It was an announcement in 2021 that changed Canada’s conversation about residential schools.
Now, nearly five years later, there are still no definitive answers in the investigation into the discovery of 215 suspected unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site.
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And, the B.C. First Nation leading the investigation says there may never be “full consensus” on what happens at the site.
In an update this week, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc said its ongoing investigation has identified some areas with “signatures that resemble burials,” while ruling out others.
The nation says the next phase — deciding whether to excavate potential graves or preserve the land as a sacred place of memory and healing — will require extensive consultation with the dozens of First Nations involved.
The nation says any exhumation would involve forensic analysis, possible DNA work and the return of remains to home communities — a process it calls “extremely complex and sensitive.”
George Abbott, a former BC Liberal cabinet minister and now serving on the board of the BC Treaty Commission, says those delicate decisions must rest with Indigenous communities.
“I think it’s important that the Tk’emlúps nation has the opportunity to discuss both within their own nation and with other nations that were impacted,” Abbott told 1130 NewsRadio.
“There needs to be a thoughtful discussion about the future of those lands … without pressure from the outside.”
At its peak, more than 500 children from 38 Indigenous Nations across B.C. attended the former residential school in Kamloops, according to Tk’emlúps.
“Remember, residential schools didn’t occur in a vacuum. They were part of a destructive and compounding set of public policies that, for a long period of time, marginalized First Nations in the province.”
A report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 documented widespread abuse in the Canadian residential school system and at least 4,100 deaths.
The commission cited records of at least 51 children dying at the Kamloops institution between 1914 and 1963.
Despite this, Abbott says he’s hearing “destructive” rhetoric he hasn’t heard in decades.
“There are some people who want to set back our path towards reconciliation. One of the ways they have tried to do that is by questioning the legacy of residential schools and whether any kids actually ever died.”
Abbott also added that focusing solely on exact numbers or definitive timelines risks missing what is already well established.
“To try to put in numerical terms what exactly happened is never going to entirely satisfy those who somehow claim the residential school experience was a positive one.”
“The broader story is the important one here, particularly the context in which the denial of Indigenous rights in a whole range of areas in their lives, including how they would be educated.”
Tk’emlúps says the investigation remains ongoing and has involved ground-penetrating radar, LIDAR scanning, specially trained dogs, and the review of records from the Catholic Church as well as federal and provincial archives.
The Kamloops residential school operated from 1890 to 1969 under the Catholic Church, before the federal government ran it as a day school until its closure in 1978.
1130 NewsRadio requested an interview with Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, but the nation declined.
