Petition calls on Parliament to save files on residential school abuse before they're destroyed
CBC
An attempt to preserve files documenting some of the worst harms caused by Indian Residential Schools could soon head to Parliament.
Tommi Hill is part of Anishinabek Mukwa Dodem, a group behind a petition to the House of Commons that asks the government to preserve "all residential school records held by federal, provincial, institutional, or ecclesiastical custodians."
"They delete some of these records [and] the people that died there, they're going to be forgotten. It's like they just want them to vanish," said Hill, who is Bear Clan and registered under the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in southern Ontario.
The petition adds losing these records would mean "erasure of survivor voices, loss of historical memory, and obstacles to legal research, accountability and restorative processes."
Conservative MP Billy Morin has supported the petition which closes March 5.
Files related to compensation under the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, where almost 40,000 survivors testified in confidential settings about the abuses they suffered while at school and provided some documentation of the harms, will be destroyed on Sept. 19, 2027.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that IAP files must be destroyed because survivors were promised confidentiality throughout the process. The federal government had wanted to retain the records for historical purposes under Library and Archives Canada.
The files are being retained until 2027 to give survivors a chance to request a copy, opt-in to having the file preserved by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, or both.
Tiana Vrbanic, who works for Anishinabek Mukwa Dodem and filed the petition on its behalf, said it’s important people know the truth about what happened in residential schools and that destroying the files makes that harder.
She said the IAP files demonstrate the need for justice and accountability from the government and churches who caused harm in Indigenous communities.
The Chiefs of Ontario recently issued a statement urging members to sign the petition and survivors to opt-in to save the records.
Gerard Kennedy, an associate professor of law at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said the only likely way to protect the files is for the government to act.
"If Parliament wanted to move very fast, they could get it done in a matter of weeks," Kennedy said.
He added that even at a slower pace, it would be easy to create a piece of legislation to preserve the IAP files before September 2027.
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