Canadian scholar calls for more int'l attention on Indian residential school investigation

Ottawa, 20 April (2023) - The international community should continue to keep an eye on the Indian residential school investigation, a Canadian scholar on indigenous archaeology has said.

"The international attention on this issue has been very important," Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"To have the ugly history of Canada shared across the globe has spurred more action on this issue than if the news had primarily been focused on nationally. It has also led to an increase in the pace of investigations," said Supernant, who was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves.

In May 2021, the world was shocked when 215 suspected unmarked graves of Indigenous children were identified at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The actual number of suspected unmarked graves was later revised to 200.

Recently, another 171 "plausible burials" were uncovered at the site of a former northern Ontario St. Mary's Indian Residential School. As of January 2023, over 2,400 potential unmarked graves have been found at Indian residential school sites around Canada.

Supernant said that the rise in reporting of investigations for unmarked graves is due to several factors.

"First, many of the announcements since May 2021 are the result of years of work undertaken by the First Nations that they had not previously made public. For example, investigations had been underway at the Brandon Industrial School in Manitoba since 2012 and at the Kuper Island Residential School in British Columbia since 2014," said the scholar.

"Second, many Indigenous communities had wanted to undertake this work but lacked access to funding to conduct the investigations. Funding is now available, so many are beginning their searches now," she said.

"Finally, there is a lot more public awareness and support for the First Nations in this difficult work, so the announcements of unmarked graves receive a lot of media attention," Supernant added.

Supernant called for more support to the First Nations.

"There are challenges they face in terms of access to records, training in the various techniques, and management and safeguarding of data," she said.

She believed that the legacy of residential schools and the genocide against Indigenous peoples is at the root of so many challenges that Indigenous peoples face, as the trauma of genocide continues to impact their communities.

"There is also enduring structural racism in Canadian society, from the justice system to health care to education. All of this needs to be addressed in order for Indigenous communities to have healthy, vibrant futures," she said.

Over 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were separated from their families and forced to attend government-funded schools between the 1870s and 1997.

In 2015, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission appointed by the Canadian government concluded that children were physically and sexually abused and died in schools.

While it has documented at least 4,100 deaths, the commission said the real numbers may never be fully known.