DHA’s Residential Schools Statement

Our firm has taken some time to reflect on the recent news reporting the finding of an unmarked mass grave containing the remains of 215 children at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

There are many reasons why we feel it’s important to use our platform, however small it may be, to acknowledge this finding. But the main reason is simply on a basic human level we feel compelled not to stay silent. There is truly nothing worse that can be done to a group of people than to take generations of their children away from them as was done with the residential school system. Such an atrocity is only compounded and complicated by finding this unmarked grave and the implications it raises about the way Indigenous children were treated.

For our firm, this isn’t about politics. It’s about values. Hearing the voices of Indigenous Canadians and acknowledging the truth about what really happened to them in residential schools, and more broadly in Canada’s history, is the least we can do on the path towards reconciliation in this country.

We send our condolences to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nations for the tragic loss of their children. We also want to acknowledge the strength and resiliency of Indigenous Canadians, particularly in their efforts to allow other Canadians to learn about the residential school legacy by sharing the ways in which residential schools have personally impacted their communities.

As a step towards reconciliation, our firm has made a donation to Orange Shirt Day, which is an organization committed to further investigating and identifying other unmarked graves at residential school sites. Beyond that, we are committed to supporting indigenous-led conversations about reconciliation in Canada.