(Montreal) For more than 50 years, two Innu families have been haunted by the question of whether their children really died in a Quebec hospital and whether the coffins they were given really contained the remains of their child.
The two baby boys died a few days apart in May 1970 in the same hospital in Baie-Comeau. In both cases, the families had been instructed not to open the coffins after learning that their children had died.
Those coffins must now be opened for the first time after Quebec Superior Court Judge Nancy Bonsaint last week authorized the exhumation of the remains for DNA testing.
The director of a Quebec association that supports Indigenous families in finding answers about dead or missing children said the decision will help families uncover the truth.
“Families are not sure it is their child, because they have never seen the child buried,” said Françoise Ruperthouse of Awacak in an interview Thursday. When they received the coffin, they were forbidden to look inside. »
Mme Ruperthouse stressed that the judge’s decision means the families have been heard and while they are happy with the outcome, the families are unsure what answers the exhumations will provide and believe there is still work to be done.
“You can’t quit overnight,” she said. They want to know the truth, so we work until they know the truth. »
The exhumations are the first authorized under a 2021 Quebec law aimed at helping Indigenous families learn more about the deaths and disappearances of their children in Quebec health and social services facilities. The identities of the boys and their families are protected by a publication ban.
One was four months old when he died. He was admitted to hospital with whooping cough on May 14, 1970 and died 13 days later. Her body was claimed by an undertaker who told the family not to open the coffin until after the burial. According to the exhumation request, the coroner’s report of the boy’s death is incomplete and medical records are non-existent.
A sworn statement from one of the boy’s sisters, who made the exhumation request with her siblings, points out that the child’s death and the questions surrounding it haunted his mother, who died in January 2021 .
“She blamed herself for not having accompanied her child to the hospital, for not having been with him when he died. She felt so guilty for leaving her child behind, the statement said. All her life, my mother was overwhelmed by the feeling of not having acted. She was consumed by shame and guilt and perpetual questions haunted her. »
The sister said she was still hopeful that her brother might still be alive, but was left with many questions.
“Why couldn’t my mother accompany her to the hospital, why didn’t the doctor and the funeral home let her see her body, why are the medical documents surrounding her death incomplete or even non-existent, why did my mother have to suffer all these years since she and her son were treated differently due to the fact that they were aboriginal? asks the sister in the statement.
The other boy was a month old when he contracted whooping cough. He was hospitalized on May 6 and died two days later at the Hôtel-Dieu in Hauterive. The family received a coffin that day and a doctor instructed them not to open it. The funeral took place the following day and court documents indicate that the boy’s medical records no longer exist.
A step forward in the search for truth
The Quebec government will pay for both exhumations and the Quebec coroner’s office will perform DNA testing on the remains.
First Nations and Inuit Relations Minister Ian Lafrenière said the decision was a sign that the province’s law is working, and while he’s proud of it, he added that it’s “awful » that more than 80 families are still looking for information on more than 150 children.
“In this particular case, when we talk about exhumations, it’s a step forward,” he said in an interview Thursday. We are not even sure to find the answer, it is a step forward in the search for the truth. »
The province has a team of doctors and nurses who search medical records and provide explanations to families, he said, but the search has now expanded to include other types of information.
Sometimes the process led to difficult answers, he points out. The first family to receive information under the 2021 law invited him to be there when they received confirmation of their child’s death.
“It was gratifying because they had been looking for this information for 40 years,” Mr. Lafrenière said, while adding that “as a father of two children, my heart was broken”.
Mme Ruperthouse said that since the Quebec law was passed, families have managed to get more information and some, whose children’s bodies have not been returned, have found out where their children were buried.
On the other hand, the number of children concerned has increased. Three years ago, she says, Awacak was looking for information on 25 children, and their research now includes 148 children.
“It’s a lot of pain and sadness and for many years these parents suffered in silence,” she said.