Utoo Radio with Other News Sources - September 30, 2024 - Monday marked the fourth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, honouring the children who never returned home from residential schools.

Thousands of individuals heard from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit survivors of these federal government and church-run schools in Ottawa during a national commemoration.

On Parliament Hill's front lawn, musicians and performers passed a long "memorial cloth" with the names of some of the 150,000 pupils compelled to attend these schools.

To honour those lost to a corrupt school system, the crowd laid children's shoes around the platform.

Justin Trudeau's Liberals lifted 145 long-term drinking water advisories for Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous women and girls face housing, work, crime, and safety issues.

Saskatchewan's Onion Lake Cree Nation's Trina Carter attended a Catholic residential school where her mother, Rosie Chief, was buried.

The subject of residential school-related fatalities in Indigenous communities garnered attention in 2021 when the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation proposed burying over 200 children at the defunct Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

Some Indigenous tribes are conducting research and ground searches to determine how many children have died at these schools in Canada.

However, survivors and their supporters raised concerns about the federal government's funding for this work, which they feel is essential to showing Canadians how devastating the system was.

Some have disputed abuse and neglect at these institutions, while others have questioned why the Kamloops bodies have not been found. Crown-Indigenous Affairs Minister Gary Anandasangaree stated denialism "hurts survivors and their descendants" and will reinforce laws.