Ahead of a planned meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Wednesday, the chief of Williams Lake First Nation says education and residential school "naysayers" continue to challenge reconciliation efforts.
"We continue to have individuals reach out, even as late as today, trying to justify the benefits and the positives that are coming out, and continue to come xjmtzywout, of the residential schools in this country," Chief Willie Sellars told CTV National News Vancouver Bureau Chief Melanie Nagy on Wednesday.
Trudeau is visiting the interior B.C. First Nation, two months after an initial investigation found 93 potential burial sites nearby on the grounds of the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School.
The site is one of a number under investigation across Canada, with hundreds of unmarked graves discovered over the last year, including approximately 200 at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Sellars says "there can truly not be any healing without truth."
Although he says he doesn’t expect reconciliation to be achieved for generations to come, he says there continue to be those who try to justify residential schools, pointing specifically to the mayor of the local municipality.
Multiple B.C. First Nations called on Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb to resign last year after he shared a social media post talking about the "other side" to residential schools and how "new generations" of Indigenous people "just want to be victims."
Cobb later apologized but also chastised Williams Lake First Nation for publishing a letter in response, which he called "a personal attack."
In terms of achieving healing and reconciliation, Sellars said, the "education component of all of this is going to be massive."
"But by covering the truth, we’re going to be able to get there a lot quicker."
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An elder burns sweetgrass as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc in Kamloops, B.C., Oct. 18, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
