this mass grave and believes there are many more like it across Canada that need to be investigated, and why she believes the Pope and Catholic church, which ran the majority of the Residential Schools, needs to apologize for its role in what the TRC described as cultural genocide.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions

Our theme music is performed by the Red Dog Singers, Treaty 6 Territory, Saskatchewan