The Mission Survivors Set for Us All
On June 11, Canada will be called to action by survivors.
Ever since the evidence of children’s graves discovered in Kamloops BC shocked the nation, survivors from residential schools from coast to coast to coast have been gathering to support one another and settle on a course of action. An Independent Special Interlocutor named Kimberly Murray has convened these gatherings.
I attended the 6th National Gathering, where she offered the following clues about the Final Report she will offer at the final Gathering in June.
She revealed she will issue a challenge to Canada to help find every single one of the missing children.
Kimberly Murray served as Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, then ran the Indigenous Law branch at Justice Canada when Jody Wilson Raybould was Minister of Justice. Her credibility both with Indigenous leaders and with the federal government made her a natural choice when appointed by both as “Special Interlocutor” after Kamloops.
Her mandate is to recommend new federal legal framework for the treatment and protection of unmarked graves. She was appointed in June 2022 with a two year mandate.
I have been following Murray’s work ever since. The National Gatherings that she convenes are huge affairs, bringing the people confronting the painful work of searching for children’s graves from across the country. They combine intricate discussions of the many technical challenges with raw, emotional testimony of the lives affected by siblings, nephews, nieces, friends and others mourning their lost relatives and friends from decades ago.
Each Gathering starts with ceremony, and features a child-size chair adorned with regalia to allow the spirits of the missing children to be represented in the discussions. Art, dance and song accompany the participants through the deliberations, giving these most marginalized of our fellow citizens the strength to debate the measures needed for healing.
These Gatherings offer a glimpse into a new Canada, once that places Indigenous experiences in the centre and incorporates their wisdom in working out a path we can walk together toward healing – those that caused the harm and those that suffered from it.
The agenda for action taking shape in these gatherings is both feasible and challenging.
In her Interim Report last year, Murray outlined the work required to:
access records about children who died while attending schools
protect the sites where they may be buried
search the sites with radar and other methods; and to
repatriate the children buried there, if families and communities choose to do so.
This work must be led by First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. The timeline for healing is set by the wounded, not by the society that caused the harm. And with estimates ranging anywhere between 7,000 and 70,000 missing children, it will take a long time.
We non-Indigenous people have a role to play, as well, Murray explained last June. It will be up to us to combat the increasingly virulent, and increasingly violent trend of denials about the harm done by residential schools. "Denialism is a non-Indigenous problem and therefore it's for non-Indigenous people to address it" as Murray put it.
The 6th National Gathering was held in Iqaluit. It was opened with the lighting of the qulliq, the traditional seal oil lantern (as depicted in the photo) that stays lit through the long winters of Nunavut, and which stands for light amid darkness. In the light of the qulliq, Murray broached the most difficult issue of all: bringing justice to all that suffered.
In her closing remarks at that event, she laid out some difficult truths. She argued convincingly that the legacy of residential schools is a case of enforced disappearances. There is a long and well-developed case law in international relations for situations in which thousands of innocent civilians go missing through the intentional act of the state. Canada meets the standard because:
It was government policy to remove children from their families
It was government policy not to return them to their homes
Under international law, when a country has committed an act of enforced disappearance it has a legal obligation to assist in the location and recovery of every single victim.
Kimberly Murray’s final report will make it clear what Canada must do to address, once and for all, the legacy of residential schools: Canada must ensure that every single one of the missing children is located, and every family given the choice to repatriate remains or honour them where they lie.
This is the mission before us as a nation. We cannot bring back to life the thousands of children who died. We cannot undo the harm that hundreds of thousands suffered. But we can become the country we aspire to be – a rule-of-law country that upholds the human rights of all. We do by finding every missing child.
This is the call to action we can expect Kimberly Murray to issue on June 11. We must be ready to meet it.
