Some advocates want residential school abuse records re-examined, archived as debate on their future continues

Geraldine Shingoose was shocked when she opened a report probing what should be done to protect potential unmarked grave sites at former residential schools for Indigenous children.

Of the thousands of former students who detailed the abuses they suffered to an adjudicator tasked with determining their eligibility for compensation under the historic Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, only about 30 have sought to have copies of their words archived.

Shingoose — an Indigenous elder and residential school survivor — is among that small group. She said she's heartbroken to think thousands of records will be destroyed within five years unless more survivors also request their preservation, an option she fears most are not even aware of.

"That's history," she said in a recent interview. "Those are sacred stories."

The debate surrounding the future of these records has gained momentum since more First Nations began seeking answers about what happened to the children who died and disappeared from residential schools.

Kimberly Murray says she began thinking of them after the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Nation in British Columbia announced in May 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had detected what are believed to be 215 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The finding shocked millions, despite residential school survivors having described such places for decades.

"I always thought there needs to be one last look at those records specific to the burials," said Murray, who previously worked as executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which spent five years investigating the residential school system.

The records in question are the product of what was known as the Independent Assessment Process, the protocol through which survivors had to access compensation for abuses they suffered as children.

It was part of the settlement negotiated between the federal government, church entities and national Indigenous groups. Under the agreement, survivors could make claims about the sexual and physical abuses they endured at the government-funded, church-run institutions, as well as "any other wrongful acts" committed by former staff and other students.

From the time the settlement was approved in 2007 until 2012, a little more than 38,000 claims were made, the majority of which were resolved through confidential closed-door hearings. In total, federal statistics show $3.1 billion was paid out.

Shingoose still recalls the questioning she received from the adjudicator and a representative from the federal government into details of the physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the Muscowequan Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, which she attended for nine years.

She left the experience retraumatized, she said, describing it as a "really, really terrible process."

By 2014, the question of what should happen to those transcripts and supporting documents landed at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.