Marc Miller, Crown-indigenous relations minister, says talks are ongoing on the disclosure of old Justice Canada records dealing with residential schools..The records were discovered last year in lockers in Yellowknife and Vancouver, according to information provided to CBCNews by Officials and Indigenous Relations (CIRNA) officials..As a court-appointed agency and federal officials scrutinize the boxes’ contents, CIRNA Minister Marc Miller said searches are ongoing within his and other government departments to locate any documents related to the residential school era..“The state they were found in is entirely unacceptable,” Miller said in an interview with CBC News. .“It is part of this process that I continue as the minister … That work isn’t complete and is still ongoing — knowing any piece of information related to that time period can help in closure and getting an understanding of the truth.”.The first quantity of documents —125 bankers boxes — was discovered in June 2021 by the storage facility owner in Yellowknife. The owner was clearing out a unit previously owned by a now-defunct survivor healing group called the Healing Drum. .Andrew Fox, the information and privacy commissioner for the Northwest Territories, said the owner contacted the territory’s information commissioner, which in turn contacted the regional CIRNA office..The documents were related to indigenous boarding school settlements and a compensation process for abuse known as the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), CIRNA found..In the summer of 2021, 107 boxes found in an Iron Mountain storage facility in Vancouver were also flagged. According to the CIRNA official, the last batch of records arrived in Ottawa in February 2022..Due to the strict privacy guidelines and the handling of IAP-related records, the CIRNA referred the matters to two judges overseeing the settlement agreement with the residential school. In January, they directed class-action management firm Epiq to review the files and make recommendations regarding their handling..There are three broad categories of files in the second batch: hard copies of records from residential schools, such as maps and attendance records already existing in CIRNA’s database, records concerning non-residential schools, such as community visits, conditions of health services, and maps of remote northern communities, and academic papers that have been made publicly available..The official said that an initial assessment found no previously unreleased information in any of the records..“They are being kept securely as they should be … and held with the proper entities in a careful way,” said Miller. .Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.abrown@westernstandard.news.,.Twitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
