Regina Indian school cemetery issue back at City Hall

A plan to maintain the abandoned cemetery of the former Regina Indian Industrial School is back at City Hall today — but heritage protection may not be part of the plan.

The recommendation not to seek protective status for the site at 701 Pinkie Road is part of a report going to the city's municipal heritage committee on Monday.

Instead, the report says, the private owner of the property should be required to cut the grass inside the cemetery at least once a year and generally keep things "neat and tidy."

At least 22 burial sites

In 2012, an engineering firm surveyed the 680-square-metre area on the western edge of the city and found there was a minimum of 22 grave sites and possibly 40.

Buried in the cemetery are the bodies of children from First Nations and Métis communities, as well as the children of the school's first principal.

Since the engineering study came out, officials have been pondering whether to commemorate the site or provide heritage protection. Eventually, city staff recommended that the city should not take the lead on any commemorations.

However, the head of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, wrote to the city asking that it "do the right thing".

School run by Presbyterian Church

The Regina Industrial School was in operation between 1891 and 1910 and was run by the Presbyterian Church under contract with the federal Department of Indian Affairs.

It was an era when the government had a policy of assimilating aboriginal people into mainstream society, the same policy that led to residential schools.

In 1911, after the school closed, the building was used as the city jail. In 1919, it became the boy's detention house.

The school was destroyed by fire in 1948 and later was replaced by the Paul Dojack Centre, which is located just to the east. The property has been in private hands since the 1980s.