New name proposed for road leading to Brandon residential school site to honour survivors
CBC
A new honorary street name in Brandon will mark the road leading to the area's former residential school site, if the proposal passes one final step next month.
Wokiksuye Ċanku — Dakota for Remembrance Road — is the honorary name being recommended for Grand Valley Road in the southwestern Manitoba city.
The chosen name means a "great deal" to many community members, especially those who attended residential schools, said the Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples' Council's Michèle LeTourneau.
"One elder told me that … it's always very strange for her to go down Grand Valley Road because it's not something that was grand for her," she said.
"I think we all recognize that the residential school experience ... it's a terrifying part of the Canadian past," LeTourneau said. "BUAPC really wants to honour those children that were taken and placed there, and some who never returned home."
The Brandon Urban Aboriginal Peoples' Council, or BUAPC, voted in favour of applying for the honorary name on Aug. 8, and the request was then approved by the city's planning commission Wednesday.
The final step in the process will be a Sept. 6 Brandon city council vote on approving the honorary name.
The honorary naming process has been in the works for a number of years, said LeTourneau, the community co-ordinator with BUAPC — a committee established in 2010 to advise city council, and which brings together key stakeholders and citizens to address the needs of urban Indigenous people.
"Indigenous people are an important part of our society. They matter just as much as anyone who is not Indigenous," said LeTourneau.
"And I think one of BUAPC's aims has always been that Indigenous people feel themselves reflected in the community they live in."
The Brandon residential school, just northwest of the city, operated from 1895 until 1972. While enrolment statistics aren't available for some school years, the number of children forced to attend the school ranged from only four students some years to as many as 200 in others.
The building was torn down in 2000, and the site is now under the care of the nearby Sioux Valley Dakota Nation.
Brandon's Indigenous council has been working with a naming group to create an appropriate designation for the road leading to the site. The group includes representation from four Indigenous language groups — Dakota, Michif, Anishinaabemowin and Cree.
The naming group met on Aug. 5 to discuss a name for the road, joined by four members of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation's residential school committee.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.