The Trudeau Liberals are expanding a multi-million dollar fund to document claims thousands of children died in Indian Residential Schools. Cabinet in 2022 budgeted $238.8 million for a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund, per Blacklock’s Reporter. The program was to aid in “locating burial sites linked to former Residential Schools” and expire in 2025.Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree in a statement acknowledged First Nations complaints that a $500,000 limit per grant application was insufficient.“I apologize for any hurt or re-traumatization these changes may have caused,” wrote Anandasangaree.“We know this funding and these supports will never be enough to fully repair the intergenerational trauma.”Spending to date totals $216.5 million. An April 1 regulation that capped individual grants at $500,000 including “up to $300,000 for field work” has been repealed. The department did not detail any new overall budget.“Canada’s recent changes to the fund fell short of our solemn commitment to finding the children,” the indigenous relations department said in a notice. “After engaging with indigenous leaders and communities we have heard your concerns loud and clear. Our intention was to fund as many initiatives as possible but we recognize the lack of flexibility in these changes was a mistake.”The fund was launched after the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in Kamloops, BC, in 2021 announced the discovery of 215 children’s graves hidden at a Residential School site. Remains were identified using ground penetrating radar, it said.No remains have been recovered despite a $7.9 million grant for field work. The First Nation has revised the claim of 215 graves to some 200 “potential burials.”“From the outset of the first findings in Tk’emlups we committed to ensuring Canada’s unwavering support for survivors, their families and communities to commence the journey of healing,” said the department.The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated 4,100 children died at Residential Schools that operated to 1996. The Senate Indigenous peoples committee in a July 25 report acknowledged the figures were unsubstantiated and contradicted by some coroners’ reports.“Indigenous communities need to access historical records to identify missing children who may have died while attending Residential Schools and whose remains may be located in unmarked graves and burial sites across Canada,” said a committee report on “missing children” and “missing records.”The committee recommended “that Library and Archives Canada review its holdings of death records from before 1967 to identify Indigenous children who may have died while at Residential Schools.”
