‘You can’t just raise the flags and replace it with nothing’: AFN national chief

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OTTAWA – The national head of the Assembly of First Nations says there must be another symbolic gesture to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous children if Canada wants to raise its flag.

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RoseAnne Archibald says ideas for such an expression will be discussed when the organization’s executive meets this week, adding that Inuit and Meti national leaders should be involved as well.

Questions about what to do with the national flag have arisen in the run-up to Remembrance Day, an occasion when it has traditionally been lowered to half-mast as a tribute to soldiers who died while serving in Canada.

The flags at the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill and other federal buildings have been flying at half mast since late May, but the Royal Canadian Legion says it plans to raise the flag at the Ottawa National War Memorial on November 11. before immediately lowering it to half-mast again.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for the lowering of the national flags after the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc nation announced that ground penetrating radar detected what is believed to be the remains of 215 indigenous children in a former residential school in Kamloops, BC.

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Weeks later, the Cowessess First Nation near Regina revealed that it found 751 unidentified graves, prompting Indigenous leaders and many non-Indigenous Canadians to redouble their calls to Ottawa to help bring justice to survivors of residential schools.

“You can’t just raise the flags and replace it with nothing,” Archibald told The Canadian Press in an interview Saturday.

“That, to me, is a great disgrace and it would be a great disgrace and it would be detrimental to all the children we have yet to find.”

Archibald said that “a symbolic gesture must be found if the flags are to be raised.”

Such action should be significant, Archibald said, adding that AFN believes that some kind of symbol should remain in place for the long term because there are many sites of former residential schools that have yet to be searched for unmarked graves.

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It is estimated that more than 4,000 indigenous children died while being forced to attend government-funded and church-run institutions, where thousands more suffered physical and sexual abuse, neglect and malnutrition.

The 2015 report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which was based on the testimony of thousands of alumni, said that the system that operated for more than 120 years perpetuated a “cultural genocide” against the survivors.

Archibald said more than 130 of these “assimilation and genocide” institutions remain to be investigated.

“We have a long way to go,” he said.

“These children deserve to be found, named and buried with due ceremony and returned, either physically or ceremonially, to their countries of origin. This is very important to us as First Nations peoples. “

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As for November 11, it is up to Trudeau if he wants to raise the flag.

The Royal Canadian Legion has indicated that it will raise the flag at the National War Memorial on the morning of Remembrance Day before lowering it again during a scheduled ceremony to honor the dead. The flag will then be presented to this year’s Silver Cross mother, who represents the mothers of soldiers who died in military service.

The legion has recommended that Canadian branches raise the flag before their individual ceremonies, but a spokeswoman says the decision to do so is up to them.

The legion has the power to control what happens to the flag at the National War Memorial that day because it is in charge of the annual ceremony at the site.

After November 11, it is again up to the government to decide how high it will raise the flag on the monument.

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Canadian Heritage says flags on government buildings and the Peace Tower remain lowered in memory of indigenous children who died in residential schools, as well as survivors and their families.

The department said on Friday that unless the prime minister decides to return the flag to full mast before Remembrance Day, it will stay at half mast that day instead of hoisting and lowering it at half mast again.

Trudeau has previously said that he will keep the national flag lowered at federal sites until indigenous peoples are ready to see it flown.

Conservatives feel differently. Opposition leader Erin O’Toole, who served in the air force, said it is time to raise the flag because there are many reasons to be proud of Canada, and hoisting the national symbol should be seen as a sign that the country is committed to building a better future.