Canada’s minister for Indian and Crown Relations says the federal government will soon release some of the residential school records that it has been criticized for withholding to a national archives center.
Marc Miller also says there is no evidence that the liberal cabinet, including former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, has been informed of the 2015 decision to drop a court case that freed the Catholic Church from compensating survivors.
“Knowing what we know today, it doesn’t seem right,” he told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.
In October, the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation said Ottawa had yet to provide key documents detailing the specific histories of each government-funded and church-run institution that made up the residential school system.
The statement came in response to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telling indigenous leaders in Kamloops, BC that the federal government had turned over all records in its possession, a claim that the Winnipeg-based center said was not exact.
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Among the missing records, he said, are what are known as school narratives: reports compiled by Ottawa describing the history of an individual institution, including its administration, statistics on the number of indigenous children forced to attend, as well as key events such as reports of abuse. .
There are eight such schedules for schools operating in British Columbia and Alberta that Miller says the government has so far refused to disclose based on third-party legal obligations it had with Catholic Church entities. The government has now decided to release them, he said.
“It is our obligation to survivors first and foremost to take precedence over that obligation,” Miller said.
The minister says the reports will be sent to the center within 30 days, and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has been notified.
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Both the center and survivors of the residential school have long said that Ottawa is withholding other pending records, such as supporting documents used during the evaluation process to compensate indigenous children who experienced abuse in the institutions.
Miller said the government will review what other residential school records it has withheld based on what the minister says were too broadly applied legal principles of privilege, which may in fact be published.
“It has created a whirlwind of legitimate suspicion towards the federal government.”
One document that he claims to have recently revised was a 2015 agreement to release the Catholic Church from its in-kind payments and services worth the remaining $ 79 million owed to survivors under the historic Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Included in that was a commitment to embark on a “best efforts” fundraising campaign to raise $ 25 million, which ultimately raised only about $ 3 million.
That years-long agreement has been called into question after First Nations confirmed discoveries of unmarked graves at former school sites, prompting survivors, Indigenous leaders and non-Indigenous Canadians to renew requests from the Catholic Church for reparations. .
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At the time of the agreement, the federal government led by former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to court against a corporation of Catholic entities named in the 2006 agreement to resolve a dispute between lawyers over the scope of an agreement to allow the Church groups steer clear of their remaining obligations.
A Saskatchewan judge ruled in July 2015 that an agreement had been reached that relieved Catholic entities of their pending responsibilities to compensate survivors in exchange for $ 1.2 million.
A month later, Ottawa notified that it would appeal. But when that appeal was filed, the country was hit by a federal election campaign, which ended in October with the Trudeau Liberals ousting Harper in a majority victory.
Trudeau’s first cabinet was sworn in on November 4, 2015. He appointed Wilson-Raybould, later elected as a liberal in British Columbia, as the country’s first indigenous justice minister.
Six days later, a government attorney told the court that he would drop his appeal.
After reviewing the matter, Miller said what was filed became known as a protection appeal, which was withdrawn after the Deputy Justice Minister approved a release agreement on October 30, 2015.
He says it was the Harper government that decided to release Catholic entities from their obligations, and officials went to work to reach an agreement.
Miller says there is no evidence that Wilson-Raybould or anyone in the cabinet was aware of the decision. Given the relatively small amount of money involved, and considering the possibility that the issue was not seen as political, he says, “I can see how it happened.”
“It shouldn’t have happened. And then you find yourself in a situation where you want to blame, I don’t want to be in that position. “
“It represents a moral failure for both parties. That includes the Catholic Church’s decision to limit their compensation, but also on behalf of Canada, we should have appealed. “
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca