ard.’ It’s about accountability, so this addresses accountability, including criminal aspects.”
As an example of a death that could merit a criminal investigation under a new system, Dr. Turpel-Lafond said she has seen records from the Kamloops Indian Residential School that showed a 12-year-old died there of asphyxiation in the 1950s.
“What was the process around investigating that child’s death at the time? At the time, the civil and other authorities may have turned a blind eye, so do we revisit that?” Dr. Turpel-Lafond said. “If there is no person alive and accountable – or entity – then you at least record it and report on it.”
Spokespeople for the Ministers of Indigenous Services and Northern Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new report.
The report starts by noting that the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that a preliminary search with ground-penetrating radar had discovered 215 unmarked burials near a former residential school and, one month later, the Cowessess First Nation announced its own radar search had discovered 751, but the official records currently accessible only record 58 deaths total at those two schools.
On Monday, B.C. announced $12-million in funding for use by First Nations to scour some of the 18 residential school sites once operating in the province, and to deliver mental-health and trauma counselling for Indigenous survivors and their families. So far, provincial governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario have pledged a total of $22.5-million to cover this work, which piggybacks on a $27-million commitment in Ottawa’s 2019 budget that recently began being disbursed.
Experts have told The Globe and Mail that it could cost more than a billion dollars to search all 130 sites identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Ms. Turpel-Lafond also recommended Ottawa draft federal regulations for the technology used to find and document these burials so that First Nations obtain high-quality analysis of these school grounds from reputable researchers and technicians.
“We don’t have clear standards for the use of digital technologies,” she said. “So there’s all kinds of people saying, ‘Hey, I operate ground-penetrating radar. I’ll give you a 50-per-cent discount.’
The public guardian position described in the report should also be tasked with ensuring technology standards are clear, applied at all sites, and updated to reflect the most modern technologies, she argued.
As well, the report says victims’ families, residential school survivors and Indigenous governments all must have clearly defined roles and authorities under this new federal framework.
Finally, the federal government must properly memorialize the losses of residential school students and acknowledge the massive human-rights abuses that occurred, the report says.
“This includes standards on writing and teaching of history, broader public and social discourses, imagery and representation, and archiving,” the report says.
We have a weekly Western Canada newsletter written by our B.C. and Alberta bureau chiefs, providing a comprehensive package of the news you need to know about the region and its place in the issues facing Canada. Sign up today.