Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, strongly criticized the government for dragging its feet on the issue after the commission's final report
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OTTAWA — The former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission told MPs on Thursday that the search for more unmarked graves at residential schools should be done independently of the federal government.
Murray Sinclair said the tragic issue of unmarked graves has been known for years, but the government has lacked the commitment to follow up on it and still isn’t adequately supporting survivors of residential schools with healing programs.
“In order for us to deal with this properly, we need to ensure that there is an independent study that is done into that question of those burial sites and where they are and what the numbers are going to tell us,” Sinclair told the House of Commons committee on Indigenous and northern affairs.
“That investigation should not be conducted under the auspices of the federal government, but should be overseen by a parliamentary committee that will ensure that it is done in a proper way, as opposed to having anyone within the justice department or the department of Indigenous affairs controlling that process. And I would encourage you to think about that as we go forward, because I think that there are still many questions that remain to be answered.”
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The Commons committee launched a study into the matter following news last week that the remains of 215 children were located with ground-penetrating radar in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The revelation has gripped Parliament with a sudden sense of urgency, despite the fact that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified the issue of unmarked residential school graves many years ago.
Sinclair also said he’s been told the RCMP is investigating the Kamloops grave site, but did not provide more details. As of press time the RCMP have not commented.
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He strongly criticized the government for dragging its feet on the issue after the commission’s final report was published in 2015. The report estimated conservatively that at least 4,100 children died in the residential schools system.
Federal officials, meanwhile, told MPs that the funding is there to search for more unmarked graves, but it will depend on what local Indigenous communities want to do, as some would prefer simply to memorialize the location rather than do more forensic work.
Daniel Quan-Watson, deputy minister at the department of crown-Indigenous relations and northern affairs, said that even though $27 million in federal funding is available immediately to do more search work, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen at every site.
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“There will be many different approaches that Indigenous communities want (in order) to deal with this,” Quan-Watson said. “It’s important to remember that while the Kamloops school is situated in Kamloops, those children were taken sometimes from hundreds of kilometres away. And one of the things that many Indigenous communities have reminded us again and again and again is they will not disturb other communities’ ancestors’ remains without engaging properly with them.”
Quan-Watson said that deciding how to proceed with unmarked graves is a “very sensitive” issue for these communities.
“We know that there are some communities who’ve told us already they intend simply to memorialize the location, and not to do further work,” He said. “There will be other instances where people want to do deep forensic work, or at least work that resembles forensic work, for different reasons.”
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But he said the federal government can’t step in and start funding searches until the affected communities have made such decisions. He added that COVID-19 has delayed some of these consultations.
Quan-Watson also said that 80 per cent of the calls to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report that touched on federal jurisdiction have been completed or are underway, according to his information. In total, the report had 94 calls to action.
The report included calls for the government, in partnership with Indigenous communities, to establish an “online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children,” and to develop procedures for “the ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried.”
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Sinclair said the report made it clear that identifying unmarked grave sites was “a major issue that needed to be done,” and yet the government didn’t move fast enough.
“Even with our limited amount of research that we did, we were able to safely say that we believe that there are several unknown burial sites that can be discovered and located with the use of proper geological researchers and experts,” Sinclair said. “Nothing has been done by the government to follow that up. And we think that that’s a sad commentary upon the commitment the government has, or lack of commitment the government has, to trying to close the story.”
He added that along with government inaction, “the fact that there are still church records that have not been revealed and that have not been made available…is also a sad commentary on the lack of commitment by the Catholic Church to allow us to investigate this further.”
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Marie Wilson, a former commissioner with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said she finds it curious that this issue is now being treated as a national emergency when the broad details about it have been known for many years.
“I’m very, very grateful for this expression of urgency,” she said. “I am dismayed that it’s being framed, with the poor language that we have to work with, calling it the discovery of human remains. This is not a discovery, which is why I have reminded you of this history. It is the validation of all that we have previously and repeatedly been told, and have been saying.”
Stephanie Scott, executive director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, told MPs there is still much to be learned in this area, and the government needs to grasp “the urgency of documenting what survivors witnessed, or what families have shared about missing loved ones.”
“We are racing against time,” Scott said. “We often hear from survivors that they have fewer tomorrows than they have yesterdays. We know the Kamloops residential school is one school in over 140 across this country. We’re only at the beginning of recognizing the extent of the horrific loss of precious lives. The work ahead is extensive.”
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