UPDATE (11:15 a.m.): The Prime Minister is at the Williams Lake First Nation administration building along Highway 97 where he is receiving a traditional greeting with drumming, singing and a brushing off ceremony with sage.
Trudeau has told Chief Willie Sellars and those in attendance that “all of Canada grieves with you” regarding the findings of 93 reflections at the nearby St. Joseph’s Mission’s formal residential school.
More to come
ORIGINAL:
It’s a rainy day in Williams Lake Wednesday morning, March 30, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller are set to arrive in the region.
The leaders will meet with Chief Willie Sellars of the Williams Lake First Nation, council members, elders, residential school survivors and other members of the community.
It is expected that the PM will visit the site of the area’s notorious former residential school, St. Joseph’s Mission, located just a few kilometres away from the community of Sugar Cane.
WLFN is leading an investigation into the residential school where Indigenous children from Northern Secwepemc, all six Tŝilhqot’in communities, as well as Nuxalk, Southern Dakelh, and others, attended.
Indigenous leaders and residents have long said every community and family in the region has been, and continues to be, impacted by the legacy of trauma experienced at St. Joseph’s Mission and other residential schools across the country.
Read More: Prime minister, chiefs to visit St. Joseph’s Mission former residential school near Williams Lake
Read More: ‘93 is our number’: WLFN reveals St. Joseph’s Mission preliminary findings
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