Report calls for national commission to probe missing Indigenous children, unmarked graves in Canada

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA) – Missing children and unmarked graves at Indian Residential Schools in Canada should be probed by a national commission, said a final report released Tuesday.

The report’s author, Kimberly Murray, said the commission should have a 20-year mandate and be led by Indigenous representatives.

Murray, flanked by Indigenous residential school survivors, unveiled the report – Upholding Sacred Obligations: Reparations for Missing and Disappeared Indigenous Children and Unmarked Burials in Canada – at a press conference in Gatineau, Quebec.

Murray said a crucial step is pursuing justice for the children who were buried in unmarked graves at some 130 residential schools across Canada beginning in the mid-1800s until the last one closed around 1990. In some cases, the families were never told what happened to their children, who were forced to attend the schools.

“The greatest and most important obligation we all have is to the Survivors, who must be honoured and acknowledged for their courage in raising awareness about the painful truths of unmarked burials at Indian Residential Schools and other associated institutions,” Murray, whose title is the government-appointed Special Interlocutor, said in a press release.

The commission should also investigate the genocide and other crimes perpetrated by the federal and provincial governments against Indigenous peoples, she said.

She added that because of the scope of the problem – about 150,000 attended the church-run government-funded schools and an estimated 4,500 children died – the commission should have a 20-year mandate.

The report, two years in the making, lays out 42 “obligations” that must be conducted by the commission to get to the truth and provide justice and reconciliation between Indigenous tribes – Canada’s inhabitants for thousands of years – and the white settlers who came a few hundred years ago.