Moderator Carmen Lansdowne, September 12, 2022.

“For the coming three days I’ll be in Edmonton, AB, attending the first of 8 national gatherings by invite of the federally appointed interlocutor on unmarked graves. I have been asked to witness the gathering, and to share back (along with representatives of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church of Canada) “what we heard” as representatives of denominations who operated Indian Residential Schools.”

“I imagine there will be some hard sharing – and I firmly believe that part of making things right is to continue to show up as an institution and to be accountable for the harm we have caused and continue to cause when we don’t see the humanity in the other.”

“Our position as a denomination is that we will never lead on investigations (taking a trauma-informed approach), but that we will always be present and willing partners to communities who want support to investigate what happened on the sites of those schools run by the UCC.”

“This continued willingness to be accountable will be challenging for some in our church. But for many of the past 40 years since we started on this journey, we have only done the bare minimum. We have an ethical and moral obligation to do better and to encourage the Crown (in terms of our government and the monarchy) to do the same. There will never be enough reparations for the damage done and the failure to address that damage. AND… this is not something non-indigenous people in the church can simply “fix” on their own timeline. Our position should always be to respect indigenous-led approaches.”

Photo credit: Moderator Carmen Lansdowne’s Facebook post.