Ville Emard high school finds novel way to honour residential school victims
A Ville Emard alternative high school is used to doing things differently, and they kept to that spirit while honouring children whose remains were found on the site of a former residential school in British Columbia.
On Thursday, Options High School held a special memorial for the 215 children. Getting down and dirty in the school yard, they did 215 burpees, together in unison, to symbolize getting up off the ground for those who couldn’t.
The students said they imagined it was a tiny glimpse of the struggle and suffering those young students endured decades ago.
“The burpee requires you get down to the ground and then to rise-up and what we want to today, in honouring these 215 children is we want to rise for those forced down, we want to speak for voices that were stolen and we want to change their history, we want it to live on, instead of being buried," said Jason Gannon, a teacher and the event’s co-organizer. “Somebody tried to erase them from history. They were abused, malnourished, starved and buried.”
Gannon came up with this plan with his student, Casey Bossum, whose family is Cree and hails from the James Bay area. Bossum's paternal grandmother was traumatized at a residential school.
Although Bossum was shy to tell the story to all his classmates, his father, John, did.
“When I heard about these 215 bodies, I cried right away thinking, 'What if it was my son?'" said John Bossum with tears in his eyes.
Though his mother survived the residential school, her trauma bled into her family.
“I've never known love, my mom never loved me, my mother never embraced me, hugged me or kissed me or enouraged me," the elder Bossum told the high school students.
He also talked about his own time at a school in Chibaugamau during the 1970s.
“I remember that principal came to me and she said 'By the time we're done, we're going to make you forget about your language,'" he said.
Fueled by the emotion in the Bossum family story, Options High School students and staff hit the pavement and did the 215 burpees together to the beat of a First Nations drum.
Now, the challenge is to get other schools across Canada to host their own #215Burpee events, to help keep the memory alive and pay tribute to the victims who have yet to be found ..
As John Bossum said between tears, “The truth needs to be told and needs to be heard.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'My family doctor just fired me': Ontario patients frustrated with de-rostering
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
Canada Post cracks down on Nunavut loophole to get free Amazon Prime shipping
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
Adopted daughter in the Netherlands reunited with sister in Montreal and mother in Colombia, 40 years later
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Michael Cohen: A challenging star witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial
He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors' biggest piece of legal ammunition in the former president's hush money trial.
Millions of Canadians have been exposed to potentially toxic chemicals, and they're not going anywhere
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
German men with the strongest fingers compete in Bavaria's 'Fingerhakeln' wrestling championship
Despite the threat of dislocated fingers and strained muscles, over 150 Bavarian men came together Sunday to compete in Germany’s unique national championship of “Fingerhakeln,” or finger wrestling.
As Israel pushes deeper into Rafah, Hamas regroups elsewhere in ungoverned Gaza
Israeli forces were battling Palestinian militants across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago, where Hamas has exploited a security vacuum to regroup.
4th Indian national arrested, charged with murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
Homicide investigators in B.C. say murder charges have been laid against a fourth Indian national in connection to the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Surrey gurdwara last year.
Balancing act: Canadian North’s first Inuk CEO juggles Arctic airline challenges
With carriers' flight volumes above the 60th parallel hovering below pre-pandemic levels, Canadian North’s first Inuk CEO now bears the task of balancing those financial and logistical challenges with the needs of communities for which she feels a deep affinity.