Senate committee to demand answers from groups that have not released residential school records

Press Release

July 19, 2023

Ottawa – Organizations that have still not disclosed documents relating to Indigenous children who attended Indian Residential Schools will be asked to attend a Senate committee meeting to explain themselves.

The Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples has released an interim report on the work of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) and the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools.

The report, Honouring the Children Who Never Came Home: Truth, Education and Reconciliation, provides an overview of a March 21, 2023 committee meeting that featured testimony from Independent Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray, NCTR executive director Stephanie Scott, and Indian Residential School Survivor and Elder Barbara Cameron. It was released Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

The report includes a table produced by the NCTR summarizing a list of records that could shed light on what happened to the children who attended residential schools and never came home. The committee is determined to hold hearings in the fall of 2023 with entities and organizations that have not released the records.

The report also makes five other recommendations focused on supporting residential school Survivors, families and communities. The recommendations — which include providing stable funding for the NCTR and for the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund — are intended to enable families and communities to finally bring their children home.

Quick Facts

Between the late 1800s and the 1990s, the federal government and several Christian churches operated the Indian Residential School system. More than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended; many were forced to leave their families and were mistreated, malnourished and abused.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) found that one-third of student deaths were not recorded by government or school administrations, that cause of death was not recorded for half of the students who died and that residential school children died at a higher rate than non-Indigenous children.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is the permanent home for all statements, documents and other materials gathered by the TRC. Part of its mandate is to promote public education and understanding of the history and effects of residential schools, including by maintaining a national register of children who died while attending these institutions.
The Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor has a two-year mandate to identify needed measures and make recommendations for a new federal legal framework to ensure the respectful and culturally appropriate treatment of unmarked graves and burial sites of children associated with former residential schools.

Quotes

“It is disheartening that so many governments and organizations still have not released information that could bring a measure of peace to the families and communities whose children died at residential schools and associated institutions. Canada cannot reconcile with its past without facing this truth.”

– Senator Brian Francis, Chair of the committee

“We are determined to hold accountable the entities that have yet to fully support the crucial work of the Special Interlocutor and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The importance of their work to Indigenous communities cannot be overstated — we ask organizations with undisclosed documents to co-operate with us.”

– Senator David M. Arnot, Deputy Chair of the committee

“Federal government departments, provincial governments and religious organizations are standing between Indigenous peoples and the truth of what was done to them in Canada’s name. There is still time for them to do the right thing.”

– Senator Dennis Patterson, member of the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure

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