Local Mi'kmaq Communities Hold Marches On July 1

POTLOTEK FIRST NATION - Mi'kmaq communities in the Strait Area echoed the sentiments of many other parts of Canada by not holding official Canada Day celebrations on July 1.

Instead, marches were held to honour the memories of hundreds of indigenous children whose remains were found at residential school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan this spring and summer, including 182 found at a site just outside of Cranbrook, B.C. on the final day of June.

Hundreds of people clad in orange T-shirts marched along Trans-Canada Highway 105 from Wagmatcook First Nation in Victoria County to We'koqma'q First Nation in Inverness County on the first afternoon in July.

On the eastern side of Cape Breton Island, in Richmond County's Potlotek First Nation, an estimated 200 people marched from the Potlotek community centre to the Mi'kmawey School site, where they heard speeches from Potlotek First Nations Chief Wilbert Marshall and elders Bernadette Marshall and Robert Pictou before returning to the community centre's parking lot.

Elder Marshall, who was one of several members of her family to experience the horrors of Canada's residential school system first-hand, didn't mince words when she recalled her response to a CBC reporter who asked her opinion of Canada Day cancellations throughout the country.

"Canada Day means nothing to me," fumed Marshall, who called on the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church to launch an action plan that included formal apologies and reparations for those whose families and communities had been torn apart by residential schools. 

Elder Pictou also urged government leaders to "get off their lazy ass and do something" about the residential schools crisis, and added condemnation to those who feel Canada is a country to manipulate for their own needs. 

"This is stolen land - the government never paid for it, nobody paid for it," Elder Pictou thundered.

"You don't own no land - the land owns you. And when you die, the land is going to claim you. You're going to be put in the ground, and the land will wrap its arms around you."