(OTTAWA) Canada’s Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says Ottawa has reached a memorandum of understanding with the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation to turn over more residential school records still held. Ottawa.
Posted at 11:02 p.m.
The federal government says the agreement specifies when it will send historical records to the Winnipeg centre, how it will make them available to residential school survivors and how it will work to preserve them.
Residential school survivors and Indigenous leaders have long called on the federal government to release the records it was still refusing to fully hand over, citing legal grounds.
Inquiries intensified last year when several Indigenous communities announced that penetrating radar had located what are believed to be the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools.
Minister Miller announced last month that Ottawa was reviewing records still in its possession to determine what more it could release to help residential school survivors.
He explained at the time that he would start by sending out what are called “residential school fact sheets,” which are reports prepared by the federal government that describe key events at each of the schools.
National Center for Truth and Reconciliation executive director Stephanie Scott said Ottawa’s transfer of these records will help piece together how the federally funded residential school system was administered and provide a more complete picture. what the survivors have been through.
“Whether it’s finding unmarked graves or gathering records of what happened, it helps us honor and remember all the children who never came home,” said Ms.me Scott.
Survivors and Indigenous leaders have long called on the federal government to release the remaining records it had refused to release, citing legal obligations it owed to third parties, including the Catholic entities that operated the institutions. Some of these entities are now extinct.
There is still a lot of truth to uncover, so when we receive this additional set of records, communities like Kamloops will be able to have information and access to information.
Stephanie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation
The Liberal government’s decision to review its release of documents follows the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation’s statement last fall that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was wrong when he told a rally aboriginal leaders in the territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc that he had handed over everything he had.
Garnet Angeconeb, a Pelican Lake Indian residential school survivor and member of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation survivor circle, said the transfer of documents is important for the country to recognize its history, which is needed. to go forward.
“The files that will be handed over will be a means of discovering the truth so that we can tell our stories […] To be able to validate and recognize where we come from as survivors, as a country. “said Mr. Angeconeb.
Mme Scott also mentioned that she hopes the federal government’s spring budget will include funding for the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation to get a new building and more resources to properly archive and share documents.
Marc Miller said his government made those promises part of the 2021 Liberal election platform and intends to deliver on them.