National Gathering calls for records to help in search for missing residential school children

Warning: This story contains distressing details. 

Delegates to the National Gathering of Unmarked Burials are calling for agencies linked to residential schools to release records that could support the Indigenous communities working to identify children who went missing from residential schools.

"Records are important to this sacred work," said Kimberly Murray, independent special interlocutor for Missing Children, Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, speaking to the conference.

"Records are important because without them, the deniers will continue to deny, and future generations will be led to forget. And when we forget, we are at risk of a recurrence."

The three-day conference is taking place in downtown Vancouver with a focus on Indigenous data sovereignty and the rights of Indigenous communities to access and control data pertaining to their members.

Tuesday's sessions took place as news broke of 170 possible unmarked graves discovered by the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation at the site of a former residential school in Kenora, Ont.

Like previous National Gatherings on Unmarked Burials, an empty chair was placed at the front of the room to represent the children who never returned home from residential school. 

More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend church-run, government-funded residential schools between the 1870s and 1997. The schools aimed to assimilate Indigenous children while eradicating Indigenous languages and cultures, and there was widespread abuse. 

The deaths of over 4,100 children attending residential schools have been confirmed, although it's believed the true number is much higher. Many children were buried in unmarked graves with little documentation.

Murray told the gathering that work started by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose the horrors of residential schools needs co-operation from those holding records in order to move forward. 

In 2012, the TRC called on governments, churches and other agencies to produce the records. Murray said that hasn't happened. 

"Eleven years later ... here we sit, waiting and waiting for people to do the right thing," she said.

"There are hard questions that we need to answer. Who are the children that died? What did the children die from? Where are the children buried, and how many little ones died and are still missing?"

Speaker Phyllis Webstad, founder of Orange Shirt Day, said the gathering is another opportunity to share the story of residential schools, including her own.

"I'm humbled and I'm honoured that people continue to use my story in Canada and beyond, to create conversation about what happened to us and what still happens to us to this day."

Webstad said she requested and received her residential school records from the TRC, but hasn't been able to bring herself to look at them yet. 

"It's a really hard thing to do," she said. "At some point I will, but I think I'll need supports to do that." 

Speaking on CBC's The Early Edition, Assembly of First Nations National Chief, RoseAnne Archibald said it's not just survivors and Indigenous communities who need to heal from the terrible legacy of residential schools. 

"We want those concerned non-Indigenous Canadians to also heal from this, the truth of what Canada is," she said.

"I think for the longest time there was a myth about Canada as a sort of happy-go-lucky, oh gosh golly gee, apologetic kind of place. But now we're seeing what really is the foundation of this country and I think that non-Indigenous people are also hurt by that, and also are searching for healing. We need to do that together."

Tuesday's program began with a panel of three survivors sharing accounts of being separated from their families and sent to residential school as small children.

Murray said the stories prove why access to records is so important. 

"It really shows us this isn't an academic exercise. These records that we're trying to obtain impact real people, real lives, people looking for their grandfathers, their fathers, their children," she said.

"These records can no longer be held in vaults by colonial institutions."

Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or online at www.hopeforwellness.ca.