Archbishop of Canterbury promises release of residential school records still in England
CBC
The Archbishop of Canterbury says he will ensure any residential school-related records held by the Anglican Church in England are released.
The church is facing calls from survivors who attended the former Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ont., to disclose any records held overseas in hopes they may shed light on the true number of children who died at the residential school and where they are buried.
"Anything in the possession of the archives of the Church of England will be made available," Justin Welby said.
Welby was initially scheduled to visit the old site of the Anglican-run institute, which is now the Woodland Cultural Centre, during his trip through Canada, which runs from April 29 to May 3.
The meeting was cancelled, however, after survivors from Six Nations of the Grand River, a Haudenosaunee community near Hamilton, Ont., said they would not participate unless the Anglican Church committed to financing Indigenous language revitalization and releasing all records held in England.
"If they're not willing to do that, then there's no sincerity in this at all," said Roberta Hill, a member of the Survivors' Secretariat, a survivor-led group leading ground-search efforts at the former school.
"They can't go through the next generations and say, 'You know what? We said we're sorry. Let's leave it at that and move on.'
"No, they owe our community, all of our communities."
Welby was scheduled to meet some members of Six Nations at the headquarters of the Anglican Church of Canada in downtown Toronto during a reception planned for Monday afternoon.
He will no longer be able to attend due to a flight cancellation.
During a visit to Saskatchewan over the weekend, Welby apologized for the Anglican Church permitting terrible crime, sin and evil to occur at residential schools, which he said amounted to cultural genocide.
"I am more sorry than I could ever, ever begin to express," he told survivors gathered at James Smith Cree Nation, about 200 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.
"To molest a child while you read them the Bible, how can a human being do that and look themselves in the mirror?"
The Anglican Church of Canada twice apologized to survivors, but this is the first time the top archbishop from the Church of England said sorry.
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