Saskatchewan-based Cowessess First Nation made international headlines when 751 unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School were revealed to the world in 2021. Being the chief at the time, it was Cadmus Delorme’s responsibility to share that horrific information.
When he addressed the media at the time, he said all he could think about was how sharing that news would trigger former residential school survivors – his own mother one of them.
On Wednesday, speaking to a gymnasium full of students at St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Secondary School in Oakville, Delorme says that this is the first generation allowed to finally hear Canada’s history with Indigenous people since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its report in December of 2015.
He admits it’s not always easy, but he says he does this work for the past and future. The past referring to his mother, for healing, and the future, for his seven-year-old daughter.
