September 27, 2026
Children were taken from their families and sent to the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Some never came home and for the families who still seek answers, this is not a slogan or a political argument, it is the life of a child they loved.
Today, masked individuals displaying apparent white nationalist insignia gathered on Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc land. Images also show the group on an overpass in Kamloops holding a banner that mocked the search for children who never returned from residential school. This happened three days before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc is undertaking the careful, painful work of seeking answers about children who never returned from the residential school. The gathering on the Nation’s land was racist intimidation. The banner mocked that search and the families who are still waiting for answers. Together, these actions carried a message of ongoing colonial violence.
Colonialism depends on treating Indigenous families as though their bonds, their grief and their authority matter less. Residential school denialism continues that work. It demands that Indigenous people prove their history to those who ridicule their testimony. It tries to turn a family’s search for a child into something to mock.
We should be clear about the human threshold being crossed here. Every healthy society depends on our ability to recognize that another person’s child matters as much as our own. When people gather behind masks to make a spectacle of families’ grief, the harm is already happening.
Battered Women’s Support Services works to end violence against women and gender-based violence. White nationalist intimidation and misogynist violence, including mass killings, draw on beliefs about dominance: whose lives deserve protection and whose lives can be disregarded. These beliefs do not always lead to physical attacks, but organized displays of them are already harmful and must be taken seriously.
We stand in solidarity with Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, the people of Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc, residential school survivors and families. We call for a full investigation carried out in direct communication with the Nation’s leadership and a response to the safety concerns Kukpi7 Casimir has raised. All public officials must reject residential school denialism unequivocally.
Truth and reconciliation cannot be confined to a day of remembrance. What officials do in response to this intimidation will say more about their commitment than what they say on September 30.
