Survivors and historical archives chronicle abuse at Marieval residential school
Christopher Nardi 

POST MEDIA

© Provided by National Post Undated photo of a religious procession at Marieval Indian Residential School.

As Canada reels at the discovery of 751 unmarked graves near Marieval Indian Residential School, survivors and historical documents recount the abuse inflicted on Indigenous students who were ripped from their communities to attend the institution.

“We went to boarding school, they brought us there and we stayed there. We learned because they pounded it into us. Really, they were very mean. When I say pounding, I really mean pounding. Those nuns were very mean to us,” eighty-year-old Florence Sparvier recalled during a press conference Thursday.

Sparvier, who spoke to media right after Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme revealed details of the macabre discovery in a cemetery adjacent to where Marieval once stood, was the third in her family to attend the residential school after her mother and her grandmother.

She said Indigenous students were sent there to learn how to be Roman Catholic and were forced to set aside all aspects of their culture, language, beliefs and Indigenous upbringing.

“We were taught at home that we had to look after ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But that got all stripped away when we went to boarding school. They told us what to say,” Sparvier said. “We learned to not like who we were.”

Video: Residential school survivors on the scars of abuse (cbc.ca)

Duration 5:33

“They were very condemning about our people. They told us our people, our parents and grandparents didn’t have a way to be spiritual because we were all heathens.”

751 unmarked graves reported found at former Sask. residential school

Why so many children died at Indian Residential Schools

As it was in many residential schools across the country, Sparvier said parents had little choice but to send their children to the residential school, lest one of them be sent to jail.

Records and interviews collected by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), researchers at the University of Regina (U of R) and newspapers all paint a similar picture of Marieval residential school.

One Cowessess First Nation resident, Carol Lavallee, told the Regina Leader-Post in 2007 that she was herded up like cattle when taken to Marieval at only six years old.

“When they came and took me to residential school at six years old they came and got us in a cattle truck,” Lavallee said, as quoted in a U of R document. “I remember I was so small that I couldn’t see over the box. My sister was standing right tight against me to hold me still so I wouldn’t be bounced around in the back of this cattle truck.”

• Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi

© Provided by National Post Some of the graves at the Marieval residential school now marked with red flags.

Order of Catholic nuns agrees to enhance access to residential school records


VICTORIA — An order of Catholic nuns whose members worked at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia says it has reached an agreement to improve access to its private archival records, following mounting calls for transparency.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Sisters of St. Ann and Royal BC Museum say in a joint statement they have signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance access to the documents for both the museum and the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of B.C.

It says the needs of the Indigenous community are at the centre of the records review process and the agreement will also make the documents accessible to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, as requested.

The First Nation said last month that what are believed to be the remains of 215 children were found by ground-penetrating radar at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

"We affirm our commitment to collaborate in finding the truth and will assist in the process in whatever way we can,” Sister Marie Zarowny, president and board chair of the Sisters of St. Ann, said in the statement.

The nuns will contribute in any way possible for transparency, healing and reconciliation, she added.

The Congregation of Sisters of St. Anne, based in Quebec, said on its website that its nuns in B.C. taught at the residential school from 1890 to 1970 and they were also involved in three other residential schools.

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc could not immediately be reached for comment.

The agreement aims to make the residential school records, and associated records containing information about the Sisters of St. Ann's involvement at residential schools, accessible to Indigenous communities with a goal of digital sharing, the statement says.

The transfer to BC Archives, housed at the museum, of all records held by the Sisters of St. Ann Archives was originally scheduled to occur in 2027 and has been accelerated to 2025, when the Collections and Research Building opens.

Calls have grown for the release of residential school records since the discovery of the unmarked graves was announced last month.

On June 4, the First Nations Leadership Council penned a letter to Premier John Horgan calling for the immediate release to First Nations of the Sisters of St. Ann's records, already held at the museum through an agreement.

The museum responded with a statement in support of the council, but said the order had its own locked and self-contained office space and managed the records independently of the museum.

Terry Teegee, B.C. regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the agreement is a "good development" for First Nations communities searching for information about former students and loved ones.

"In terms of truth and reconciliation, we're still in this truth period, especially with the many First Nations students who are still unaccounted for," said Teegee, who is also a member of the First Nations Leadership Council.

The agreement does not outline what the records may hold, but Teegee said it's important that whatever exists be released quickly and without bureaucratic barriers to access for communities seeking answers.

"What we're looking for is full transparency and making sure the information that is in the archives can be easily accessed," Teegee said.

The new memorandum of understanding takes effect July 1 and will remain in place until the review, processing and transfer of records to the BC Archives is complete.

Staff at BC Archives will work with the history and dialogue centre, as a "neutral third party," to begin auditing the holdings next month, the statement says.

The history and dialogue centre and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will also work with the signatories to ensure transparency.

"All archives from organizations that were involved with residential schools can play a role in the process of truth-finding and reconciliation," said Daniel Muzyka, the museum's board chair and acting CEO.

Speeding access to the records for Indigenous communities is a positive step along that path, he added.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2021.

The Canadian Press

'Devastating' residential school grave discoveries invite London-area questions, band chief says


The discovery of hundreds more unmarked children's graves at another former residential school site in Western Canada is "devastating" and invites questions about any unknown graves in Southwestern Ontario, an area Indigenous leader says.

A search has revealed what are thought to be 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School, about 140 km from Regina, just weeks after a similar discovery of 215 unmarked graves was made on the grounds of another former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it, to tell you the truth,” Chief Mark Peters of the Munsee-Delaware Nation, south of London, said Thursday. “It opens a lot of wounds that people may have thought were closing up.”

The grim legacy of Canada's system of church- and government-run residential schools, with their forced assimilation of Indigenous children taken from their families, and often abused, came under renewed and intense public scrutiny following the discovery of the mass grave in B.C.

But the additional discovery of hundreds more such graves in Saskatchewan, left Peters asking when it will end.

“To become aware of the numbers in Kamloops a couple of weeks ago, it felt like quite a blow,” he said. “And now, to find out about this further discovery, is just, when's it going to stop?"

Ontario was home to 18 residential schools in the 1800s and 1900s, including two in Southwestern Ontario — the Mohawk Institute on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford, and the Mount Elgin school, near London on the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.

Some 1,200 children attended the Mount Elgin school, which operated from 1851 until 1946, and later as a day school after 1967. Forced into hard work on the residential school's farm, some children left poignant and painful memories of their experiences scrawled on the walls of a barn that survived the school.

At least five children are known to have died at the residential school.

The grave-site discoveries in Western Canada, Peters said, "surely makes you wonder: Is there more here, too, than what we know?"

"We have a lot of (band) members here who attended that school. People have had some pretty harsh experiences," he said.

Chief Jacqueline French of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation could not be reached for comment Thursday, but has said any search of the grounds for unknown graves would have to be a band decision made in consultation with the community.

Grand Chief Joel Abram of the London-based Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI) said he "wouldn't be surprised" if there are unknown graves at the former Mount Elgin site, and that he'd support further investigation.

“We need to begin that process,” said Abram, a member of the nearby Oneida Nation of the Thames.

“I think it should be driven by the (First) Nations where they are and the survivor’s families," he said. "Consideration has to be given to families from other (First) Nations, too, because we know that kids were sent to schools away from them so they wouldn’t be likely to run away.”

The AIAI represents 20,000 Indigenous people from seven member communities, including several from Southwestern Ontario.

The residential school system operated well into the 1900s, removing about 150,000 Indigenous children from their families.

More than 4,100 children died at the schools, officials have reported.

Crisis support for survivors and others affected by residential schools is available through a 24/7 hotline, at 1-866-925-4419.

- The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada

Calvi Leon, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, London Free Press

Author of report on residential school cemeteries surprised finds didn't happen earlier

Dr. Scott Hamilton, author of "Where are the Children buried?" is surprised attempts weren't made sooner to find residential school graves.

Author of the article:Heather Polischuk
Publishing date:Jun 24, 2021 • 

A group of girls in a cooking class at the Marieval residential school. (Photo courtesy General collection of the Societe historique de Saint-Boniface)

When Dr. Scott Hamilton with Thunder Bay’s Lakehead University heard the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action in 2015, he anticipated a rush to use his and his colleagues’ findings to locate graves of Indigenous children who died while at Canadian residential schools.

That didn’t happen.

“I’m a little surprised,” said Hamilton, professor and author of “Where are the Children buried?”, submitted in 2015 for use by the TRC. “I was kind of anticipating this kind of national reaction in 2015 but it didn’t really come. And I kind of thought, OK, well, it will eventually. The years go by and then spring of 2021 and the Kamloops story broke and captured international attention, and that kind of forced a mobilization on the part of provincial and federal and territorial governments. And it’s now this mad scramble of, ‘OK, we have information about one of at least 130 or more schools. What about the remainder?’ Today, we had the other shoe fall.”

That shoe — the finding of 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Residential School — occurred on Cowessess First Nation, with details provided to the public on Thursday.

Cowessess First Nation, Sask.: Using ground-penetrating radar, evidence of 751 unmarked graves have been located to date at the site of the former Marieval Residential School on what is now Cowessess First Nation land. Photo provided by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations on June 24, 2021. 

While there is some question as to exactly how many bodies lie on the site, most are believed to be children who attended the school.

The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) has called the find “the most significantly substantial to date in Canada.”

It’s been six years since Hamilton submitted his final report — one which used existing records and research by others combined with satellite technology to try to figure out precisely where the nation’s residential school cemeteries are located. Using freely accessible satellite imagery like Google Earth, Hamilton was able to pinpoint numerous locations he believes are cemeteries.

His 43-page report also delved into the history of the schools in a bid to understand the high mortality rates connected with them — not a simple task given sporadic record-keeping by those connected with the schools.

VIDEO Lakehead University professor Scott Hamilton says residential schools maintained minimal documentation of burial sites and conducted burials on an 'ad-hoc' basis.

A 1909 report by the then-chief medical officer with Indian Affairs calculated an annual death rate between 1892 and 1908 among select residential schools of 8,000 per 100,000 — far above the 430 per 100,000 noted for Canadian children in the 1901 census.

While all Canadians experienced high mortality rates during Spanish flu and tuberculosis epidemics, Hamilton found such situations were exacerbated by the the crowded, unsanitary and overall poor conditions of residential schools.

“On one level, it’s kind of a perfect storm,” he said. “So we have a very, very poorly developed public health infrastructure throughout much of the mid-1800s through to the mid-1900s. We have Indigenous communities that are epidemiologically vulnerable to all of these communicable diseases. We have a pretty clear indication that a number of these diseases were impacting the communities from which these kids came. And we pluck up kids from a number of different communities and cram them into a single school — poorly ventilated, poorly heated, poor diet — and of course these diseases are going to just explode like wildfire within those places.”

A photograph of some religious and pupils of the Marieval school during a ceremony. (Photo courtesy General collection of the Societe historique de Saint-Boniface) PHOTO BY GILMOUR, KIER

He said an element of systemic racism factors into a failure to notify many families of children’s deaths. Equally troubling was the fact the federal government often refused to pay to have children’s bodies returned to their home communities due to cost, calling on parents — most of whom were impoverished — to pay the costs if they wished the bodies returned home.

Hamilton said there remain important lessons to be learned from the tragic legacy of residential schools — as reinforced by the TRC’s calls to action — including “the absolute necessity for education about this aspect of Canadian history.”

“There is a key component of the calls (to action) that talks about the need for education, and that is still not appropriately addressed,” he said.

In a social media post, the FSIN provided phone numbers for those grappling with emotional distress as a result of the discoveries. Those in need of support can call the Indian Residential School Survivors Society at 1-800-721-0066, toll free, or the 24-hour Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.

Regina woman walking to Kamloops to honour residential school victims, survivors

"All those horrifying stories that you can't even imagine, are true, and (we think about) how they survived that and how strong they are to survive that, but how broken and lost we are."

Author of the article:Jennifer Ackerman
Publishing date:Jun 24, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation

Richelle Dubois and her 18-year-old son James are walking from Regina to Kamloops as a way to honour and heal from the recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School near the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. Photo by Richelle Dubois.

As Richelle Dubois and her 18-year-old son James make their way on foot from the Regina Indian Industrial School, on the city’s outskirts, all the way to Kamloops B.C., they talk, cry and reflect on the legacy and trauma of residential schools.

“We think about the children. We think about how it affected us. How it still effects us. What our grandparents went through,” said Dubois from the side of the Trans-Canada just outside of Moose Jaw on Thursday afternoon. “All those horrifying stories that you can’t even imagine, are true, and (we think about) how they survived that and how strong they are to survive that, but how broken and lost we are.”

The pair are walking from Regina to Kamloops as a way to honour and heal from the recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School near the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.

But on Wednesday, they had to add the discovery of 751 more unmarked graves at the Marieval Residential School on Saskatchewan’s Cowessess First Nation to their healing journey.

“It’s heartbreaking — shocking and heartbreaking and unbelievable, but real. This is our reality,” said Dubois, whose father attended the residential school on Cowessess.

“Other people are just now noticing and seeing what we’ve always known our whole lives. I’m glad to see that people are seeing the genocide in Canada, the genocide that we see on a day-to-day basis.”

Richelle Dubois of Pasqua First Nation stands for a portrait at the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp across from the Saskatchewan Legislative Building on Sept. 12, 2018

Dubois’ son Haven was 14 years old when he died on May 20, 2015. His body was found in an east Regina ravine. Although Regina police have said they have no evidence of foul play, Dubois believes her son was murdered and that police didn’t properly investigate his death — one of many broken systems in a colonial world, she said.

“We still face that genocide through foster care systems, through incarceration, through missing and murdered aboriginal men and women, a lack of investigation, no accountability, the health care system, the education system,” she said. “There’s so much wrong and it stems from residential schools.”

The pair began their journey on June 22 and are detailing their walk on social media with photos and updates. They do not have an end date in mind, focusing on the journey of healing instead of the destination.

“Knowing what it’s like to lose your children, it’s not something that anybody should have to face,” said Dubois through tears. “I walk for our children, all of our children.”

Richelle Dubois and her 18-year-old son James are walking from Regina to Kamloops as a way to honour and heal from the recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School near the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. Photo by Richelle Dubois.

Various items along the fence line of the Regina Indian Industrial School (RIIS) cemetery on Thursday, June 24, 2021 in Regina. PHOTO BY TROY FLEECE /Regina Leader-Post

In a social media post, the FSIN provided phone numbers for those grappling with emotional distress as a result of the discoveries. Those in need of support can call the Indian Residential School Survivors Society at 1-800-721-0066, toll free, or the 24-hour Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.

Mandryk: Cowessess residential school gravesite a reckoning for us all

A day of reckoning has arrived.

“We had concentration camps here,” 

 “They were called residential school.”

© Provided by Leader Post Flags mark the site of 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Residential School on what is now Cowessess First Nation land. Photo provided by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations on June 24, 2021.

The potential of 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School on Cowessess First Nation demands we see this historical atrocity for what it always was.

We cannot look away.

This is the truth part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC report could only verify a “partial number” of 566 children dying at all Saskatchewan residential schools and 3,200 total historic deaths throughout Canada’s shameful Indian residential school history. Even before the Cowessess discovery, last month’s finding of 215 graves at the site of the former Kamloops residential school put that number in doubt.

But the issue isn’t the statistics. It is so much bigger than that.

What’s far more important is the understanding that we probably will never have a final number because governments, churches and society didn’t think Indigenous children worth counting … or, as it turns out, worthy of a proper burial.

“Today, they are unmarked graves,” Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme said Thursday. “The Catholic Church removed these headstones.”

By way of injecting as much accuracy and fairness into this tragedy as he possibly could, Delorme repeatedly stressed Thursday this was not a “mass gravesite.” He carefully explained the science of the ground-penetrating radar that covered 41,000 square meters and comes with a 10-per-cent margin of error. For that reason, the so-far identified graves may not be the full 751 but certainly fall higher than 600.

Delorme further acknowledged some of these graves may contain the remains of community adults buried at this site before the school’s existence or after it was built.

But Delorme’s grace in not wanting to be perceived as exaggerating should not detract from the reckoning this news must bring about.

Video: Discovery of unmarked graves at Saskatchewan residential school site announced (Leader Post)

This is not about a specific number. This is about a specific truth — for decades, children buried here were stripped of their families, culture and religion.

Injustices against Indigenous children were not just something that happened when the Marieval Indian Residential School opened in 1899. It happened through its history. This is as much of a reality as are the children that now lie in unmarked graves in Cowessess because they were not deemed important enough to send their bodies home to their families.

Delorme on Thursday graciously acknowledged “there are many who agree to disagree” but that “there is no doubt the Roman Catholic Church has a profound impact” on his community; a community that will continue to struggle as it tries to heal.

“The more we put names to them, the more it is going to hurt,” Delorme said.

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Chief Bobby Cameron chose words far more direct. During Thursday’s online press conference that attracted journalists from all around the world, Cameron spared no one’s feelings by calling this a genocide on Canadian soil.

“We had concentration camps here,” Cameron said. “They were called residential school.”

Cameron’s demands were certainly in no way unreasonable, calling for “something more than an apology” including further identifying gravesites and access to church records.

There should be no denying the hurt being felt by all First Nations people. We all need to see this day as the reckoning it very much is.

Sadly, some still consumed by the darkness of their own anger, hate and racism would prefer to see this story remain in the dark. Others will, unhelpfully, attempt to blame this century-long catastrophe on whichever government or party they most dislike today.

But before anyone engages in either, maybe we should heed the thoughts Delorme used to end Thursday’s press conference.

He spoke of his love for his First Nations community and his preference to work toward a solid economic future for his children. His message to white settler neighbours was a simple request they help in the healing.

“The truth is there,” Delorme said. “Everybody has to reset the ignorance or the accidental racism.”

This is a day of reckoning for us all.

Murray Mandryk  is political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

'They made us believe we didn't have souls:' Marieval residential school survivor

A Cowessess First Nation elder is recalling the abusive and dehumanizing experiences she had while attending a residential school in Saskatchewan as news of the hundreds of unmarked graves found at the site rippled around the world.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Florence Sparvier, 80, said Thursday that she spent time at the Marieval Indian Residential School when she was a child.

“They made us believe we didn’t have souls," said Sparvier, who is a knowledge keeper at Cowessess.

“They were putting us down as a people, so we learned how not to like who we were."

She said she was taken to the school by her parents.

“At that time, if the parents didn’t want to allow their children to go to boarding school, one of them had to go to jail. So in order to keep the family together, we went to boarding school.”

On Thursday, Cowessess First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected 751 unmarked graves at the Marieval site. Last month, a First Nation in British Columbia said radar had found what are believed to be the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Sparvier was the third generation of her family to go to the Marieval school, after her mother and her grandmother. She also attended the Lebret Indian Industrial Residential School.

She said the nuns at the Marieval school worked to strip students of their Indigenous knowledge and identity.

“We learned,” she said. “They pounded it into us. And really, they were very mean. When I say pounding, I mean pounding."

The school, about 160 kilometres east of Regina, was built in 1899 by Roman Catholic missionaries. It closed in 1996.

“We had to learn to be a Roman Catholic," Sparvier said. "We couldn’t say our own little blessings the way we said it at home.

"We had our own way of honouring ourselves and Mother Earth in our own homes when we were little, but we had to leave all that.”

Sparvier said the teachers at the residential school were “very condemning” about First Nations people.

Eagleclaw Thom in Ottawa said he cried on the phone with family members as they shared stories of attending Marieval and other residential schools.

Thom, who is from Sakimay First Nation, which borders Cowessess, did not attend Marieval but his father and paternal grandparents did.

To really honour those who lost their childhoods or their lives at the school, he said, action needs to be taken to ensure Indigenous children are now supported, too.

"They are still jailing our kids," he said.

Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations described the residential school system as “a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations people.”

The federation represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan.

“The only crime we ever committed as children was being born Indigenous,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2021.

-- With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Winnipeg

Julia Peterson, The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version had 715 unmarked graves.

The Archdiocese of Regina is apologizing to the people of a Saskatchewan First Nation after the discovery of an estimated 751 unmarked graves at a residential school.

© Cowessess First Nation Don Bolen, the Archbishop of Regina, said words fail him with news of the discovery of an estimated 751 unmarked graves at a former residential school in Saskatchewan.

The discovery of the unmarked graves was made at the site of the former Marieval Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation, east of Regina.

Don Bolen, the archbishop of Regina, said words fail him with news of the discovery.

Read more: Estimated 751 unmarked graves found at former Saskatchewan residential school

“I can only imagine the pain and waves of emotion that you and your people are experiencing right now,” he said in an open letter to the people of Cowessess First Nation and Chief Cadmus Delorme.

“I know that apologies seem a very small step as the weight of past suffering comes into greater light, but I extend that apology again.”

Bolen apologized two years ago to Cowessess First Nation for the failures and sins of the church toward the Cowessess peoples.

He pledged to turn Thursday’s apology into “meaningful, concrete acts.”

“Including assisting in accessing information that will help to provide names and information about those buried in unmarked graves — and to stand by you in whatever way you request.”


Delorme said he spoke with Bolen prior to Thursday’s announcement.

“What we are going to be doing now is we are going to be putting names to these unmarked graves,” he said.

“Don (Bolen) has been to the site a few times and has committed to helping with what we want.”

Bolen said residential schools have left many people deeply wounded and said the truth of the past needs to come out as part of the reconciliation process.

“The gravesite work brings us face to face with the brutal legacy of the Indian residential school system, a product of a colonialist history which has left so much suffering and intergenerational trauma,” Bolen said.

“Even for those of us who were not there or not involved, it is nonetheless the painful legacy that we need to carry.”

Read more: ‘Terribly saddened’ — Trudeau laments residential school graves discovery in Saskatchewan

He said the findings of the unmarked graves by ground-penetrating radar impacts the archdiocese on a deeper level due to the relationship it has with Cowessess.

“Several Cowessess members have been involved in the Archdiocese of Regina’s Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, or have worked with us on projects trying to address the Calls to Action.

“Because of that network of relationships, we feel even more intensely the overwhelm of this moment.”

Delorme also called on Pope Francis to apologize.

“The pope needs to apologize for what has happened to the Marieval Residential School,” Delorme said.

“An apology is one stage of many in the healing journey.”

Video: Cowessess First Nation Chief calls for Pope to apologize for church’s role in residential schools

It follows a similar call following the discovery of the remains of 215 children in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Both schools were run by the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis said on June 6 that he was following the news of the finding in Kamloops “with pain,” but stopped short of an apology.

The national assembly of Catholic bishops in Canada is preparing to send a delegation of Indigenous people to the Vatican for a visit with Pope Francis to discuss Canada’s residential school system and the role the Catholic Church played.

Bolen said the delegation is scheduled to meet with the Pope before the end of the year.

“It would allow Indigenous people to speak directly to Pope Francis for him to hear them and then to respond,” he said.

“I strongly support that that effort and trust that the Pope will speak from his heart.”

Video: Indigenous groups, bishops will meet with the Pope: Archbishop of Regina

Anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience can access the 24-hour, toll-free and confidential National Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419

An additional crisis line has been set up for local community members in light of this news, and can be reached at 306-522-7494.

— With files from Sean Boynton

People complicit in Canada’s residential school deaths should be charged, group says

David Lao 

GLOBAL NEWS

JUNE 24,2021

© Getty Images The Criminal Code of Canada doesn't explicitly mention "hate crime," so how does the system address the problem?

A Native association is demanding charges be laid over the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools, including still-living members of religious orders or governments who were complicit in those deaths.

The demands, made by the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), comes just after the discovery of an estimated 751 unmarked graves at the Marieval Indian Residential School site in Saskatchewan.

The NWAC is also demanding that the sites of former Indian residential schools be declared crime scenes and that an investigation into how each child buried there died -- as well as into who is responsible for their deaths -- be conducted.

Video: Unmarked First Nations graves found at former Saskatchewan residential school

Read more: Estimated 751 unmarked graves found at former Saskatchewan residential school

"In addition, we are demanding that charges be laid against people still living who are found to be the perpetrators of these crimes, including the members of the religious orders that ran the schools, as well as the governments and the churches that we know to be complicit," read a statement from the association on Thursday.

The Marieval school was run and built by the Roman Catholic Church and was funded by the federal government beginning in 1901. According to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation's public records, the school had eight student deaths.

The discovery of the unmarked graves were first announced Wednesday evening after Cowessess First Nation first began using ground-penetrating radar technology in early June.

Video: ‘A pedophile playground’: Survivor details experiences attending Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan

According to Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme, the site was currently being treated as a "crime scene." He said during a press conference that he could not yet confirm whether all of the unmarked graves contain children, with oral stories of adults being buried there as well.

The announcement comes weeks after the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked burial sites at a residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Delorme further clarified during the press conference that the Saskatchewan discoveries are unmarked graves, not a mass gravesite.

Read more: ‘They made us believe we didn’t have souls’: Survivors of Saskatchewan residential school speak out

“In the 1960s, the Catholic Church removed the headstones and today, we have over 600 unmarked graves,” said Delorme.

The NWAC said that the Criminal Code of Canada allows charges to be laid against governments and institutions -- including churches -- "in cases where they have failed to provide the necessaries of life to people who were in their care."

Video: Residential school discoveries highlight Canada’s long road to reconciliation

"In Canada, we live under the rule of law. The law does not allow those who are responsible for the deaths of children to walk free with impunity," the statement said.

Brendan Miller, a special counsel at Foster LLP, told Global News on Thursday that there is "nothing" stopping police from charging those responsible.

Though, the main obstacle preventing any sort of charges from being laid according to Miller is the federal government, who, alongside the RCMP were complicit with the Church.

Many of the rural areas where such residential schools are located have RCMP serving as their main police force, and Miller said there has been evidence of "countless crimes" from way before the discoveries of Kamloops and Marieval -- pointing specifically at the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement in which the government identified over 5,300 alleged abusers, most of whom were never charged.

Video: Cowessess First Nation asks for ‘time to heal’ following discovery of unmarked graves at Saskatchewan residential school

Because of this, Miller said that he doesn’t believe the government “will do the right thing,” and instead previously put out a call demanding for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) following the discovery of the Kamloops burial site.

“The federal government has done little to nothing about this for decades and you know the Indigenous people in Canada knew that these things are going on and instead of supporting them, the federal government tried to suppress it and they continue to suppress it,” said Miller.

Read more: ‘It’s going to take some time’: Residential school survivor Robert Kakakaway reflects on healing

Video: ‘You heard them begging for help’: Survivor of Saskatchewan residential school recalls painful memories

"Now, the discoveries have resulted in all of this coming out and they are not handling this properly."

A legal scholar and advocate from the University of British Columbia previously told Global News shortly after the discovery of the unmarked burial sites in Kamloops that the finding highlighted the need for a formal, legal and human rights framework to investigate similar sites.

“A mass grave is a crime scene, it is not a historic site or a heritage site,” Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond told Global News earlier in June.

“The United Nations has a framework to deal with mass unmarked graves in such situations like Rwanda and other places around the world."

-- With files from Kelly Skjerven

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Anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience can access the 24-hour, toll-free and confidential National Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419

An additional crisis line has been set up for local community members in light of this news, and can be reached at 306-522-7494.

DEVELOPING
‘We will not stop until we find all of our children’: Discovery of 751 unmarked graves only the beginning, say Saskatchewan Indigenous leaders

By Brendan Kennedy Social Justice Reporter
Alex Boyd Calgary Bureau

TORONTO STAR

Thu., June 24, 2021

Workers with ground penetrating radar on Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan. As many as 751 unmarked graves have been detected at the former site of Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1898 until 1997, and was run by the Catholic Church for most of its history.




Warning: This story contains details of residential schools and the abuse that took place there.

With reporters from around the world turning their attention to his small community on Thursday, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme stared calmly into his computer screen and delivered a message for all to hear.

Echoing the words of residential school survivors across the country, he told a virtual news conference, “We always knew that there were graves here.”

This was Cowessess First Nation’s moment to tell its story.

But Delorme knew it was also only one point at the beginning of what will be a very long road, as his community of 4,300 in southeastern Saskatchewan and so many others across Canada reckon with this country’s brutal legacy of residential schools.


“There’s going to be many more stories in the future,” the chief acknowledged.


For the second time in a month, ground-penetrating radar has confirmed what government and church authorities have been accused of trying to suppress for most of Canada’s history.

VIDEO Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme tells CBC News his community would be treating the site "like a crime scene" because of what happened at, and adjacent to, the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

As many as 751 unmarked graves have been detected at the former site of Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1898 until 1997, and was run by the Catholic Church for most of its history.

It’s not yet clear whether all of the graves contain children’s remains, Delorme said.

The community started its investigation less than a week after Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C., announced the discovery of the remains of 215 children on the site of a former residential school.

If Delorme was measured in his tone, Bobby Cameron, the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, was more direct.

“We are seeing the results of the genocide Canada committed,” said Cameron, the head of a federation that represents Saskatchewan’s 74 First Nations.

“We will find more bodies and we will not stop until we find all of our children,” he said. “We will do a search of every Indian residential school site and we won’t stop there. We will also search all of the sanatoriums, Indian hospitals, and all of the sites where our people were taken and abused, tortured, neglected and murdered. We will tell the stories of our children, of our people who died, who were killed by the state and the churches and we won’t stop until we locate all of them.”

The world is watching, Cameron added.


“Canada will be known as a nation who tried to exterminate their First Nations. Now we have evidence. Evidence of what the survivors of Indian Residential Schools have been saying all along, for decades — that they were treated without humanity, that they were tortured and abused, that they saw their classmates die.”

The grave site in what is now Cowessess First Nation was overseen by the Catholic Church from 1886 — 12 years before Marieval opened — until the 1970s, Delorme said. There had been grave markings at some point, but the church removed them in the 1960s, he said.

“Removing headstones is a crime in this country, and we are treating this like a crime scene at the moment,” he added.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Regina said the Cowessess First Nation has told them that in the midst of a dispute in the 1960s between a priest not associated with the Archdiocese and the Cowessess chief at the time, “the priest bulldozed several grave markers.”


In 2019, the Archdiocese gave $70,000 to Cowessess First Nation to improve the site and help identify unmarked graves. The spokesperson said that archival death records covering a period from 1885 to 1952 were also previously given to Cowessess.

In his remarks on Thursday, Delorme said he was “optimistic” the church will work with his community, but that he is still waiting for them to hand over records related to Marieval.

“We have full faith that the Roman Catholic Church will release our records,” he said. “They have not told us, ‘No.’ We just don’t have them yet.”

Delorme also called on Pope Francis to apologize to survivors of Marieval and their descendants. “An apology is one stage of many in the healing journey,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously called on Pope Francis to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools, as the United and Anglican churches have already done. Francis has not heeded those calls.

As far as Betty Nippi-Albright is concerned, the time for platitudes is over.

Speaking toward the end of an emotional day, the Saskatchewan New Democrat MLA, who herself attended a residential school for nine years, declared the time for expressions of sympathy to be at an end.

  

In 2019, the Archdiocese gave $70,000 to Cowessess First Nation to improve the site and help identify unmarked graves. The spokesperson said that archival death records covering a period from 1885 to 1952 were also previously given to Cowessess.

In his remarks on Thursday, Delorme said he was “optimistic” the church will work with his community, but that he is still waiting for them to hand over records related to Marieval.

“We have full faith that the Roman Catholic Church will release our records,” he said. “They have not told us, ‘No.’ We just don’t have them yet.”

Delorme also called on Pope Francis to apologize to survivors of Marieval and their descendants. “An apology is one stage of many in the healing journey,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously called on Pope Francis to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools, as the United and Anglican churches have already done. Francis has not heeded those calls.

As far as Betty Nippi-Albright is concerned, the time for platitudes is over.


Speaking toward the end of an emotional day, the Saskatchewan New Democrat MLA, who herself attended a residential school for nine years, declared the time for expressions of sympathy to be at an end.

“We don’t need moral support. What we need is dollars to help us cope, help us heal from the trauma that we’re still experiencing today.”

She called the recent funding to search for graves a good start, but said more is needed to ensure that Indigenous people are able to access equitable medical and mental health services.

The push for an end to systemic racism will be harder, she said.

“For mainstream folks, what they can do is, whether it’s signing petitions or writing to their elected officials, demand that they actually provide some real support rather than just ‘we’re really sorry.’”



Regina Archbishop Don Bolen was not available for an interview Thursday, but in an open letter to Delorme posted to the Archdiocese’s website, Bolen reiterated a previous apology “for the failures and sins of Church leaders and staff in the past towards the people of Cowessess.”

“I know that apologies seem a very small step as the weight of past suffering comes into greater light,” he writes, “but I extend that apology again, and pledge to do what we can to turn that apology into meaningful concrete acts, including assisting in accessing information that will help to provide names and information about those buried in unmarked graves and to stand by you in whatever way you request.”

Delorme stressed the Marieval site did not contain a mass grave, but unmarked graves roughly one metre by one metre. He said they used the same ground-penetrating radar technology used in Kamloops, partnering with experts from Saskatchewan Polytechnic, which estimated a margin of error of between 10 and 15 per cent.

Delorme said this first phase of the investigation involved a search of 44,000 square metres. They will continue to search other parts of the site, he said, adding their goal is to identify each of the remains and mark all of the graves.

“This is going to be years in the making.”



Last month’s discovery in Kamloops has led to a renewed reckoning over Canada’s residential schools history and fresh calls to search the grounds of all former sites across the country, and even in the United States.

A statement from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation Thursday offered their support for their fellow First Nation.