Exploring Theme: "Difficulties in accessing residential school records"

Nine years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, families and survivors seeking information from various churches and government bodies are hitting roadblocks. Toronto Star: Laura Arndt has cried at the table with residential school survivors while they received documents that some have been awaiting for 70 years. For some survivors, it’s a promise they wished to...

NationTalk: xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil Waututh)/ Vancouver, B.C. – The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) calls on the federal government to take immediate and definitive steps to remove barriers for First Nations needing access to government-held records for the purpose of validating historical claims. These steps must include “concrete commitments with...

Report’s 11 recommendations also urges numerous government agencies to comply CBC News: Indigenous peoples continue to struggle to access complete and timely records about Indian Residential Schools, according to a new report by the Senate standing committee on Indigenous Peoples. The report, Missing Records, Missing Children, was released Thursday and includes 11 recommendations to improve access...

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL: Tanya Talaga The Globe and Mail: A parting commitment to reconciliation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – regardless if he remains as Leader and/or the Liberals win the next election – would be to commit to real Indigenous data sovereignty. Two terms ago, Mr. Trudeau vowed to fulfill all...

Guidance on information disclosure ‘comes from the top,’ says Caroline Maynard CBC Indigenous: A Senate committee examining barriers to the release of records of deaths at residential schools heard Tuesday that federal departments and agencies should make information disclosure processes more accessible and informal. “We heard that the privacy and information regimes cannot work if the government itself does not believe...

Windspeaker.com: Archbishop Murray Chatlain of the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas, Father Velichor Abaranam Jerome, general archivist of the General House in Rome, and Father Warren Brown, representative of the OMI general administration. The Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples may have been shocked two weeks ago when witnesses told them about the difficulties they were having in...

How do we balance privacy legislation with the public’s right to know? The red honour roll is based on the national student registry. Photo: Danielle Paradis/APTN.  If you are feeling triggered by the events today, the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) is available 24 hours a day for survivors experiencing pain or distress about...

We know her name wasn’t ‘Indian Girl 237,’ but who is her family? CBC News: When the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) unveiled its student memorial register in 2019 of children who died in residential schools, those behind it acknowledged it was far from complete. Among the 2,800 names on the register at the time, at least one raised eyebrows. One entry...

Governments and churches ‘standing between Indigenous Peoples and the truth,’ committee member says CBC News: A Senate committee is pledging to hold a hearing this fall to demand answers from organizations that have not released records tied to Canada’s residential school system. In a news release Wednesday, P.E.I. Sen. Brian Francis called it “disheartening” that so many governments and...

CBC: Accessing records is one of the biggest challenges in locating unmarked burials and identifying missing children from residential schools, survivors and experts say. “The current systems and structures are failing us,” said Kimberly Murray, special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves and burial sites associated with residential schools, in her closing remarks following the inaugural...

CBC – Raymond Frogner, head of archives for the NCTR, will be visiting the Rome archives of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to review and digitize residential school-related records. He said the NCTR is still negotiating with the Oblates to access the personnel files of priests and residential school staff. He said the Oblates are...

Toronto Star – The Missionary of Oblates of Mary Immaculate “says it will disclose all historical documents in its possession… They operated 48 schools in Canada, including the Marieval IRS and the Kamloops IRS…In the statement, the Oblates said the work is not complete because of complications with provincial and national privacy laws....

Toronto Star – The federal government, so far, has refused to legally compel the Catholic Church to release all documents relating the residential school system. The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate who operated the Kamloops Residential School “have yet to release any records about the Kamloops school. The Catholic order, which ran about 47% of...