Cowessess First Nation

Toronto Star – Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme announced the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marievale Indian Residential School in southeastern Saskatchewan “which operated from 1898 until 1997, and was run by the Catholic Church for most of its history”.

“We will find more bodies and we will not stop until we find all of our children,” he said. “We will do a search of every Indian residential school site and we won’t stop there. We will also search all of the sanatoriums, Indian hospitals, and all of the sites where our people were taken and abused, tortured, neglected and murdered. We will tell the stories of our children, of our people who died, who were killed by the state and the churches and we won’t stop until we locate all of them….” Chief Bobby Cameron, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.
The grave site in what is now Cowessess First Nation was overseen by the Catholic Church from 1886 — 12 years before Marieval opened — until the 1970s, Delorme said. There had been grave markings at some point, but the church removed them in the 1960s, he said.

Regina Archbishop Don Bolen was not available for an interview Thursday, but in an open letter to Delorme posted to the Archdiocese’s website, Bolen reiterated a previous apology “for the failures and sins of Church leaders and staff in the past towards the people of Cowessess.”

“I know that apologies seem a very small step as the weight of past suffering comes into greater light,” he writes, “but I extend that apology again, and pledge to do what we can to turn that apology into meaningful concrete acts, including assisting in accessing information that will help to provide names and information about those buried in unmarked graves and to stand by you in whatever way you request.”