Residential school records once held in Canada now in Rome, researchers say
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Researchers in Ottawa have uncovered new evidence to suggest some archival records relating to residential schools in Canada are now only available in Rome, prompting renewed calls for the Vatican to release historic documents that could help piece together what happened to the Indigenous children who were forced to attend the 48 residential schools once run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
"The records that we had looked at here are no longer in this country," said Brenda Macdougall, a professor and research chair in Métis family and community traditions at the University of Ottawa.
"Those records belong to Canada. They belong to the people first and foremost. … They have to come back through subpoena or the church. The Pope himself can suspend canonical law and return them."
Historians also tell CBC they were alarmed to witness some old materials from the Oblates' former headquarters in Ottawa thrown out in a dumpster about seven years ago.
Starting in the late 1800s, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order, played a significant role in the development of Indigenous schools.
The order ran institutions across the country including the three former residential schools where unmarked graves were recently discovered in Kamloops, B.C., Marieval, Sask., and near Brandon, Man.
Today, the order is small, with only a few hundred aging priests left to carry out what their current leader, Father Ken Thorson, calls the "important work of understanding the truths of what took place and owning these truths with deep humility."
According to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the Oblates have an extensive archival repository of "correspondence, reports, personnel records, financial documents, photographs and lists."
Since 2011, thousands of Oblate materials have been turned over and digitized by the centre, but there are many more records still to be made accessible.
And many of those records were housed in the Deschâtelets Archives, formerly located in the Oblate seminary in Ottawa, near Saint Paul University.
"The Deschâtelets Archives were absolutely the repository of records for all of the western missions, for the northern missions, for the eastern missions," said Macdougall.
Until 2014, Macdougall and her fellow historians conducted research at the archives into early Oblate missions, including uncovering residential school information.
That year, however, the Oblates' Ottawa property was sold and the archives were moved.
Commuters hoping to escape the cold by travelling on Line 6 will need to think again, as train service is down Friday morning.
Halim Rahim has lived in Canada for almost four years, but says he’s never experienced a winter like this.
For Lindsay Gillan, walking her dog, Daisy, twice a day in Charlottetown’s Victoria Park is a treasured routine that benefits both her physical and mental health.
Whitehorse city council has postponed its decision on an overhaul of its zoning bylaws that would, among other things, introduce short-term rental regulations in the city.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has reached a deal with China to allow tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into the country in exchange for lower canola duties.
The Federal Court of Appeal is expected to give its decision Friday morning on whether the Liberal government unlawfully invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago.
WARNING: This article describes allegations of sexual assault.
The average time for a 911 caller to connect with an operator is down to three seconds so far this year, according to Toronto police.
Emergency crews across southwestern Ontario kept busy on Thursday, responding to dozens of collisions, as a steady stream of snow squalls blanketed the region with as much as 30 centimetres of snow, prompting widespread school closures.
Woody Point — a picturesque community on Newfoundland's west coast — is reeling after the loss of what was a pillar of local business in the town for over 70 years.
A New Brunswick Mountie testified he punched a woman in the face twice, but only because she had punched him while he tried to arrest her.
The City of Winnipeg is halting work to clean up the Manwin Hotel site following a Wednesday fire, after officials determined there was asbestos in the rubble.
A Saskatoon judge has now heard about the hours just before and after Taya Sinclair's death.