New Alliance Supports Indigenous Communities in Indian Residential School Missing Children Investigations

We are a group of scholarly associations and organizations whose members have expertise and experience relevant to the search for children who died and went missing while attending Indian Residential Schools: the Indigenous Heritage Circle, the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Archaeological Association, Geophysics for Truth, the Canadian Permafrost Association, and the Canadian Association for Biological Anthropology. Together, we call ourselves the Alliance to Support Indian Residential School Missing Children Investigations. Drawing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we are committed to supporting Indigenous communities along this difficult journey. We recognize the moral obligation of non-Indigenous members of Canadian society to redress the wrongs that have been and are still being perpetrated by the residential school system, as the Canadian state is built on the wealth extracted from Indigenous lands. Canada has a legal obligation under Bill C-15 to ensure federal laws are consistent with UNDRIP, which means Canada must provide redress for the loss of language, culture, and other intergenerational harms of the residential school system. Such redress must go beyond simply financial compensation and include supporting communities to revitalize their languages and cultures.

The full statement is available on the Canadian Archeological Associations website.