The Superior Court of Quebec authorizes the exhumation of the body of a Cree child who died and was buried in 1966 in La Tuque, at the age of nine, without her parents being consulted.
The decision of Judge Alain Bolduc, rendered on June 11, is part of a series of steps taken by Indigenous families whose children have disappeared or died after being admitted to a Quebec health and social services establishment. There is currently research into 199 of these children, who were lost between the 1940s and 1980s.
The court gave the green light last year to the opening of two Innu baby graves on the North Shore. In his decision, Judge Bolduc therefore authorizes a third Aboriginal family to dig up the body of their child, on a date which has not yet been determined.
“The child subject to the exhumation request was admitted to hospital while she was at a residential school, away from her parents, and died there shortly after. She was then buried in the cemetery which is near the residential school rather than in her community,” specifies a press release sent to the media on Tuesday.
Parents kept away
Like many others, the parents were only informed of the death of their child “several months later”. “They never saw her before her burial and were never consulted about the place of burial of their child,” the statement said. They now wish to bury their daughter in the same place as her loved ones, in the Cree community of Mistissini, in Northern Quebec.
The identity of the child and his family is protected by the Court. The little one was buried in April 1966 in the Anglican cemetery of La Tuque, after her death at the Saint-Joseph hospital center, in the same city. The judgment specifies that the child was born in the territory.
In an interview, the general director of Awacak, which supports families of missing children, said she expected more judgments authorizing requests for exhumations. “I think that missing children are starting to be recognized in Quebec and justice is very sensitive to these families, to the events they experienced,” François Ruperthouse told the Duty. “The work continues and families are starting to trust a little more, not just in Awacak, but also in our partners. I think families are starting to say to themselves: “I’m ready to do it too”. There are more coming,” she predicts.
The opening of two graves on the North Shore, under the authorization given last summer, allowed a family to “close” the process they had started, observes Ms. Ruperthouse. The file of another family is, however, “still in work”.
The requests and exhumation work are made under a law from the Legault government which aims to support Indigenous families in their search for information about their missing loved ones.