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For decades, beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous peoples from Canada were taken from their pghomes and families by the Canadian government, shipped thousands of miles away in some cases and placed into so-called residential schools.

The stated purpose of the schools, some of which date to the 19th century and the last of which closed in the 1990s, was assimilation -- ridding the students of ties to their communities and instilling European culture, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

There were reports from the TRC -- a commission funded by the Canadian government as part of a legal settlement to address the wrongs of the system -- of thousands of instances of abuse and mistreatment against students and many of the students did not make it back. to their homes in what advocates for the Indigenous population and officials alternately term "injustice," "systemic racism" or even "genocide."

There have recently been a number of reminders of that grim past -- one which advocates say continues to haunt Indigenous communities.