Truth and Reconciliation

[Discovertruth]

As an educator I would like to provide the most up to date truthful information on the residential school system to promote further understanding and healing.
I am reading the information you are providing on this website and it says “the recent discoveries of children’s remains in grounds across the country has triggered further investigation of unmarked graves.” You have not said when or where or who these precious children are and how many remains were found or any other details.
I also cannot find any information on any news source anywhere in Canada that states they have actually found children’s remains other than here on this website. This is obviously very important information and so far we have only been told about the anomalies that were dug up in Manitoba where they did not find remains, so please let us all know where and where we can find out more facts about this tragic find.

[SettlementOrgMod]

Hi there,

Thank you for sharing your question and perspective here on this forum, we appreciate your interest in improving the content on Settlement.Org. We have a section of the website dedicated to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Peoples as part of our citizenship section, and will take your feedback to our staff writers.

You may find more comprehensive information on the National Centre for Truth and Conciliation website under their Reports section.

In Volume 4 of the Final Report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada reports on Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. Here is an excerpt from the report’s findings:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s “Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Project” is a systematic effort to record and analyze the deaths at the schools, and the presence and condition of student cemeteries, within the regulatory context in which the schools were intended to operate. The project’s research supports the following conclusions:

• The Commission has identified 3,200 deaths on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Register of Confirmed Deaths of Named Residential School Students and the Register of Confirmed Deaths of Unnamed Residential School Students.
• For just under one-third of these deaths (32%), the government and the schools did not record the name of the student who died.
• For just under one-quarter of these deaths (23%), the government and the schools did not record the gender of the student who died.
• For just under one-half of these deaths (49%), the government and the schools did not record the cause of death.
• Aboriginal children in residential schools died at a far higher rate than school aged children in the general population.
• For most of the history of the schools, the practice was not to send the bodies of students who died at schools to their home communities.
• For the most part, the cemeteries that the Commission documented are abandoned, disused, and vulnerable to accidental disturbance.
• The federal government never established an adequate set of standards and regulations to guarantee the health and safety of residential school students.
• The federal government never adequately enforced the minimal standards and regulations that it did establish.
• The failure to establish and enforce adequate regulations was largely a function of the government’s determination to keep residential school costs to a minimum.
• The failure to establish and enforce adequate standards, coupled with the failure to adequately fund the schools, resulted in unnecessarily high death rates at residential schools.

These findings are in keeping with statements that former students and the parents of former students gave to the Commission. They spoke of children who went to school and never returned. e tragedy of the loss of children was compounded by the fact that burial places were distant or even unknown. Many Aboriginal people have unanswered questions about what happened to their children or relatives while they were attending residential school. e work that the Commission has begun in identifying and commemorating those students who died at school and their gravesites needs to be finished. e work that the Commission has commenced is far from complete. The National Residential School Student Death Register established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada represents the first national effort to record the names of the students who died at school. There is a need for continued work on the register: there are many relevant documents that have yet to be reviewed. There is a need for the development and implementation of a national strategy for the documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries. Such a program, carried out in close consultation with the concerned Aboriginal communities, is necessary to properly honour the memory of the children who died in Canada’s residential schools.

We recommend reading the full report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, and their other reports on Canada’s Residential Schools, the Survivor’s Stories, and Lessons Learned. You can find these documents by visiting the Reports section of the NCTR website.

You can also find information on the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials website. The National Advisory Committee was established to ensure Indigenous communities have access to independent, trusted and expert information in their efforts to identify, locate, and commemorate their missing children. The National Advisory Committee brings together individuals with a wide-range of experience and expertise in areas such as Indigenous laws and cultural protocols, forensics, archeology, archival research, criminal investigations, communication and working with Survivors.

You may also wish to visit the Know Indigenous History Website and subscribe to their newsletter. They offer educational webinars and other services with the intention of contributing to the decolonization of history. They offer historical research services and products that meet the unique needs of Indigenous communities. They also ensure community-wide access to the archival collections we uncover in our research, and work with the community to preserve the knowledge shared with KnowHistory for future generations.

We hope this information is helpful, please follow up with us if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,

Your Settlement.Org team