The Current - Testimony of residential school survivors is about to be destroyed

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

The most comprehensive archive of what happened at Canadian residential schools is about to be destroyed after a 2017 Supreme Court ruling to protect survivors privacy. Now  Pulitzer and Peabody-winning journalist Connie Walker is creating a new public archive to preserve survivor accounts.

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Certain conditions apply. Details at jeancoutu.com. is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. In about a year and a half, more than 38,000 records of residential school survivors will be destroyed. The confidential testimonies were given during the independent assessment process, or IAP, to settle claims of sexual and physical abuse at residential schools. This is the most comprehensive repository of what went on inside Canada's a residential school system,

but to protect the privacy of survivors, the Supreme Court of Canada, Canada decided in 2017 that those files would be destroyed. And so, as time runs out for these records, Pulitzer and Peabody Award-winning journalist, Connie Walker, is creating a new public archive to preserve survivor accounts. Connie is a member of the Okinae's First Nation, and she joins me now in studio. Connie, good morning. Good morning. It's nice to see you.

Nice to see you. For people who don't know, I gave the kind of thumbnail sketch. What are the independent assessment process records? And what was that process? Well, it was a very, very intense process for survivors, but also something that, you know, they had really been pushing and fighting for for years and decades to be able to tell their stories about the abuse they experienced in residential schools.

And it was a chance to also receive compensation from the Indian residential school settlement agreement. One of the clearest ways that I can describe, the vastness of those records is thinking about the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which we all know did this incredible work for six, over six years, traveling across the country, holding national events, visiting small communities, all with the sole purpose of recording as much testimony as possible. In those six years, the TRC recorded just over 6,000 testimonies from survivors, but the IEP records is more than six times that many. When I think about what's in those records,

it's obviously very personal, difficult accounts of abuse at residential school. But I think cumulatively, it is the truth about the history of residential schools, the place where I think my generation, intergenerational survivors whose lives have been impacted by our parents and our grandparents' parents' experience in those schools, can have an understanding of what they survived, have an understanding of why what we experienced happened in the first place. said that this is the most comprehensive archive that exists of survivor testimony about severe abuse at residential schools and that's going to be destroyed. Why are these records being destroyed?

It's a very complicated case, essentially, that was heard at the Supreme Court. But what it hinges on is survivor privacy, that many survivors were promised confidentiality, were told that nobody would ever see these accounts, that their testimony that they gave in these hearings, which sometimes you know, for survivors was the first time they ever said those words aloud about what happened to them at residential school. For some survivors, it was testimony that happened over, you know, many hours or even days. Very difficult accounts. And some people may not have participated if they, if they didn't know that these records were going to be confidential. But also some survivors didn't have that expectation. Some survivors thought, oh, this is going to lead to a criminal trial. This is going to lead to

charges against my abuser. Some survivors today that, you know, I speak to, participate in the IAP and don't know those records are about to be destroyed. I don't know this history is about to be lost. Is there not an opportunity? And again, because the decision was made that may be more complicated than it sounds, but is there not an opportunity just to seal the records and keep them sealed rather than destroy them? That was definitely one of the options, I think, that was in one of the arguments that was presented at the Supreme Court, that, you know, is there a way to redact these files in order to protect survivor privacy? Is there a way to seal them for a certain number of years? And it's funny you mentioned that because when I was doing the investigation into the St.

Michael's Indian residential school, I visited the provincial archives of Alberta because that is where the obelates of Mary Immaculate who ran the school donated their archives. And while I was at the library, I asked, or at the archives, I asked to see some of the personnel records of some of the priests who worked at the school who I had heard through interviews were accused of abusing. students. And I was told that all of their personnel records are sealed until 50 years after their death. And so they're not public. And it made me think about the IEP and it made me wondered what protections could have been put in place for survivors to preserve their testimony, to preserve that truth, but also to protect their privacy. Because you wonder whether people would have said what

they did say if they knew that there was the possibility of it coming out. The people perhaps, to your point, said those words that they'd never said before because they knew that nobody would ever be able to access those records. That was, I think, at the heart of the case as well. And I think one thing that I've been thinking about is the timing of this. Like this court case, the decision was in 2017. And just thinking back to, you know, it wasn't that long ago on one hand, but I think in terms of the conversation around truth and reconciliation, the awareness and understanding of Canadians, absolutely about Indian residential schools generally, but also within indigenous communities. You know, I mean, you know, I've been a journalist for over 20 years, and it really has only been in the last five years that I've had used my skills as a journalist to really better understand how my own life has been shaped by my father and my grandparents' experiences in these schools.

And so these records will be destroyed. And you're not, you're not trying to save them. You are doing something different. What are you doing? I'm trying to raise awareness about this impending destruction because I think I meet people all the time. other journalists, Canadians, but also other survivors who don't know that this is about to happen. And when they hear are immediately galvanized and want to know what can be done. And I feel like people should know that this is about to happen, that the most comprehensive archive that exists

of what survivors endured in residential schools is about to be destroyed by order of the Supreme Court of Canada. And so I'm working on a podcast about that court case. But I also am working on trying to create a new archive of survivor testimony. Obviously, we cannot access what they testify to through the IAP process. But that wasn't the first time that survivors shared their stories of residential schools. That actually the whole reason there was an Indian residential school settlement agreement in the first place is because thousands of survivors years before came forward and filed lawsuits against the government and the churches for abuse. And those are public documents. and those contain so much information from survivors who may have participated in the IAP, went on to participate in the IAP, but also many survivors who never got that opportunity.

So this would be a public archive? Well, it would be an archive for survivors and their families and communities and for them to decide how that information should be used. Which answers in some ways the question around privacy that we were just talking about. If you're looking at creating a new archive of new information in some ways, how do you go about preserving? that sense of privacy that people will still want or may still want. Well, a core tenet of this is working in partnership with survivors and survivor groups and intergenerational survivors and communities. And really, I think, you know, trying to give them back the agency over their own records

and over their own stories. I mean, these are all public documents that we would be, first of all, like finding and compiling and archiving and then sharing back with communities and families. And it's essentially, you know, replicating the work that, we did in my podcast, stolen surviving St. Michael's, because it was such a profound experience as a journalist to be able to better understand the scale of abuse at a single school, which was horrifying and shocking. But also as the daughter. I was going to say there was also a personal experience.

Yeah, it was such a personal experience. And it was so difficult in lots of ways, but also, I think, just so important to actually be able to trace that back, to understand how my life has been shaped, how the lives of my cousins and my and my uncles and our families have been shaped by this experience that four generations of my family went to this one school. It's interesting because you're also a professor at TMU and you're working with young people who want to be involved in this work in reporting. How important is it for you to have young people involved in a process like this? I'm a new professor, so it's really been, you know, less than a year. They're lucky to have you there.

I feel really lucky. I mean, you know, it's been so amazing to see how quickly they get it. You know, this is really is a new generation. Like so much of my career, I think, was spent trying to lay the groundwork and improve and show how and why this work is important and that this is really important work that we need to do to understand the truth about the lives of indigenous people and this history. And my students don't need convincing. And that is such a hopeful thing for me personally and professionally. That speaks to a little bit of what you said earlier in terms of where we are right now. When we talk about reconciliation, it's a word that means different things to different people.

In 2026 in this country, where is that conversation now? I'm still stuck on the truth part of it, Matt, honestly. Like, I feel like I have only realized in the last like, you know, five to 10 years how little we know about the truth of what happened in residential schools. At the time, I was reporting on the work of the TRC. I understood and knew just how seminal this was and just how important this work was. but it's really been through reporting and through uncovering this information that it made me realize how little we actually understand about what happened at individual residential schools, about survivors' quests for truth and justice and accountability as well.

So I feel like the conversations about reconciliation to me as a journalist feel important, but premature in a way. And yet there are pockets of communities across this country. You will hear this in the response to the conversation that we're even having right now of people saying this didn't happen or that didn't happen. these graves weren't graves, trying to interrogate the truth, if I can put it that way. What do you make of that? Well, I mean, I think, again, it just—

People have called it denialism. Yeah. And I think the fact that there is a growing denialism around what happened in residential schools and what, you know, what is the truth of what happened in residential schools. It just galvanizes me to want to find out to expose as much of it as we possibly can. And I think that having an archive for each individual, residential school or as many as we possibly can is a way of providing the facts, providing the truth about what happened. You've said that the window to tell these stories is closing, but also

with it, the window for justice and accountability is also closing. Yeah. What do you mean by that? When I started reporting on St. Michael's, the residential school that my dad and all of his siblings went to and their parents and their parents, like four generations of my family, went to the school. You know, I was interviewing my, my aunts and uncles, my dad's siblings, and since then, we've lost three of them. And, you know, it's incredibly devastating, you know, that reality of we're losing survivors all of the time. We're losing survivors every week, every month, and every year. And so the window to to protect this history, to preserve this history, that's what I mean when I say it's closing. But also the window to understand and

to think for so many survivors telling their stories was also about trying to seek some kind of justice, time to have some kind of accountability, but also to be heard and to be believed. And I think that's something that's so important to try to honor as well. There's urgency to this work. Absolutely. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Connie Walker is a Pulitzer and Peabody award-winning journalist. She is an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, School of Journalism, and the force behind podcasts like St. Michael's. This has been the current podcast, you can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get

your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.