Canada searches for the bodies of thousands of missing Indigenous children

Some are said to be from children as young as three years old.

All of the children had attended Kamloops Indian Residential School, the largest of its kind in Canada’s residential school system.

The remains had been found days before the announcement using ground-penetrating radar technology, as Casimir explained, after preliminary work to identify burial sites in the early 2000s.

The final report on the find is expected to be released in mid-June and the preliminary findings may be revised. Indigenous leaders and advocates believe the number to 215 will increase.

“Unfortunately, we know that many more children are missing,” Casimir said in a statement last week.

Thousands of children died in boarding schools and their bodies rarely returned home. Many were buried in abandoned graves.

To date, there is no complete picture of the number of children who have died, the circumstances of their deaths or where they are buried. Initiatives like the First Nation’s Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc are helping to piece together some of that history.

The school, which operated from 1890 to 1969, at the same time accommodated 500 native students, many of whom were sent to live in boarding school, hundreds of kilometers from their families. Between 1969 and 1978, the institution was used as a residence for students attending local schools.

Among the remains found, 50 children have been identified, according to Stephanie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. Their deaths date from 1900 to 1971.

But for the 165 others, no recording is available to mark their identity.

The children “ended up in mass graves,” Scott says.

“Unidentified, unknown.”

The discovery sparked revolt among the Canadian population, with people creating makeshift memorials across the country.

But for indigenous rulers, the discovery was not unexpected.

“The outrage and surprise of the general population is certainly to be welcomed,” said Perry Bellegarde, National President of the Assembly of First Nations.

“But the report is not surprising.”

“The survivors have been saying this for years and years, but no one believed them,” he added.

Kamloops Residential School was one of 130 such schools operating in Canada between 1874 and 1996.

These institutions were a key part of the government’s policy of forced assimilation, by which some 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were removed from their families during this period and placed in public residential schools.

When registration became mandatory in the 1920s, parents were threatened with imprisonment if they did not comply.

The policy traumatized generations of indigenous children, who were forced to give up their mother tongue, speak English or French, and convert to Christianity.

Christian churches were essential to the founding and functioning of schools.

The Roman Catholic Church in particular was responsible for running up to 70% of residential schools, according to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.

“It was our government’s policy to ‘eliminate the natives’ from the children,” Bellegarde said.

“It was a collapse of identity, a collapse of family, community and nation.”

The landmark report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in 2015, called the government’s policy a cultural genocide.

The 4,000-page report detailed the complete failures in the care and safety of these children, as well as the complicity on the part of the church and government.

“The government, churches and school authorities were well aware of these shortcomings and their impact on student health,” the authors wrote.

“If the question is, ‘Who knew what and when? “, The clear answer is:” Anyone with authority at any time in the history of the system. “

Students were often housed in poorly constructed, poorly heated and unsanitary facilities, the report notes. Many did not have access to qualified medical personnel and were subject to severe, often abusive, penalties.

The dire health conditions, according to the report, were largely due to the government’s decision to cut spending.

“We have in our files records of school authorities arguing with the Indian government at the time over who would pay for the funerals of the students,” Scott revealed.

“They would do all of this at minimal cost.”

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation found that thousands of indigenous children sent to boarding schools never returned home.

The physical and sexual abuse prompted some to flee. Others died from illnesses or accidents through negligence.

In 1945, the infant mortality rate in residential schools was nearly five times that of other Canadian schoolchildren. In the 1960s, the rate was still double that of the general student body.

“Survivors have spoken of children who have suddenly disappeared. Some have mentioned children who have disappeared from mass burial sites,” commission chairman Murray Sinclair said in a statement on Wednesday.

He said other survivors have spoken of babies born by priests at school, taken from their mothers at birth and thrown into ovens.

In 2015, it was estimated that around 6,000 children had died while attending boarding schools. So far, more than 4.1 thousand have been identified.

“We know there are many similar places in Kamloops that will be revealed in the future,” Sinclair said this week.

“We have to start preparing for this.”

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued 94 requests and recommendations, including six on missing children and burial sites. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to “fully implement” them.

– According to the tally of the Canadian broadcaster CBC, 10 of the projects are completed, 64 are in progress and 20 have not started.

– The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 2009, fought for the issue of unidentified burial sites to be included in its mandate.

– In 2019, the government pledged to release C $ 33.8 million over three years to develop and maintain a register of student deaths and create an online register of residential school cemeteries.

– So far, the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation claims to have received only part of this money.

This week, Trudeau said he was “shocked” by Canada’s residential school legacy and promised “concrete actions” – but provided few details.

“Trudeau is ready to move forward, he has a lot of words, but we really need to see some action,” Scott said.

She, along with Bellegarde and other Indigenous leaders, is pressuring the government to conduct a full investigation of the 130 former school sites for the anonymous graves.

These children have been “rejected,” Bellegarde said.

“This is unacceptable.”

The preliminary findings also renewed requests for an apology from the Catholic Church – one of the requests in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

In 2017, Trudeau asked Pope Francis to apologize for the church’s role in administering Canada’s residential schools – but the church has so far refused.

The United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches issued a formal apology in the 1980s and 1990s.

An apology from the Catholic Church would be “healing” according to Bellegarde.

“It’s part of closing this injury.”

News of the discovery also sparked a global reaction, sparking protests from the international NGO Human Rights Watch and the United Nations (UN).

I watched our new videos on Youtube? Subscribe to our channel!