WARNING: This article contains details about experiences at residential schools in B.C. and may be upsetting to readers.
Demolition is under consideration for the former St. Mary’s Residential School in Mission but could be years away.
Sumas First Nation councillor Chris Silver says leases in the building on Lougheed Highway extend into next year and deconstruction will likely be discussed in 2026 or 2027.
For the demolition to be approved, a band council resolution needs to be passed by the 21 First Nations that have an involvement with the property, including Sumas First Nation, Matsqui First Nation and Leq'a:mel First Nation.
“Eventually we're going to have a discussion and we will bring it to the forefront,” Silver said.
There’s no timeline in place for deconstruction at the moment, Silver says, and it's still an open discussion.
The Stó:lō Nation Chiefs Council gathers quarterly to discuss matters including joint lands, fishing rights, traditional land usage and cultural gatherings.
Silver says elders are central to discussions about the building. He says most elders want to see the building torn down while a small number want to leave it up and running to show “this is what happened to us”.
“But a lot of our elders are on another chapter of our history and they don't want something like that to be alive. They are ready to move on – it’s a very dark part of our history,” Silver said.
The current building on 34110 Lougheed Hwy was the third location for St. Mary’s Residential School and closed in 1984, with the first on the banks of the Fraser River and the second at Heritage Park.
Ownership of the building was transferred to the Stó:lō people in the 1980s from the Canadian government. It has been used for daycare and other services in the years since.
“The government didn't want to have these old sites on their hands anymore because they knew what was done in these buildings. So what they did as a form of their reconciliation is they gave it back to the Indigenous groups,” Silver said.
The majority of Silver’s family attended St. Mary’s and its walls are packed with a sad history.
“A lot of our elders want to see it demolished because they just can't stand the sight of that building and what happened to them in there,” he said.
Sumas First Nation general manager Brian Jones was the property manager at the St. Mary’s building from 1989 to 1993 while the Coqualeetza Cultural Centre oversaw the property.
He said the building was old then and required a lot of upkeep.
“Everything in that building at the time I was there was already old. Fast forward that to today, and those systems are probably in dire need of much work,” Jones said.
Jones said working in the building during quieter times was scary.
“On weekends when there was nobody really in the building, it gets to the point where you feel like your hair is standing on end ... it was spooky,” he said.
He said the impacts on the survivors are still felt today and would be glad the building is demolished from that perspective.
“There's a lot of people as a result who are dealing with a lot of addictive behaviours trying to hide the pain. From that point of view, I really feel that all of the schools need to be gone, because that's part of our history that has caused a lot of trauma and impacted people's lives that really, when you think of it, they were children when this occurred,” Jones said.
“Back when I was there, we did a lot of ceremony. We did burnings, we did blessings, all of those pieces. Back then, we knew. Every time that we set the table for an event, we always set an extra plate because culturally and spiritually, we knew that there was something that was missing that we didn't know or didn't know how to deal with.”
A monument stands on the former residential school site to commemorate survivors and those who didn't make it home.
