City of Calgary starting design contest for residential school memorial

The City of Calgary's permanentresidential school memorial is another step closer to reality, as council heard an update about the project's progress on Monday.

The memorialis slated to be at the Confluence Historic Site & Parkland, near the meeting of the Elbow and Bow rivers. The project to develop the memorial is now moving into a design competition phase, with a scheduled end to the contest in early 2025.

The competition shortlists up to five Indigenous-led teams who have submitted concepts. The five teams will be announced by the end of October, and the teams will be invited to submit design proposals, beginning in November.

The design concepts will be exhibited early next year, with the result decided on by a jury and made public next year. The Indigenous-led design teams must work within the budget of up to $5 million for the project.

With the memorial timeline lasting several years to completion, Mayor Jyoti Gondek stressed the importance of working to ensure the project is done correctly.

"One of the biggest lessons I've learned in my journey towardreconciliation is some things take time,and they take time because it's important to engage with all the parties that are impacted," Gondek said. "Speed to deliver something that doesn't actually capture the essence of what's required is also not the right way to go."

Community consultations on the project have requested it be a gathering space for community events and where people can drum, sing and dance, while also being a space that can provide ongoing education about the harm caused by residential schools.

Marina Crane, an elder from the Tsuut'ina Nation, emphasized the memorial site's importance to create a space for communication about the harm caused by residential schools, and compassion for the survivors of the schools

"Indian residential schools robbed us of our identity, our language and our culture. It's such a hard thing for people to understand the desperation that we've had in trying to understand or even hold on to our elders, so we can learn these practices," Crane said.

Council voted on Monday to direct administration to bring an update to council with the design concept and a future funding request for consideration during its budget adjustment process in November, next year. Construction is also expected to begin next year.

Public feedback, which consulted Indigenous community members and Indigenous-serving groups, guided the city's decision to select the Confluence as the site for the memorial.

The update on the project was provided to city council on Monday at itsfirst meeting dedicated solely to topics affecting Indigenous people.

The meeting's agenda also included the annualupdate on progress made inthe city's White Goose Flying Report, which was created by the Calgary Aboriginal Urban Affairs Committeein 2016 as a response to recommendations made by Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.