Please note this piece includes information that may be triggering for readers. Survivors and those affected by residential schools can call the 24-hour national Indian Residential School Crisis Line for support services: 1-866-925-4419. Support is also available through the Hope for Wellness help line at 1-855-242-3310 or at hopeforwellness.ca.
Headlines are once again announcing the “discovery” of the remains of Indigenous children at a former residential school, but there was no discovery – someone knew they were there.
By now, much of the world knows more about the true legacy of the residential school system this country built, after multiple First Nations announced many burial sites were confirmed in Canada last year.
In May 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced ground-penetrating radar found 215 possible unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Then, at least 600 possible remains were located using similar technology at the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. By Canada Day, more than 1,000 possible remains had been reported. More reports have come out since then.
Most recently, the Williams Lake First Nation identified 93 possible burial sites at the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School. As there were 139 residential schools funded by the federal government across Canada from the 1800s until the last closed in 1996, these headlines will not be the last.
The work to uncover the truth has been years in the making. In 2015, the final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission included 94 recommendations for action that can be taken – six of which addressed missing children and burial grounds. Since then, repeated calls to implement the recommendations have been made. Some of them are now being answered.
To keep calling these confirmations a discovery is not only inaccurate, it shifts the blame away from the individuals, institutions and governments who committed and were complicit in these atrocities.
Instead, there are other words we can use: revelation, recovery, confirmation.
The word recover can also mean to find, but it really means to find something again, often after it was lost or stolen. These children were stolen.
When there is difficult news, we tend to use euphemisms to cushion the blow. But let’s be clear. The more precise we are when we talk about not only what happened but what was actively done to Indigenous youth, the closer we get to the truth.
This is not to say that anyone is owed the experiences of survivors and their families. There are those who are not ready and may not ever be ready to share what they’ve been through, and that is OK. We need to believe those who have already spoken.
Survivors have shared. Now it’s the government’s turn.
On Jan. 20, the federal government announced it has reached an agreement with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to hand over previously undisclosed records from and about the residential schools.
When that happens, let’s call it what it is and remember: the government knew.
The Truth and Reconciliation report can be found at www.trc.ca, and more resources are available at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s www.nctr.ca.
