The Steering Committee for the Residential Schools National Monument has announced a prominent location on Parliament Hill where the future memorial will be built to honour survivors and victims of residential schools.

The announcement follows calls from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC) for the federal government to “commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools National Monument in the City of Ottawa to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities.”

The federal government announced in August 2021 that it would allocate $20 million to build the national monument.

The announcement ceremony took place on June 20 near the location on the west side of Parliament Hill where the monument will be established.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor General Mary Simon, and House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota attended the ceremony, along with a number of TRCC members.

Simon delivered a speech, saying that the monument’s placement “allows as many Canadians as possible the opportunity to see” it, adding that it will also “serve as a constant reminder to parliamentarians that the policies and laws they create, debate, legislate, and enforce have consequences.”

Simon also said the future monument will represent “Canada’s true history.”

“It is a reminder that we must never again let anyone—not Indigenous people, not anyone—suffer the consequences of racism and inequality, of cruelty and neglect,” Simon said.

Trudeau did not deliver any remarks at the ceremony.

The planned monument is in response to suspected human remains found around a former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia in May 2021 by the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation. This was followed by a series of similar announcements across the country. No excavations have yet been done to investigate or recover remains on any of the sites.

Matthew Horwood contributed to this report.