The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal will host the Every Child Matters March to mark the National Truth and Reconciliation Day Wednesday.
The annual event honours children taken forcibly into the residential school system, the survivors and families.
Organizers say this year’s event carried “renewed sense of urgency and purpose” as the final judgement by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal is expected Wednesday following public hearings held in May in Montreal.
In their preliminary statement, a panel of seven judges formally accused Canada of continuing to commit genocide against Indigenous peoples through various policies like the residential school system among others.
“The atrocities visited on the bodies and spirits of children in the schools, on young women in the hospitals; the thousands of known deaths of children in segregated hospitals, in the schools, the unmarked graves and the ashes of babies in furnaces – are the physical manifestation of a genocidal colonialism which, above all, valued, coveted and seized Indigenous lands, territories and resources,” said the panel.
The march will begin at the Westmount Park at 1 p.m. and end at Cabot Square.
Several speakers and performers are expected to participate in the event, including Ellen Gabriel, Kevin Deer, The Manitou Singers, Henriette McKenzie, Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer, Karen Lajoie Petiquay, Alex McComber, Barbara Diabo, Leonard Sumner.
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