Photo credit: CBC
A final report into missing children and unmasked graves at residential schools is calling on the Canadian government to create an Indigenous-led national commission with a 20-year mandate to investigate missing and disappeared Indigenous children.
Global News reports that the report also calls on the government to refer itself to the International Criminal Court for investigation.
The special interlocutor on unmarked graves, Kimberly Murray, released her final report Tuesday in Gatineau, Quebec, during a gathering with Indigenous residential school survivors and experts from across the country.
Over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools. The last residential school closed in 1996. An estimated 6,000 children died in the schools. Experts say the number could be much higher.
Many of their families were never informed of their deaths or told where they were buried. In recent years, communities have been searching the grounds of former residential schools in hopes of bringing their missing children home.
Murray, a member of the Mohawk community Kanehsata:ke, near Montreal, said, “Canada has legal and moral obligations to ensure that a full investigation is conducted into the disappearances and deaths of these children.
“It fulfils a highly personal, yet universal human need to know what happened to deceased loved ones and to mourn, bury and memorialize them according to the laws, spiritual beliefs and practices of one’s own culture.”
Murray discussed her work sitting on a stage behind an empty chair meant to honour and remember children who never made it home from residential schools. Behind her sat a collection of cradle boards dating back to 1860, which she says are “the heart of reconciliation, representing hope and life, and they serve to remind us why we are here today: for the children.”
She said the commission must reflect the Indigenous People’s sovereignty, be governed by Indigenous laws and examine the systemic patterns of genocide and crimes against humanity. Its mandate should be no less than 20 years.
Last year, Murray documented attacks from denialists on communities exploring possible discoveries of unmarked graves.
She said, “It’s so traumatizing for survivors to say that residential schools were good things, that no bad things happened there.
“(Survivors are) in the process now of telling their truth, of trying to find these children that were missing and disappeared, and they don’t need this extra victimization and traumatization directed at them.”
Justice Minister Arif Virani said Tuesday he’s had a discussion with NDP MP Leah Gazan, who introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation that seeks to criminalize residential school denialism. He also said he looks forward to continuing to speak with her after reviewing Murray’s final reports
