CATHOLIC CHURCH TO RELEASE RECORDS OF 13 CANADIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: INDIGENOUS LEADER

Mon 19 July 2021:

As the ground search continues at a former Indian Residential School in Delmas, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Chief Bobby Cameron says records of at least 13 schools will be released by the Catholic Church.– the disclosure of the schools’ records — was finally answered Sunday.

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Chief Bobby Cameron said the records of at least 13 schools will be released by the Catholic Church.

“It’s welcoming news and it’s a start for other churches right across Canada to do the same — release those records to the survivors and descendants,” Cameron told CTV News.

Late last week Cameron said his office received a letter describing that Catholic Churches in Saskatchewan, that oversaw 13 schools, will be releasing records to the FSIN, something the FSIN and Indigenous leaders in Saskatchewan have been calling for since ground-penetrating radar searches began identifying unmarked graves at residential schools in Western Canada.

Following the discovery of what are believed to be the remains of 215 students buried on the site of a former residential school in the city of Kamloops in the province of British Columbia, the FSIN called on Pope Francis to issue an apology for the role the Catholic Church played in residential schools. The FSIN also called on the Roman Catholic Church to release the records of the residential schools.

“They are listening,” Cameron said. “The amount of pressure we’ve been putting on them, it’s working, and we are going to continue to be vocal for our survivors.”

Many survivors of the school say that their trauma was compounded by Canada’s failure to face up to what they have known for years: that countless friends and relatives died at the institutions which were supposed to be caring for them.

From the 19th century until the 1990s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded schools in a campaign to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society. Abuse was rife at the schools where thousands of children died of disease, neglect and other causes.

PHOTO: The doors of Saskatoon Catholic cathedral in Canada covered with paint and the words “we were children”, following the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at a former residential school for Indigenous children. Photo courtesy: Donna Heimbecker

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