Walk to honour Indigenous children who never made it home – St. Catharines Standard

September 28, 2023

Residential school survivor leading Welland event

Every child matters, says residential school survivor Lori Marquis ahead of her walk Sunday to remember Indigenous children who never returned home.

Taken from her Lac La Ronge home in north-central Saskatchewan at age five, Marquis, born Patricia Ann Charles, was sent to a residential school with her two sisters, and from there the three bounced between foster homes.

The three Cree siblings were part of a mass removal — “scooping” — of Indigenous children from their families across Canada, starting in the 1960s, and put into the child welfare system.

The goal was to place the children, taken without consent, with white families.