Supporting Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice

Last week, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that the remains of 215 Indigenous children had been found on the property of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. This heartbreaking discovery is a stark reminder of Canada’s role in the residential school system, which separated more than 150,000 children from their families and contributes to the generational trauma that many Indigenous Canadians live with today.

BEST Service Pros and its team members share in the grief of this tragedy, knowing that these lost children represent only a fraction of the individuals and families affected by the residential school system. We wish to extend our sincerest condolences to the entire Indigenous community of Canada, as our country continues down the difficult road to reconciliation and justice for victims and their loved ones.

BEST is deeply invested in prioritizing our relationships with the local indigenous communities whose traditional and unceded lands we operate on. As part of our core values, we strive to create a positive impact on people’s lives and to do what is right, and we look forward to building on and continuing to improve these relationships. We are honored to be able to provide employment opportunities to Indigenous Canadians at our sites and are grateful for the chance to learn from these team members’ experiences.

In solidarity with our country’s Indigenous peoples, BEST will be encouraging its team members to wear orange and change their Zoom meeting backgrounds to a special orange image from now until June 4, in an act of both recognition and remembrance. By doing so, we wish to reiterate our ongoing commitment to supporting reconciliation efforts across Canada, and to encourage conversations on how to best support those affected by these events. BEST Service Pros has always and will always stand beside the Indigenous communities of Canada, and we mourn alongside them as we continue our shared journey of hope and healing.