Indigenous community in Toronto holds honour walk to remember residential school survivors

Members of Toronto's Indigenous community organized an honour walk in commemoration of the survivors of Canada's residential school system on Sunday. The walk began at Coronation Park, looped around Ontario Place, and ended back in the park.

It was organized by volunteers and community-based Indigenous food sovereignty support group Dashmawaan Bemaadzinjin (They Feed the People). One volunteer, Diane Simon, said the honour walk serves to give the community some space and time to pay respects to the survivors of residential schools.

"We decided to have an honour walk today to create community space and take time to remember our family members and ancestors who attended residential schools," Simon said. 

"We can look at residential schools and say how tragic and how painful that was, but we have to also look at the conditions that Indigenous peoples are facing today."

Many Indigenous communities across the country remain under boil water advisories and lack clean drinking water. Families also live in overcrowded and substandard housing conditions and racism is a daily reality for Indigenous people, Simon explained.

One of many examples is racism and misunderstanding experienced in health care, she said. Another is identity and status cards being dependent on who the federal government determines is an Indigenous person.

Treaty rights are dishonoured, she said, leading many to challenge the courts in another "biased system," Simon explained.