Less than half of the over $200M requested for burial searches at residential schools funded

As the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation approaches, stakeholders say more needs to be done to address barriers communities face in identifying unmarked burials tied to former residential school sites.

The federal government has funded a total of $89.9 million in support to communities and organizations for research, commemoration, and field investigation work.

However, it marks less than half of what's been requested. 

"This is priceless work," said Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology at the University of Alberta. 

"A child's life, a child's burial place. Trying to find that is priceless. You can't put a dollar amount on that."

Supernant works directly with Indigenous communities to support and advise on how to approach investigations, and has conducted surveys at eight different school sites using technology to investigate the grounds for potential unmarked graves.

"It's a really big burden on many nations to have to try to carry out the full investigation," said Supernant.

"There's all these sorts of barriers that communities are facing, and I'm just not sure if there's been enough to address those barriers."

The federal government announced the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support funding in June 2021 to support Indigenous communities to locate missing children at residential schools as identified in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.

According to a response to an order paper question last week, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Jaime Battiste said the program has received 106 applications totalling $214,180,918 in requested funding from Indigenous communities and organizations.

To date, 84 applications have been approved for a total of $89,994,897 in funding, while the department is assessing 15 applications.

A total of four requests were denied funding, two were withdrawn, and one was redirected to another federal program for funding.

The numbers don't add up for New Democratic MP Niki Ashton, who penned a letter to Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller this week outlining her concerns.

"We're now on the eve of the second annual National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, and the answer from the government with respect to this specific initiative is just not good enough," said Ashton, who represents the Churchill-Keewatinook Aski riding in Manitoba.