Front Burner - Kamloops residential school: what happens next?

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

After the revelation of unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops, former Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Marie Wilson speaks to us about what needs to happen next.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Elaine Chao, in for Jamie Poisson. When Marie Wilson started her work as a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner in 2008, the very first community event she attended was in Kamloops, B.C. I remember an opportunity to visit the school and to do a tour of the school as it was offered to us. And I remember the incredible feeling of heaviness that overcame me there,

just being on the grounds and being in the building and just being in that proximity. The school that she's talking about is the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Preliminary findings by the Takumloops Tishawetmik Nation show that there are unmarked graves of possibly 215 Indigenous children on those grounds. This discovery has prompted a national reckoning. All week, there have been events to mourn the lives of children who died at residential schools. And the calls for action and accountability are growing louder. The testimony Marie Wilson heard

from residential school survivors in Kamloops became representative of what she eventually heard across Canada. Almost everywhere we went, there were stories and accounts of either people who had family members whom they knew to have died in the schools or others who never knew what happened to family members, sometimes a child, sometimes a grandparent or an uncle. Today, my conversation with Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Marie Wilson on what needs to happen next as the country reckons with its residential school legacy.

And a warning, some may find what we talk about distressing. Hi Marie, thanks for making the time for us today. I'm glad to be here. How are you? Well, I think we're all emotionally rocked. At least I hope we are because we certainly should be. This validation, I don't use the word discovery because we've known of this for some time now but this validation of all that the survivors have told us uh doesn't make it uh any the less gut-wrenching and um for any of us who

have a scrap of humanity about us it takes us to places of of um realizing what it would be like for our own family members our own children our own grandchildren. So I feel devastation. I feel great empathy. I feel tremendous respect for the families and the community members who never gave up looking for their children. And the impact, not just to think about these little children in the moment of what they were living through, but to know the weight of that that has been carried around,

even in some cases to the death of family members who have been broken by that experience and by the loss of those children. It's a terrible thing that we need to face with honesty and clarity and resolve to do so much better and to do so much more. It's really the intergenerational trauma that you're talking about there. Well, the fact is that so many of the survivors today are very elderly. Here in the territories, in Northwest Territories where I live, where some of the last schools were closed in the 1990s, and that is the survivors are elderly or more critically are passing on and we are losing so many of the survivors who really are the experts of their own lived experiences

and the tragedy, the further tragedy of having known of this now for a good long time. Even though we're calling it a discovery this week, we have known of it for a good long time. And to know that there are survivors who have passed on now without ever having resolution of this and knowing that there's so much still unfinished work to be done. Unresolved, yeah. unfinished work to be done. Unresolved, yeah. Yeah, I was a student there.

What I wanted the people to know that this went on. It was all hush-hush by the priests and the nuns. And I want the whole world to know what we went through at Kamloops. And it was like this in all the residential schools, not just in Kamloops. And I just want the whole world to know what went on, what happened to us. What went on? What happened to us?

On the note of that unfinished work, when the commission released its final report in 2015, the number of deaths you had identified was 3,200. Is that correct? Yes, but those were not, just so we're very clear, those were through the records that were available to us and when when I say records available to us it wasn't like a tidy little bundle some of the records were from Indian Affairs some of them were from individual church archives some of them were from the National Archives of Canada and in half of the cases almost just under half the cases we did not know the cause of death for those children. In a quarter of the cases, we did not know whether they were a boy or a girl. In the case of about a third of them, we didn't have a complete name for these children. They were scraps of details, and it's such a terrible term to use, and it's such a terrible term to use, but it is an honest reflection of the disregard with which we cared for these children at the time of their passing. But what we're talking about in the

case of the Kamloops school is we don't know any of those circumstances. So we assume that these are numbers in addition to the 3,200 that we did record. We also know that the National Center has done further analysis of the documents that they had available to them to bring that number up to about 4,200 now. And we've estimated from the very beginning that the 3,200 and beyond are probably extremely conservative numbers because we kept hearing about the children who did not return home and no one ever knew what happened to them. Right, that they don't capture the full scope of this tragedy.

Nowhere close to it, we have to assume. We have to assume and brace ourselves for far worse. On Wednesday, the government announced that it's making available federal money for Indigenous communities to try and locate burial sites near residential schools. And from your point of view, Marie, what should that work of investigating unmarked graves look like? Well, we're very specific in our calls to action about the issue of approach,

that it needs to be done under the guidance of and with respect for the protocols and wishes of the communities most directly affected and when it has to do with the remains of individual children that that really has to be reflective of the wishes of the family. I think you know it needs to be taken on as a serious national imperative and that's what we actually talked about in Volume 4, which is of our final report. The entire volume is devoted to the circumstances and issues of the missing children and unmarked burials.

And people need to visit the detail of that, not just the calls to action, and look at the detail of that and realize that what we talked about is the need for a national strategy for the documentation, maintenance, commemoration and protection of residential school cemeteries, and to properly honor the memory of children who died in the school, and need for the continued work on the registrar, both for children who died and for the burial sites. So if we don't look, we aren't going to find these children. And if we don't make it a priority to look, we won't find these children. If you go across the country and in all the residential schools and you do do investigation and use the technology to search, you will find a lot more. For us to strengthen our healing,

we have to know our truth. And there are oral stories in our community that are strong. And you'll have grandmas and grandpas, kokums and mushums, specifically point to areas and say, that's where my sister's buried. That's where my brother's buried. That's where my mom is buried. But there's no mark there. And so this is really important to cows to identify our unmarked graves so that we can continue our healing journey.

so that we can continue our healing journey. It's the responsibility of all Canadians to make sure that there will be actions taken, like going to check and verify all of the residential schools and where they were. And that shouldn't wait. That shouldn't wait. That shouldn't take, let's form a committee, let's talk. Action. Let's talk action. on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's

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Is this something that every community will want to make happen? And if you could elaborate on perhaps why or why not? Well, I can't answer that question as an absolute. And that is really something for the communities and the nations to determine. One of the things that makes it very awkward is that many of these children were sent right across the country to go to schools that are nowhere near their own homelands and so the question around who makes the decision around what is desired you you know, crosses over in some cases a number of different protocols. There may be some who wish to move ahead right away, and there may be others where people are fine with the home community

or the community closest to there serving as kind of the ongoing sacred stewards on behalf of other communities. That may be a solution that is preferred by some rather than disturbing grave sites. But to not look at all just seems, as a generalized response, absolutely wrong on every level. generalized response, absolutely wrong on every level. And coming back to the work of doing this, which I imagine will be incredibly complex and demand a lot of collaboration from different groups, as you pointed out, what is needed to make sure that survivors aren't re-traumatized in this process? Well, I think this is a really good opportunity for everyone to review the calls to action of the TRC as a collective bundle. They are interrelated. So where you're talking

about the need for culturally appropriate healing resources or the need for healing centers or the need for medical supports and social workers and others to be trauma informed and to be properly equipped with the history of the schools and their place within colonization. place within colonization. We've talked about those things because they are ways of equipping ourselves for the ongoing work as a society so that we know how to serve and support each other better. The need for non-Indigenous Canadians to wake up to these issues as being Canadian issues and not Indigenous issues and to take on the responsibility of informing themselves and not to expect Indigenous peoples who are traumatized to be the ones teaching them about all of this. There's not an Indigenous family or community in this country that's not affected either directly or intergenerationally by all of this or through kinship ties. And there's also not a part of Canada where

any single one of us lives that is not on an Indigenous homeland. And so we have a lot of work to do as a country to take on the serious task of remedial learning and to commit ourselves to the work of honest reflection and practical actions. I think this is a time for really calling ourselves to attention as citizens and really demanding more and expecting more of our elected leadership and saying, what are you doing about this and not have that sit as it has for so very long as a kind of siloed Indigenous issue where only elected leaders who feel they have a significant Indigenous electorate think they have to bother to do anything about this. It really does belong to all of us. Communities wanted to do this work themselves. They are very clear that this has to be Indigenous-led, community-based,

survivor-centric and culturally sensitive and that they want access to the funding for research, for archaeological expertise as well as commemoration and that's what we are prepared to do. We have $27 million to thoughts on the level of action that the government has taken beyond that. I'm thinking of the fact that six of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls for action are around the issue of missing children in burial sites. And is there a specific next step that you'd like to see from the government right now? So I know that the government has identified projects related to this. I know they've allocated certain amounts of money related to this. What I don't see, and this is what I think there is a great hunger for, is a sense of urgency and collective response. When the pandemic happened, immediately, in very, very short turnaround, we had a whole CERB program there, and never once

was it said, and by the way, here's the bottom line amount of money that we're prepared to allocate towards that. No, we started from the starting position of saying, this is an urgent, No, we started from the starting position of saying this is an urgent, emergent issue, and we need to put whatever we need to do into getting to the bottom of this and making sure that we are taking care of each other. We are talking about little children over the decades. We are a country that is quick to respond and to be abhorred by any story of mass graves in any other country. And we have this sitting in front of us in our own country, and we need to respond, I do believe, with urgency, and with a sense of prioritization, and with a sense of whatever it costs for this is what we will do. But we also know, and this is where the government and levels of government may have hugely important roles to play, we know that many of the grave sites are no longer on properties where the schools once were,

or the schools are no longer standing. They may be on private properties. There may be issues around access to those properties, and there may even be need for expropriations, and that may require government dealing with other levels of government to sort that through. It's not just going to be enough to just simply say to the communities, here's some money and how do you want to proceed?

There's also an implication of technical expertise and specialized equipment. And I think we shouldn't leave it as we have in this case for the communities to have to do all of this on their own. Right. And as you say, that it should happen very speedily. I think in a way we're wringing our hands around something that we already know the answers to. The Kamloops Residential School was run by the Catholic Church for much of its existence, and there are many calls right now for the church to be accountable for what happened. And what action would you like to see from the church at this point in time? Well, we were specific in saying that the Pope needs to come to Canada

and issue an apology to residential school survivors. The reason we were that specific on that particular point is because we heard so many survivors tell us that as part of their statement. There have been some very beautiful and heartfelt apologies offered by individual bishops and some archbishops in individual dioceses, but one on behalf of the entire Roman Catholic Church,

no. So that's one thing that I think should still happen. But on this issue specifically, I think that they need to offer up any documents or records that are still existent somewhere that have not been brought forward. I think they should prepare themselves for whatever accountability may come, either of a moral nature or a legal nature. I think that the government of Canada should use the authorities that it has through the Department of Justice to compel those documents that may still be missing. Because, of course, the one thing that people would love more than anything else is to be able to identify these little ones and to know their names and to know their families and to know where they belong and to be able to

speak their names and to be able to hold them up in the ways that their families wish for that to happen, including returning home if that's their wish. And the more we know of them, so that they become the little children and the little loved ones that they were as opposed to statistics, which is the horrible way in which we are talking about it now, it's a number. And then the costs, which are no doubt extreme, of dealing reverently with these little children. We can't have money be an excuse for that. And the churches should certainly be called upon to do what they can towards that as well. And, you know, as you say that, do you think that the end goal here then is that through this identification documentation process, that families can be reconnected? Well, I think that that's certainly a hope in some cases.

I am not at all expecting that that will be possible in every case. We know, I mean, I have, I'll just share with you, we have family members in my own family, an extended family, where children died in a residential school not far from here. And their names appear on a marker, which we kind of stumbled on, and we did not know, and no one from the community knew that they were there either. Why? Because in the case of schools, especially when they're far away from home communities, over the years, some of those names have actually died out through marriage, but also through displacement of names, through the renaming and the imposition of names,

displacement of names through the renaming and the imposition of names, the anglicization of names. We heard that very, very often of children who were, their names were taken away and they were given different names in addition to the issue that so many were referred to by number. So it's complex, but the ideal, of course, would be to reacquaint them and return them either spiritually or in fact to their home communities and their families of origin. Maria, I'd like to wrap with this and give you an opportunity. with this and give you an opportunity, I think given kind of everything that we've spoken about and the trauma inherent in it, what would you like to say to residential school survivors and their families during this time? Well, I guess it isn't even so much what I would like to say as what I would like to convey, and that is that we are heart to heart in this, and we have not forgotten. I know that myself as just one of the three commissioners, not one of us has ever stopped.

I have kept my promise to the survivors, which is that I would never stop sharing their stories and speaking their truths as best I can. And there is a generation of little children growing up now who are learning these things. I guess I'm struggling with the question because it's so full of emotion for me. As the one female commissioner, I was given a particular responsibility, and it was in a ceremony, in fact, in Chisasabie in northern Quebec, and I was given a beautiful traditional rattle, a shishigun, and given the responsibility of carrying and holding the spirits of the little ones. And I have been doing that.

I did that through the rest of the days of commission. I've never stopped doing that. And I've had that call from the children with me throughout these days of this week. from the children with me throughout these days of this week. And I spent particular time these past days, in addition to the ceremonies that many have been involved in, with my own grandchildren, talking with them, doing sacred activities with them, speaking of the children, and having them know that they are being given the responsibility

to keep the memories of these children alive and to keep the knowledge of this history alive. These are little children. I look to my grandchildren always to remind myself that when we think about survivors today, we see very often elders speaking to us. And it's so easy to forget that these were children. These are adult bodies talking about things that happened to them as children.

These were children. And we have to stop paying lip service in our country. Elected leaders of all sorts who say, and I've heard it as a working journalist for decades, politicians and others saying, children are our most important resource. And we need to act that out in real ways. And I hear these children speaking and I hear their voices and they have called we must not allow ourselves to doze off again as if this was just a story and on to the next. We need to hold this, and we need to do our part, each of us. Marie, thank you for sharing the stories of these children with us today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Before we go today, I want to make sure you've got access to some resources that might be helpful during this time. A National Indian Residential School crisis line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. You can also access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national

crisis line at 1-866-925-4419. And within British Columbia, the QIS Crisis Line Society provides an Indigenous-specific toll-free crisis line 24-7 at 1-800-588-8717. Or you can also find them online at kuu-uscrisisline.com. FrontBurner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Imogen Burchard, Shannon Higgins, Allie Janes, Ashley Fraser, Mariam Kaja, and me. Our sound design was by Derek Van Der Wyk, Devin Nguyen, and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chabison

of Boombox Sound. And the executive producer of FrontBurner is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Elaine Chao. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Elaine Chao. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. Jamie will be back on Monday.