On March 16, 2008, Squamish elder Kiapilano and Kevin Annett Eagle Strong Voice led fifty mostly indigenous people in the occupation of the Catholic, Anglican, and United churches in downtown Vancouver and publicly evicted them from the city. Some of this historic event is featured in this video.
Four of the participants in this action were subsequently killed by the RCMP or Vancouver police: William Combes, Ricky Lavallee, Johnny ‘Bingo’ Dawson and Edna Philips, all of whom can be seen in this video, along with Kiapilano and Kevin.
Two weeks after these occupations, the Canadian government began publicly acknowledging the death of “Indian residential school” children and performed a rapid official cover up called the ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’. The Vancouver church occupations and evictions forced this change and the subsequent revelations of mass murder of children by these churches and the government.
These evictions stand. The Catholic, Anglican, and United churches are illegally squatting on Squamish land (and all of Canada), have been banished by nine indigenous nations, and can be lawfully seized by the public.
This video is entered into the docket of evidence of the West Coast Common Law Court of Justice, which is set to convene on Monday, October 16, 2023 in Vancouver.
Its first case is the investigation of the murder of the native people seen in this video and of Harriett Nahanee, the first indigenous eyewitness to describe a killing in a ‘residential school’. (United Church Alberni ‘school’, December 1946)