Two Innu families will soon be able to open two graves buried in 1970 in a cemetery in Pessamit, on the North Shore, to finally find out if they contain the remains of their babies.
“When we are not sure that it is our child who is there, well we have to go and check”, launched Wednesday Françoise Ruperthouse, who is director general of the Association of Awacak families.
The group she leads supports 94 Aboriginal families who are looking for 152 children from more than twenty communities in Quebec. These little ones were evacuated from their respective environments to health facilities between 1940 and 1980. Their families then learned, in some cases, that they had died. Others were never informed of the fate of their children.
The number of missing children is constantly rising: 55 children were wanted in 2022, then 120 as of February 20, 2023. Thirty more have been added in a few months.
“Unfortunately and painfully, a number of children and families are changing day by day,” noted Florence Dupré, coordinator at the First Nations and Inuit Relations Secretariat. “We constantly receive new requests. »
Two exhumations authorized
On June 7, Superior Court Judge Nancy Bonsaint authorized the exhumation of two bodies, at the request of as many Innu families. They want to know if the babies they buried in May 1970 in the cemetery of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption de Betsiamites in Pessamit, on the North Shore, are indeed theirs.
The two infants, one aged four months and the other less than a month old, were returned to their respective families in closed coffins, after being hospitalized with whooping cough. Under instructions from doctors and funeral home owners, their relatives were unable to open the coffins to confirm the identity of their babies.
The exhumations are the first to be authorized since the adoption, in 2021, of a law aimed at facilitating the search for the families of missing children. These will be coordinated by the Coroner’s Office and the Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine Laboratory (LSJML).
To ensure privacy for those affected, the two organizations did not disclose the exact timing of the exhumations. But the families “made requests for it to be done as quickly as possible, with rigor [et] the least possible risk of error,” said Ms. Dupré.
The exhumations will therefore take place “soon, most certainly”, and before the ground freezes. Already, the sites where they will be carried out have been assessed and identified. The remains, once out of the ground, will be transported to the Montreal morgue, where expertise will be carried out.
“Depending on the quality and quantity of DNA that we will have, the analyzes will go more or less quickly,” summarized Suzanne Marchand, senior director general of the LSJML. If the DNA does not match that of the families, the bodies will be reburied.
A “certain peace” for families
With the exhumations as with the searches, Françoise Ruperthouse hopes to “give some peace back” to the families looking for their babies.
Hers “lost” two children, she recalled. His little brother Tony was never seen again after being hospitalized, then research by the Ruperthouse family revealed that he had died in hospital a few years after the date of death provided to them. Her sister Emily was found 35 years after her disappearance in Baie-Saint-Paul, 900 km from her home in Pikogan, now disabled.
Before the Superior Court, the families of the missing children shared the despair that has inhabited them since the loss of their loved ones.
“Even today, I do not know if my son died or if he is still alive,” said the mother of the infant less than a month old. The identity of families and babies is protected by the Court.
“I don’t know if the exhumation of my son’s body will alleviate this feeling. On the other hand, my family and I will finally be able to have answers to the uncertainties that have always inhabited us and perhaps we will then be able to begin our healing process, ”she added.
The four-month-old’s sister also testified in court on behalf of her mother, who died in 2021. “Today my mother passed away, but she lives through me. I feel his emotions, his pain, and it hurts me extremely,” she said. She also said she did not know if her brother was indeed dead, since her mother was not allowed to open the coffin presented to her.