Residential school timelines, unmarked graves part of new web resource for survivors

A new onlineresource to help residential school survivors find information about compensation, unmarked gravesitesand other issues was launched Tuesday.

The development comes asaCanadian delegation ofsurvivors andCatholic bishops prepares to visit Pope Francis at the Vatican this month and follows news this week thatfederal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller has pledged to release more documents.

The new collection of online resources has been curated by the University of British Columbia'sIndian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre in Vancouver.

The centre's academic director, former Saskatchewan judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, says she hopes itwill keep everyone focused on the rights and needs of survivors. That includes the need for fullrecord disclosure and compensation.

"This is a very important moment in Canadian history, and this collection is important," she said. "There needs to be accurate, publicly accessible, transparent information."

The portal includes detailed timelines of the landmark 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreementand the Catholic Church's court case against the federal government. In that case, a Saskatchewan judge approved a controversial $1.2 million buyout of the church'sremaining financial commitments to survivors. The federal government appealed the decisionbut then dropped the challengebefore it got to court.

Many of the documents were unearthed over the summer during a CBC News investigation. Others are gleaned from papers written by former Truth and Reconciliation Commission counsel Tom McMahon and others.

Turpel-Lafond, amember of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nationin central Saskatchewan, said the new web portal is only a partial record. She says the Catholic Church and federal government are still withholding documents.

"We just urge the federal government and the Catholic entities to have full transparency. This has to come out," she said. The site invites further document submissions from survivors and the public.

Miller, in an interview with The Canadian Press, promised this week to release more documents and saidthat could happen in the next month or two.

The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations issued a news release on Monday evening saying Miller's promise is a good "first step" but that the promised documents form only a small minority of those still being kept from survivors.

The delegation from Canada is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican later this month, provided there is no change in travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 omicron variant.

The groupis expected to request that Francis come to Canada to issue along-awaited apology for the church's central role in the residential school system. Most survivors interviewed recently by CBC News say the apology is important but can only come with full compensation and document disclosure.