GATINEAU, Que.—Canada is still actively enforcing the disappearance of Indigenous children who died while forcibly attending Indian residential schools by “concealing their fate” and not providing families access to the truth, says the special interlocutor on unmarked graves.
The final report released Tuesday by the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burials calls on Canada to implement its 42 obligations for “truth, accountability, justice and reconciliation” that must be carried out through a new Indigenous-led legal framework to support the search for and recovery of the missing children.
“Canada hasn’t provided full reparations for the crimes that happened in Indian residential schools and the (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) calls to action and recommendations” aren’t being implemented, Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray said in an interview.
Murray added Canada has “international legal obligations” to fully address the harms committed against the missing and disappeared Indigenous children, along with their families and communities.
The final report comes after two years of national gatherings with Indigenous communities, leaders and residential school survivors on the issue of unmarked burials, and builds upon two previous reports, a progress update report in November 2022 and an interim report in June 2023.
It includes an executive summary with case studies providing “concrete examples of existing legal, policy and research barriers” faced by Indigenous communities searching for unmarked burials.
The framework proposed is a “holistic approach to reparations,” through its 42 “sacred obligations” that arise from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous laws, international human rights law and Canadian constitutional law.
The obligations include “long-term, sufficient, flexible funding” for Indigenous-led investigations into unmarked burials; acknowledgment by Canada that the enforced disappearance of Indigenous children is “a crime against humanity”; and support for Indigenous data sovereignty and the protection of residential school records.
They also require an apology by all levels of government, churches, the RCMP, universities “and any other organizations that supported and/or operated Indian Residential Schools … for the multiple harms they committed against the missing and disappeared Indigenous children, their families and communities.”
The obligations also ask Canada to make residential school denialism illegal by amending the Online Harms Act and Criminal Code to make it an legal offence “to wilfully promote hatred against Indigenous Peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian Residential School System or by misrepresenting facts relating to” residential schools.
Murray said she had previously discussed such legislative changes in her 2023 interim report.
Justice Minister Arif Virani, who was appointed in July 2023, said he’s learned a lot about the importance of correcting past injustices.
“When I was in that room, I’ll be frank with you and say I was also reacting as a parent,” said Virani, who received the report. “You can’t hear stories about children being, about people being abused, young girls being impregnated, and then their babies being taken away and incinerated, and not have a response.
“That’s difficult to handle, but that’s the kind of work that needs to be looked at and we need to be responding to.”
In response to the obligation to amend the criminal code to include residential school denialism, Virani said it was one of the 42 obligations in the report and that he plans to “do right by the work that’s been committed over these past two-plus years, by Ms. Murray and by those elders and those survivors, and review this material thoroughly.”
There is a private member’s bill on the subject currently proposed by New Democrat MP Leah Gazan.
When asked when survivors could expect a response from the federal government on the report, Virani said “I will do my best to do it as promptly as possible, but it is voluminous.”
Murray was appointed to the position with a two-year mandate by then Justice Minister David Lametti in June 2022, a year after the discovery of 215 potential unmarked graves at the site of former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Tkemlúps te Secwépemc in May 2021.
Murray’s mandate was to “ensure that the First Nations, Inuit and Métis children whose graves and burial sites are now being recovered are recognized and treated with honour, respect and dignity.” Her mandate was extended for an additional six months in June.
It included all burials of children who died while at Indian residential schools across Canada, as well as those who were transferred and died at other institutions including hospitals, tuberculosis sanatoriums, industrial or training schools and reformatories and mental health institutions.
Murray said she wants to encourage Canadians to stand up for reconciliation, “to become completely literate citizens, historically literate citizens, to look at the evidence for themselves and to support communities that are doing the sacred work.”
“I leave it to individual Canadians to go to those documents, to go to the links I created. You can determine for yourself if there were cemeteries on those grounds. The evidence is right there and I want Canadians to look at the evidence.”
The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of a residential school experience. Support is available at 1-866-925-4419.
