OUR HONORARY LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As the Owner and Director of the Bergthorson Academy of Musical Arts, located in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows BC., I respectfully acknowledge how lucky I am to raise my family, live, work, and play on the unceded shared traditional territory of the Katzie and Kwantlen Nations.

The Federal Government have declared September 30 as a statutory holiday, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Because “Every Child Matters,” the Bergthorson Academy of Musical Arts will honour and respect that day.

In December 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, in its final report call to action number 80, called for “the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which seeks to honour First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors, their families, and communities, and to ensure that public commemoration of their history and the legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

As thousands of unmarked graves of indigenous children are being publicly discovered across the country on the grounds of Government sponsored, religious church authority operated residential “schools”, non-indigenous Canadians have been shocked into coming to terms with what survivors of residential schools have always known. Indigenous peoples are bringing to light the true systemically racist history of this country and the atrocities of the residential school system.

“We share the grief, the pain and the outrage and understand that we have a painful but necessary road ahead of us to walk together, to right wrongs and to support Indigenous communities who are carrying this ongoing burden with strength, resilience, and leadership. The need has never been greater to listen and to learn about B.C.’s colonial history and to seek truth, justice and reconciliation.”

“Together we are stronger, safer, wiser, and more creative.”

Let the Bergthorson Academy of Musical Arts
GIVE WINGS TO THE MUSIC INSIDE YOU

Robert Hornsey, owner/director