Front Burner - Why are residential school testimonies being destroyed?

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Today is the sixth National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, where the country remembers the 150,000 Indigenous kids who were taken from their communities and forced to enrol in Indian Residential Schools. While there, they were subjected to widespread abuse and mistreatment. Thousands died before they could return home. There is a large historical record attesting to this fact. But tens of thousands of survivor testimonies are on track to be destroyed next year. These painful stories were heard and documented as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement. Connie Walker is the host of the Pulitzer and Peabody prize winning podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michaels which looked at her own father's experience at a residential school. She has been working to build a new archive of residential school survivor testimonies. She talks about the urgency of preserving these stories, at a time when there's an upswing in residential school denialism.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts  

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Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Today marks the sixth national day for truth and reconciliation, where as a country, we remember the 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Méti kids who were taken from their communities and forced to enroll in Indian residential schools. While there, they were subjected to widespread abuse and mistreatment. Thousands died before they could return home. There is, of course, a large historical record attesting to this fact.

And today, I want to talk about that record, in particular the imminent destruction of tens of thousands of survivor testimonies. Painful stories that were documented as part of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. My former colleague Connie Walker is here. She is the host of the incredible Pulitzer and Peabody Prize-winning podcast, Stolen, surviving St. Michael's, which looked at her own father's experience at a residential school. Connie has been working to build a new archive of residential school survivor testimonies, and this all feels particularly urgent right now, given the upswing in residential school denialism. For instance, a white nationalist demonstration over the weekend in Kamloops, the center of a

national conversation about residential schools. Connie, it's always great to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks so much for having me. So I'd like to start with the imminent destruction of these records that. you're trying to bring attention to. So 38,000 former students of residential schools came forward with their stories as part of hearings for something called the independent assessment process or the IAP in the early to mid-2000s. And Connie, 38,000 is a pretty staggering number of people.

And just can you take me through some of the lead up to the IAP and how they were able to have so many people come forward. Sure. I mean, I think it's important to note that it is the largest and most comprehensive archive that exists of survivor testimony about abuse at residential schools. More than five times the number of survivors who participated in the TRC gave their testimony to the IAP. And I have heard from people who worked with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission who said that, you know, they remember many survivors testifying at the TRC, but saying, I've already told my full story to the IAP, so I'm not going to tell it here. So just to give some background to the IAP testimonies that were created, the lead up really was the litigation that started in the 80s and 90s and early 2000. right? Survivors started coming forward and suing the government and churches for abuse in Indian residential schools. It became, at least what was then, the largest class action in the history of

Canada. And it really was what brought people together to negotiate the Indian residential school settlement agreement. And as part of the settlement agreement, like survivors received like a common experience payment, a lump sum payment of $10,000 for attending residential school, for loss of language, loss of culture, but for survivors who experienced severe physical or sexual abuse, they could participate in the IAP. And when you're thinking about why survivors were compelled, why so many came forward, it's because it was their chance for compensation, right? And a lot of survivors wanted to be heard. They wanted to people to know what had happened to them in these institutions. And so, you know, 38,000 survivors applied to the IAP.

And many thousands of them went on to have really intense hearings where they had to testify in really graphic detail about the abuse experienced. So, you know, it was not a simple process. You know, I know it wasn't through this settlement, but you came to learn about your own family's history with their time in residential school, which you explored in the second season. of stolen. It is so difficult and rare for people to come forward with their stories, right, even to their own families. Yeah, I mean, I have residential school survivors on both sides of my family. Obviously, my dad and all of my aunts and uncles attended the St. Michael's Indian residential school, but actually on the Cameron side of my family, four generations of my family attended St. Michael's. But on my mom's side, the residential school survivors as well,

both of my grandparents went to residential school. And I was really close. like my grandparents are my mom, so I'd really helped to raise me because my mom was a young mom. But it wasn't until I was in university. And I had an assignment, an oral history assignment where I had to record someone's history. And I thought, I'll interview my grandpa. He's the oldest person I know. And I was so close to him. Like, we spent so much time together. He drove me to ball practice or picked me up if I forgot my lunch. You know, we spent a lot of time together. And I felt like I knew him really well. But it wasn't until I did that interview that I learned for the first time in my in my early 20s. that he went to a residential school when he was six years old. Like this is just not something that people talked about. And I think it's really, I mean, obviously just thinking about the bravery of survivors to, you know, first start to come forward in these lawsuits, but then reviewing some of what we do know about what the process of going through the IEP was like for them. And by all accounts, it was such a harrowing experience for survivors.

For many of them, it would have been the first time they'd ever spoke. out loud about any of the abuse that happened to them. And they were compelled to be very, very detailed in descriptions of abuse. And they were measured and given points based on the level of sexual abuse they experienced, the level of harm they've had their entire lives. You know, I think that a lot of people don't really know about the IAP because of the confidentiality around it. But there's so much, I think, that could or should be known.

And also, they named people, too, in these records as well. Yes. In the application form, they were compelled to name their abusers. And it said right on the form, like, if you don't name them, then you may not get a hearing. So they had to name the abusers from residential school. If they didn't remember their name, they had to give some kind of identifying information. And then through the IAP secretariat, you know, they tracked down. over 5,000 alleged abusers from residential schools.

Not to investigate them for the crimes they were accused of committing against children, but because they were invited to be a part of the process to respond to the allegations made against them. Wow. Were there survivors who gave testimony that felt or thought that their testimony might lead to more kind of criminal investigations? Yes. In the podcast surviving St. Michaels, I interviewed one of my dad's brothers, my uncle Harris, and he said that he thought he was reporting this sexual abuse that this priest committed against him to the government. So that meant that that would open up an investigation, a police investigation, that he would be charged. And that was his understanding of what he was doing at the IAP. So, you know, even though there has been so much that we don't know or understand because, you know, survivors were promised comfort. confidentiality in these hearings. The Secretariat knows so much about abuse at Indian residential school. They know exactly how many abuse claims were made at every single residential school. They know the names of alleged abusers and oftentimes like track them down

using private investigators. They know the kinds of abuse that were happening at each school. And none of that information or very little of that information has ever been made public. But the reality is, I think that what I learned through surviving St. Michael's is that, you know, it's so important for us to know about what our parents and grandparents survived. And there's a direct link between what happened to them in those institutions and what's continuing to happen in our families and communities. And we all deserve to know that history and to know that truth. So we have these records, these testimonies of 38,000 survivors. And then fast forward, many, many years to 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that these records from the IAP

will be destroyed. And that deadline is just a year away in 2027. And it just, how does this judgment come about? And what was the discussion at the time? It was a complicated case. And I'm actually working, my next podcast is a podcast about this decision by the Supreme Court in 2017 to destroy the IAP records and the ramifications of that. But essentially, there is a disagreement about what to do with these records, if they should be preserved, if they should be destroyed, that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And I think at the heart of the case is this issue of privacy and the fact that survivors were promised confidentiality when they came forward to testify in these hearings and that there wasn't a process in place at the time to obtain their consent for their

records to be preserved in a way that they want it. So like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was arguing for the preservation of these records, that there was a way to preserve this history, preserve, you know, what I think is fair to say is like the most accurate descriptions of the atrocities, some of the worst atrocities that were committed in residential schools, and still respect survivor privacy. I'm reminded of when I was when I was reporting on the podcast, you know, we traveled to the archives, the provincial archives in Alberta, because that's where the obelates of Mary Immaculate, the Catholic Order of Priests who ran St. Michael's. That's where they had donated their archives to the province of Alberta. And so when I went there, I asked, I had already at that point in one of the very first interviews I did, heard the name of a priest who my uncle Ivan accused of sexually abusing him at the school. His name was Father Gilles Gautier. And I also heard the name of another. priest who was accused of abuse at St. Michael's. And so I asked to see their personnel records at the public archives, the provincial archives in Alberta. And I was told that they're sealed until 50

years after a priest's death. So that's just an example of ways in which they can, you know, records can be protected, but records can be preserved while still maintaining some privacy of individuals. But that is at the heart of the case. The reason that the Supreme Court, decision was made in 2017 and there's, but they're not set to be destroyed until 2027 is that there was this window that was supposed to allow survivors to be able to opt in to have their records preserved. And we know that it's around 100 survivors in the last 10 years have opted in. Why so low do you think? I think that's a fantastic question. That's one that I hope to be able to answer as my reporting continues. But the thing is that.

that I'm most curious about is that there was also supposed to be this court-ordered notice program. So survivors were supposed to be notified about their rights regarding their records, about, you know, whether they wanted to request a copy of their records for themselves to keep, request a copy to stay at the NCTR. There were different options that they were given. Some survivors said they've turned over their records to their lawyer so that they can't held with their lawyer until after their, you know, they pass away and then they will be given to their family. So there are different options. But I think that, you know, I mean, anecdotally, I speak about, you know, this impending record destruction, but I also just speak about my work quite a lot. And over the last couple of years, I've spoken

at various events. And I am really surprised at how many survivors I meet who don't know about this impending record destruction. Like last year, I was at this Truth and Reconciliation Commission event. and there was a survivor there who was just so upset and shocked and said, how can they do this? How can they erase our history? I was at a completely separate event when another survivor said, he was really upset by the destruction of the IEP records. And he asked, who's being protected by the destruction of these records?

It's not me, you know? And so I think that, you know, this notice program is something that I'm looking into. I want to find out, you know, who, you know, what kind of notice was actually given to survivors about their rights regarding their records. Do you worry that, like, you're going to be too late here? Because he's, I feel like the clock is ticking, right? It's already too late. It's already beyond too late.

We're losing survivors every week, every month, every year. These residential schools at St. Michael's was open for over 100 years. Four generations of my family went, but it was just a sliver of, of survivors who were around during the residential school settlement agreement and during the IAP process. So many survivors had already passed away before that happened. But even, like, my dad, he submitted his application. He was sexually used by a priest at St. Michael's. I don't know if he named the priest in his application. I have to think that he must have because they said that if you don't name your perpetrators, you may not get a hearing. But he was also a support worker for people

in our community. Like he was a cultural support worker. So he sat through other IAP hearings and he saw how hard it was for his fellow survivors to take part in these hearings. They were sometimes like hours long, sometimes over over a couple days, you know, eight hours long testifying in such great detail about your abuse. And my stepmother, Norlein told me that, you know, as his hearing date got closer and closer, he got more and more agitated. And then one day he just broke down and he said he could couldn't do it. He just, you know, they needed the money. It was potentially going to be this, this really significant amount of money for them. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to do it. You know, there's so many survivors, I think, who never got a chance to even participate in the IEP,

but even the ones who did, but the reality is like the window for them is closing every day. And I think, you know, that is absolutely something. I worry that we're already too late. Yeah. I mean, it's just so, well, it's really, it's harper. breaking to hear that you're talking to survivors who just don't know that they, like, you know, whether they want them destroyed or not, that they don't have the ability to make that choice because they don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's shocking, really. I mean, I think there's so many questions I have about the notice program, but the website that was set up at the time was a website called My Records, My Choice, and you can still go and you can still visit it. And I went on the other day,

and I was looking and they have links to their social media pages, and I went on their Facebook page and their Instagram page. And the last post they made was in 2020. So for the last six years from the My Records My Choice program, there has been like little to no outreach on social media to survivors. I should also say that, you know, at that same event where that one survivor was so upset that her records were going to be destroyed and that she had no idea this was happening,

there was another survivor there who said, I'm okay with it. I don't want my records to be seen by anybody ever, but survivors should be given the option to decide whatever they choose about their records. But absolutely, you're right, that they should at least know they have an option. That's the bare minimum. You're leading a business. You're always thinking about doing more. At BDO Canada, we work with business leaders to do more by truly understanding what matters most to you. Your challenges, your ambitions, your version of more. Whatever your more is, BDO is a true partner to help you get there.

After all, do is in our name. Find out more at BDO.ca. BDO, do more together. The following is paid content for Desjardin. Lately, it feels like everyone has a take on Gen Z. There's a misconception that everybody in our generation wants things handed to them. Which is so unfair. A lot of the circumstances that other generations got to have, we simply do not have.

Disserdin asked me to go out and hear directly from young people, I was all in. Because between sky high rent, $10 latte's and the AI Revolution, got a lot to impact. We went out to see what Gen Z's reality actually looks like and we made a web series out of it. It'll be on CBC Gem. It's called Countess In. And honestly, I think you guys are going to love it. I want to broaden out a little bit here. You're working alongside Kimberly Murray and Mohawk lawyer on the Indian Residential School Records Project,

which is looking to create a new archive of Survivor Testimony Records. And also you're doing another investigative podcast that you have mentioned. Can you tell me a bit more about what you've been working on and how it connects to what we're talking about today? Yeah. Well, it really is an extension of the journalism that I've been doing over the last few years in Indian residential schools. So for surviving St. Michael's, the podcast about St. Michael's Indian residential school where my father went to, when we were trying to understand the scale of abuse at the single school. Because initially we started out looking for the one priest. who had abused my dad. But then we started interviewing survivors and we started hearing the name

of several priests and nuns and staff members who were accused of sexually abusing kids at the school. And we had also talked to lawyers and people who were involved in the IAP who told us, St. Michael's wasn't even a bad school. Like this was not even known as a bad school. But we wanted to understand like what was happening. What was the scale of abuse at a single school? And so when we realized we were never going to be able to get the IAP records. We'd never be able to get access to any of the information from those testimonies from survivors of St. Michael's. One of our producers, Chantal Bell Rochard, had an idea that we should go back to the lawsuits

that survivors filed before there was a residential school settlement agreement. And because those are public documents, they were filed in courthouses, you know, across the province. So we filed an access to information request. We were able to get 485 lawsuits from this one school that I think, you know, still even these years later is still so horrifying and shocking to me the scale of abuse at a single school. Over 200 allegations of sexual abuse against 17 priests, 13 nuns, and 15 staff members. And most of that abuse was not like a single incident, but abuse that happened many times or continued. even over years. And when I published the podcast, it was such a, I mean, it was such a

profound thing for me personally just to understand what was happening to my dad and my aunts and uncles at the school. But I also heard from so many other, like people in my family, but also intergenerational survivors, who said that it felt like it was their story, too, like that they were reminded of, you know, their relationship. with their dad or mom and not knowing and not understanding. And it made me so mad because I was like, you know, I just happened to have the skills. I'm a journalist. I was supported to do this work. And so I'm able to better understand how my own life was shaped by what happened to my dad and my uncles and my uncles. But it's a privilege that everybody should have. I thought actually,

because I was reporting for CBC in 2015 at the final TRC event. And I remember the late Justice Marie Sinclair telling the room that day that there's not a single indigenous person in Canada who has not been touched by the legacy of residential schools. The social conditions that indigenous people are experiencing in this country are in almost every case, a direct or indirect result of past government policies and initiatives. designed to assimilate, acculturate, indoctrinate, and destroy.

And, I mean, I believed him in the moment. You know, he had just spent all this time six years traveling with the other commissioners to hear the stories of survivors. But I really didn't know then how my own life had been affected. And it was through the podcast that I could really directly trace the link back to the priest, my uncle Ivan, accused of abuse, who then my uncle Ivan, went on to be an abuser in our family and abused me when I was a kid. It just made me feel like we should all have access to this information because we're all being affected by it. And so that's what

we're trying to do with the Indian Residential School Records Project. We're trying to replicate what we did in surviving St. Michael's, get access to as many of these lawsuits as we can, but with the goal of returning them back to survivors in their families and communities so they can decide what should happen with them and how they're managed. You have talked before about how a lot has changed over the years in terms of Canadians' consciousness around the legacy of residential schools. Even though there was the IAP that we've been talking about the TRC, the work of countless indigenous journalists and researchers and survivors, the discovery of hundreds of potential unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school. and Camloops v.C. in 2021 was like a monumental moment for this country. It attracted international attention.

It brought the national conversation around the painful legacy of these schools to the four. It's forced a nation and its leaders to confront one of the darkest chapters of its history. Why do you think it did that despite all the information that was already available before then? Yeah. I mean, I've thought about this. lot too because I mean yeah it was you know in the TRC final report uh and and I remember you know that was in my report that night as well about all of the the kids who died in residential school and who who never made it home the thousands of kids who died in residential school I feel like it was really the work of the TRC that kind of laid that that groundwork and then by the time the news from

camloops happened I feel like there was enough understanding and there was it was in the zeitgeist enough that people actually paid attention for the first time or they maybe knew and understood a little bit better. I know certainly for survivors, it felt like it was profound because, I mean, I think maybe it felt like one of the first time ever in their life that they felt safe coming forward and sharing some of their experiences. Like, because I feel like everybody stopped. You know, there were so many orange shirts hanging from people's porches in Toronto know, it just felt like it was kind of surreal. And again, I was angry. Maybe you're sensing a theme here, but I was like, why are people paying attention? Like, I mean, it was great. It was good. I was

glad that people were acknowledging. But I was also like upset that it had taken so long in some ways. But now I feel like we're seeing the swing the other way. Like, just as you mentioned, like the denialism that's on the rise, the people showing up at Camloops. Video verified by CBC News, a site sparking widespread condemnation, a group of masked Second Sands white nationalists gathering in Kamloops, B.C. They were also spotted on the Tecumloops to Shwebnik Reserve three days before. The people who showed up in Winnipeg last week when Niga-Anne-Sinclair and Sean Carlton launched their book, it feels like as much progress has been made that there's still so much denialism and, you know, I'm confused by it, honestly. Like, I, I, I, I, I,

there's so much truth out there and there's so much information for people who actually are curious about what happened in residential schools. Camloops, as an example, the investigation into the potential graves is ongoing. And as you mentioned, these white nationalists showed up to the area earlier this week with signs basically demanding to see bones. Like, it's repugnant. The group was also photographed holding a banner from a highway overpass that red got bones. A possible reference to the Kamloops Indian residential school grounds where in 2020... They're being investigated by the RCMP, but like, what just talk to me more about, you know, what you make of how the denialists have kind of weaponized this particular site to serve their kind of larger narrative.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I don't know that I have much insight into it. Honestly, like I said, I feel like a bit confused about what their denying is, like that kids die. in residential school that as many kids, as they don't think as many kids died as they think. Like I really kind of, I don't know exactly. Like I said, I think, you know, it's in the TRC final reports about the number of kids who never made it home. There's information that's been out there for a long time that if people were really interested in proof and in getting to the truth, that it is readily available, I think that the thing that we have to, also think about is the context of racism and the anti-Indigenous racism that is prevalent

in Canada today and has been from the beginning of this country and that that is something, like, I mean, I don't know that you can call it only denialism when there is so much information out there that is available. And when it's white nationalists who are standing there with flags and making a stand that you can, can have a conversation without including a conversation about racism and the anti-indigenous racism that is still prevalent across the country. How do these acts of hostility and hate factor into the work that you're doing and kind of working to preserve and share the stories of survivors?

You mean beyond fueling my rage? Sorry, it's not funny. It's very, I think, infuriating. I mean, I do, I joke about it, but I do think actually a lot of my own, like, I'm motivated by this to continue to do this work and to really try to dig down as deep as we can and preserve as much truth as we can. My work has really been my own education in a lot of ways. And that's part of why I wanted to be a journalist. I want people to know indigenous people. I want people to understand our communities, our history, our culture.

I want to know it. I want my kids, my kids, my nieces and nephews to have access to this information. I want to preserve it on behalf of my dad and all of the other residential school survivors of my family. Like, that's what motivates me. And I mean, I am angry and upset, obviously, by people who, you know, spew this kind of of violence and hate towards especially, you know, survivors who were among the most vulnerable people in Canada when this was happening to them and who have fought for this truth of what they went through to be acknowledged. They fought for some kind of justice and accountability and

reparations for what they went through. And it's up to us to make. sure that it's not forgotten and to stand up and, you know, speak out in spaces that we can where it's safe to. Okay. Connie, thank you so much for this. Thank you for taking the time. I'm so appreciative. My pleasure. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. That is all for today. Before we go, though, just a note to say that Connie will be part of a CBC radio special hosted by my colleague Phelan Johnson tonight. It's called Reconciliation on the record, and it airs at 8 o'clock, 8.30 in Newfoundland, on CBC radio across the country. She will also be part of a panel discussing her work on the Indian Residential School Records

Project from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca.com.