A Grim Discovery Sparks a National Reckoning
Three years ago, Canada was jolted by a grim discovery: in May 2021 the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar (GPR) had detected 215 suspected unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The image of tiny shoes and orange shirts laid at makeshift memorials gripped the nation and the world. “People have been forced to acknowledge this absolutely horrible chapter in the racist history of Canada,” reflects Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, recalling how that moment triggered a profound awakening. No public school in Canada (or the United States) has a graveyard out back, Phillip notes – yet for decades Indigenous families have spoken of children who went to residential school and never came home. The Kamloops findings, soon followed by similar announcements at other former residential school sites, thrust those truths into the public consciousness.
What followed was a national reckoning. The summer of 2021 saw an outpouring of grief and anger. Communities across the country began searching the grounds of former Indian Residential Schools for unmarked graves, guided by survivor testimony and archival records. Over the next two years, thousands of potential graves would be located at dozens of sites from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. The discoveries were “deeply disturbing,” Phillip says, but they also sparked widespread calls for justice. By autumn 2021, Canadian flags flew at half-mast for months, a new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30) was observed, and even the Pope ultimately traveled to Canada to apologize for the Church’s role. As one journalist noted, the initial surveys “would help spawn a new holiday, prompt an official visit by Pope Francis, and result in Canadian flags being kept at half-mast for a record-breaking five consecutive months”. Yet amid these symbolic responses, the central truth remained: children had died in these institutions and been buried anonymously, their families often never informed. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) years earlier had documented at least 4,100 children who died due to abuse, neglect, illness and accidents in residential schools (out of roughly 150,000 who attended). Indigenous leaders have long maintained the actual toll is much higher. Now, at last, Canadians were confronting the hard evidence of that loss – “danger, violence and illness at the schools,” in the words of Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray – and demanding answers about how this could have happened on such a scale.
Communities Leading the Search for the Missing Children
In the absence of clear records or previous government action, it has been Indigenous communities – survivors, Elders, and their leaders – who have led the difficult search for answers. Across the country, First Nations have launched their own investigations into the fate of the missing children, combining modern technology with oral history. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys have been central to these efforts: teams methodically push GPR carts over former school grounds and adjacent cemeteries, looking for telltale disturbances in the soil. The technique, while powerful, has limits – it cannot confirm human remains or determine how someone died . What it can show are patterns: rows or clusters of “repeated, grave-shaped anomalies” below ground, especially in areas identified by survivors or records as likely burial sites. Each such anomaly is a potential unmarked grave. Armed with these tools and knowledge, community-led teams have begun to map and quantify what survivors have always maintained: many children who were taken to residential schools never made it out alive.
From British Columbia to Quebec, the past two years have seen a steady stream of announcements of preliminary findings. In early 2023, for example, Wauzhushk Onigum Nation in northwestern Ontario became the first community in that province to report a major finding: 171 “plausible burials” identified through GPR around the former St. Mary’s Residential School near Kenora. The news sent shockwaves through a region where no residential school graves had been publicly confirmed before. “A tragic first for Ontario,” one headline read. The discovery “retraumatized” the local First Nation, whose members had long heard stories of children dying at the school. Yet it also validated those oral histories and spurred further investigations in the area. In Saskatchewan, the Star Blanket Cree Nation announced in early 2023 that a GPR search of the former Lebret Industrial School grounds had detected over 2,000 anomalies, and an accompanying excavation unearthed a fragment of a child’s jawbone – physical evidence of a long-ago burial. That bone, later dated to about 125 years old and belonging to a child perhaps 4 to 6 years of age, is one of the only confirmed remains recovered since the searches began. For Star Blanket survivors, it was heartbreaking validation of stories they had passed down for generations.
Some of the most extensive work has unfolded in British Columbia, home to the largest number of residential schools in Canada. There, multiple First Nations have pursued investigations at former school sites, often in collaboration with archaeologists and forensic specialists. On Vancouver Island, the Penelakut Tribe (formerly Kuper Island Residential School, infamously nicknamed “Alcatraz” for its isolated island location) revealed in 2025 that its multi-year investigation has already identified hundreds of unmarked burials on Penelakut Island. Archival research confirmed at least 171 children died while attending Kuper Island school – a number 50 more than had been documented previously by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). Of those deaths, 16 are deemed suspicious, warranting further inquiry. Using GPR and LiDAR mapping, Penelakut’s technical team has surveyed three of six areas of interest on the island, detecting 342 unmarked graves so far. The findings were categorized by confidence: 111 were deemed “possible” graves, 133 “probable,” and 98 “likely” based on the GPR signatures. And there is more ground yet to cover – three additional suspected burial sites on the island still await investigation. The sheer scale of these interim results shocked many Canadians, even after two years of similar announcements. For the Penelakut Tribe, however, it was a somber confirmation of what survivors had long asserted about Kuper Island: children vanished there under tragic circumstances, and many were laid to rest in graves that were never acknowledged by school authorities.
Other communities in B.C. have reported findings on a similar theme. In the southern interior, the Williams Lake First Nation has been investigating the St. Joseph’s Mission site, where an initial GPR survey in 2021 found 93 potential graves. The Nation later expanded the search and uncovered additional anomalies across a broader area, prompting local leadership to issue 26 Calls to Action demanding greater support, accountability, and access to records in the wake of their findings. On the central coast, the shíshálh Nation (Sechelt) announced in April 2023 that about 40 unmarked graves of children were detected near the former St. Augustine’s Residential School. This finding, the Nation noted, “aligned with longstanding survivor accounts” of children dying or disappearing at the institution. And on Vancouver Island’s west coast, Tseshaht First Nation revealed in early 2023 that a search of the Alberni Indian Residential School site had confirmed 67 student deaths from archival records, alongside 17 potential unmarked graves identified in the areas scanned (only a small fraction of the total site). Each announcement adds to a growing picture that spans many communities but tells a consistent story. “There isn’t a single former residential school we’ve looked at where we haven’t found something,” observed one Indigenous leader. In many cases, survivors’ stories of lost children have guided exactly where to look long before any radar device was deployed. Now technology is catching up with oral history, and the result is a heartbreaking validation.
Crucially, not every investigation finds evidence – which in itself can be a relief or bring its own questions. Some communities have completed GPR surveys and not found anomalies, or found only old cemetery plots with headstones intact. These instances often don’t make headlines, but Indigenous leaders emphasize that a lack of GPR findings does not mean nothing happened. It may mean, for example, that burials were elsewhere (perhaps transferred to family or band cemeteries) or that limited searches missed areas. In Manitoba, a high-profile search at the Pine Creek First Nation illustrates the complexity. Pine Creek survivors had identified a church on the reserve – Our Lady of Seven Sorrows – as a possible site of hidden burials, based on oral testimonies. GPR in 2022 did find 14 anomalies in the church’s dirt-floor basement (along with dozens more in the surrounding graveyard). This raised terrible suspicions that the church basement itself might conceal graves or a crime scene. The community invited an archaeological team to conduct excavations in summer 2023. When no human remains were found in the basement dig, the news was seized on by some as proof that the fears were unfounded. Pine Creek Chief Derek Nepinak urged a more thoughtful view. “The results of the excavation take nothing away from the difficult truths experienced by our families who attended the residential school in Pine Creek,” he said, noting that the search was pursued to get answers with “no certainty about the outcome.” The other 57 anomalies on known burial grounds at Pine Creek still need investigation. The Pine Creek experience underscores that GPR findings must be interpreted carefully – anomalies can turn out to be tree roots, soil disturbances, or in some cases old graves unrelated to residential schools. It also shows the care with which communities are approaching this work: even an outcome of “no remains found” is handled with respect for survivors’ stories and a resolve to continue searching elsewhere. As Cathrine Tunney wrote for CBC, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” when it comes to these missing children.
From Anomalies to Truth: Science, Survivors, and Nuance
Each new discovery of possible graves has been accompanied by careful language, reflection, and sometimes fraught public debate. Early media reports in 2021 often spoke of “mass graves” or stated that the “remains of X children” had been found – phrasing that, while capturing the tragedy, was technically inaccurate and at times misleading. In reality, as experts point out, ground radar finds disturbances, not remains. No bodies have been exhumed from the Kamloops site or most others; rather, what communities have found are signatures consistent with graves. Over time, Indigenous leaders and technicians have encouraged more precise terminology. Many now refer to GPR results as “potential” or “plausible” graves, or simply as “anomalies,” to “avoid overstatement” and reflect the limits of the technology. For example, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leadership in Kamloops revised its language: whereas the 2021 announcement spoke of 215 unmarked graves, the nation later clarified that it had located about 200 “anomalies” that are “consistent with unmarked burials”. This doesn’t change the likely reality that children were buried at Kamloops – it simply states it with appropriate caution until further steps (like excavations or DNA analysis) are considered. As the CedarVía research group notes, “early headlines” too often conflated anomalies with confirmed remains, whereas now communities and responsible media try to “avoid conflating the two”.
This nuance is important not only for scientific accuracy, but also for honoring survivors’ testimonies without giving ammunition to those who seek to deny the tragedy. None of the uncertainty about numbers or methods undermines the core truth, long testified by survivors: children died at these schools – often far from home – and many were buried in poorly marked or unmarked graves, their families never informed. This fact is beyond dispute, supported by thousands of survivor accounts and documented in church and government records. The role of GPR and other investigations is to fill in the details – to locate where these children are and, if possible, to name them – not to prove whether they died. Unfortunately, as more searches have been announced, a small but vocal segment of the public has seized on the lack of excavated remains to promote residential school denialism. On social media and even in some publications, these skeptics claim the entire story of unmarked graves is a “hoax” or “fabrication.” They note, correctly, that no mass grave pits have been uncovered, and then incorrectly leap to arguing that maybe no children are buried at all – willfully ignoring the extensive documentary evidence of deaths and burials. This backlash has been painful and angering to survivors, who see it as the latest evolution of attempts to erase Indigenous suffering. “Canada is going through a transformative and ideological struggle at the moment,” says Chief Stewart Phillip, “and the right wing is vehemently denying the hard scientific evidence of the discovery of these unmarked graves.” He and others describe the denial movement as an attack on truth and an impediment to reconciliation.
Indigenous advocates are pushing back with both education and calls for accountability. They stress the “multiple, independent lines of evidence” that support the findings: survivor testimony, archival records of student deaths, cemetery maps, and now geophysical data all point to the same conclusion. In other words, the evidence that thousands of children died in the residential school system doesn’t rest on GPR alone – GPR is simply corroborating what was already known in broad strokes. At the same time, community leaders are transparent about the need for “accuracy and humility” in presenting findings. When numbers are preliminary or evidence is still circumstantial, that uncertainty is now often stated plainly. This careful approach protects the integrity of both the survivors’ truths and the technical work being done. It’s a deliberate effort to not give fodder to denialists through any over-claiming. As Phyllis Webstad, the Secwépemc woman who founded Orange Shirt Day, bluntly puts it: “It’s unfortunate that we have deniers. Denialism is the last step in genocide. The genocide in Canada is not finished yet, because we have deniers – and once we can deal with them then maybe we can say the genocide is done.” Strong words, but they capture the feeling in Indigenous communities that refusal to acknowledge these deaths is an extension of the original harm. Webstad’s message – delivered at a March for the Children event on Vancouver Island – was that Canada cannot truly heal until it faces this history without flinching or false equivocation.
There are even calls to take legal measures against the most egregious forms of denial. In her final report, Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray warned of a “settler amnesty” and “culture of impunity” that has too often surrounded the deaths of Indigenous children. She noted that some individuals have gone so far as to trespass on sites and dig in the ground in twisted attempts to “disprove” the existence of graves – acts that survivors view as deeply offensive. Murray recommended that denial of the atrocities at residential schools be criminalized, akin to laws against Holocaust denial. It’s a proposal that has sparked debate about free speech, but it underscores how serious the issue is: the truth of what happened to Indigenous children is sacred, and spreading harmful falsehoods about it causes real pain. Survivors have called on the federal government to at least publicly and unequivocally refute denialist narratives, and to educate Canadians about the findings in a respectful, evidence-based way. “Survivors have pressed governments to counter denialism, which has intensified as ground‑search announcements have proliferated,” the CedarVía research group observes. Combatting misinformation is now seen as part of the reconciliation process itself – necessary to ensure that the broader public conversation remains anchored in respect for survivor testimony and factual history.
Government Responses: Words, Actions, and Missed Opportunities
The Canadian government’s response to the unmarked graves crisis has been marked by strong symbolic gestures and commitments – but also by inconsistencies in follow-through, according to many Indigenous leaders. In 2021, as the gravity of the discoveries became apparent, Ottawa quickly freed up an initial CAN$27 million (from previously allocated but unspent funds) to help Indigenous communities undertake searches for graves. This was later expanded: the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund was established, ultimately reaching $320 million in available funding through 2025. By March 2025, the government reported it had signed 161 funding agreements with communities, totaling about $246.7 million in support for research, searches, commemoration and healing initiatives. Federal officials also backed the creation of a unique new office – that of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves – to provide legal and technical guidance. In June 2022, Kimberly Murray, a Mohawk lawyer and former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was appointed to this role. Murray was tasked with recommending a new legal framework to ensure respectful treatment of unmarked burial sites and to protect these sites from destruction or neglect. Over two years, she traveled the country holding hearings and listening to survivors, communities, and experts.
By many accounts, these were positive steps – indicating that Canada’s government had finally taken ownership of an issue that had languished since the TRC’s Calls to Action in 2015. Yet Indigenous communities and survivors’ groups soon began expressing frustration at how the support was rolled out. Some described the application process for funding as onerous and slow. Others said the money, while significant, did not cover the scope or timescale needed. The initial federal program was only funded through 2025, an implicit timeline that many felt was unrealistic given the number of sites to search and the pace of community-led work. In fact, an international commission of experts – the Netherlands-based International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which the AFN invited to advise on this issue – pointed out that Canada should “establish continued, sustainable funding beyond 2025” for the searches. In an interim report released in March 2024, the ICMP urged Ottawa to extend support as long as communities require and even to consider ratifying the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances to frame the response in human-rights terms. “States have the responsibility to find all missing persons, regardless of their background,” ICMP Director-General Kathryne Bomberger said in Ottawa, implicitly comparing Canada’s obligations to global norms.
Despite these recommendations, by mid-2024 there were worrying signs of backtracking in government support. In the summer of 2024, Indigenous leaders learned that Ottawa was considering capping or reallocating unmarked grave funding – effectively winding down parts of the search program as the 2025 end date neared. The move was reportedly made without consulting First Nations and was justified internally as ensuring efficient use of funds. When news of this plan broke, it generated a swift backlash. Survivors and chiefs held a press conference (spearheaded by NDP MP Niki Ashton) denouncing any cuts as premature and harmful. Ashton stated flatly, “Canada’s response has been less than acceptable,” arguing that the government should fund investigations “as long as communities are searching for answers.” On Orange Shirt Day 2024 (Sept. 30), survivors gathered on Parliament Hill and, in an emotional ceremony, called on all political parties to commit to sustained funding for the burial searches. Facing mounting pressure, the federal government reversed course. In mid-August 2024, Justice Minister Arif Virani announced a reversal of the proposed funding changes. He reassured Indigenous communities that Ottawa “will continue to support this important work” and that no community already engaged in searches would be left without resources. Indigenous leaders welcomed the reversal but remained wary. “History repeats itself as funds to search for missing children cut,” one headline in the Winnipeg Free Press had warned, recalling how previous commitments to residential school justice (such as implementing all TRC Calls to Action) had faltered. The episode left many with a sense that constant vigilance would be needed to ensure Canada’s words translate into sustained action.
That skepticism only grew with another development: in early 2025, the federal government quietly ended funding for the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools, Missing Children and Unmarked Burials – a committee that had been established to help guide and coordinate the very efforts now underway. For three years, this committee (composed of Indigenous elders, knowledge keepers, and experts) had assisted communities in identifying burial sites and sharing best practices. In February 2025, members were told their funding would cease as of March 31, effectively disbanding the group. The decision blindsided Indigenous partners. The committee said it was “disappointed” and felt “cut off at the knees” by a unilateral move that would make continuing their work impossible. Ottawa offered little public explanation, leading to speculation that the cut was part of broader budget tightening or an assumption that the committee’s job was done. Community organizers strongly disagreed. “The work is only beginning,” Kimberly Murray had said months earlier, and now one of the bodies doing that work was being dissolved just as searches were ramping up in many places. The timing was especially poor: the Special Interlocutor’s Final Report was due in fall 2024, and many had hoped the government would implement its anticipated recommendations in full. Instead, by spring 2025 there was a sense of loss of momentum at the federal level.
Minister of Justice Arif Virani did formally receive Kimberly Murray’s Final Report in October 2024 with public acknowledgments. “We cannot ignore the lasting impact of the residential school system and the pain it has caused… which continues to be deeply felt today and cannot be denied,” Virani said in a statement. He thanked Murray and vowed to work with Indigenous communities “in a way that respects their wishes and traditions”. However, survivors and advocates are now watching closely to see which of Murray’s 42 recommendations (framed as “Sacred Obligations”) will be acted upon. Chief among them was her call for a National Commission of Inquiry into the Disappearances of Indigenous Children, with a 20-year mandate. Murray argued that many missing children might technically qualify as cases of “enforced disappearance” – a human rights violation – given that the state removed these children and never accounted for their fate. Her report’s very title, “Upholding Sacred Obligations: Reparations for Missing and Disappeared Indigenous Children”, signaled that Canada must shift from seeing this as a tragic history to seeing it as a contemporary justice issue. Implementing such a commission (and the legal framework to accompany it) would be a major undertaking, requiring political will and funding. At the time of writing, the government has not announced any such commission, leading to worries that Murray’s work – like the TRC’s before her – could “sit on a shelf” without concrete action.
Churches and Records: Calls for Accountability and Reconciliation
While the federal government bears the lion’s share of responsibility, the churches that ran residential schools have also faced scrutiny and demands in this period. About 70% of the 130+ residential schools were administered by the Catholic Church (through various religious orders), with others run by Anglican, United, and Presbyterian churches. The Catholic Church’s response since 2021 has been closely watched, especially given historical criticisms of its reluctance to fully acknowledge wrongdoing. In September 2021, under intense pressure, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) issued a formal apology to Indigenous peoples – a first collective apology of its kind. The bishops admitted the grave spiritual, cultural, and psychological harms caused by church-run schools. Alongside the apology, they pledged to raise $30 million for healing and reconciliation projects over five years. This pledge came after it was revealed that a much earlier compensation deal (from the 2006 Residential Schools Settlement) had seen the Church only pay a fraction of promised funds, largely due to legal technicalities. Many survivors were understandably skeptical of the new $30M promise. However, as of mid-2025, the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund (IRF) set up by the Catholic dioceses reports that it has collected over $21.2 million – about 71% of the goal – and is on track to meet or exceed $30 million by 2026. The funds, overseen by an Indigenous-led board, have been disbursed to support local projects in areas like healing, language revitalization, and cultural education. This effort has drawn mixed reactions: some survivors welcome the resources for communities, while others note that $30 million (roughly $0.20 for each Indigenous child taken) is a very modest sum given the scale of trauma and the wealth of the Church. “No single step can eliminate the pain… but we hope to walk together on a new path of hope,” said Bishop William McGrattan in launching the fund. It is, at least, a concrete sign of the Church’s engagement in reconciliation.
Pope Francis’s personal involvement has also been a watershed. After meeting Indigenous delegations in Rome, Francis came to Canada in July 2022 and visited sites of former schools, including Maskwacis (Alberta) and Iqaluit, Nunavut. In a historic Mass before thousands of survivors, he delivered an apology on behalf of the Catholic Church, decrying the “evil committed by so many Christians” in the residential school system. He begged forgiveness and affirmed that the memory of the children who never returned should not be lost. This papal apology – something the TRC’s Calls to Action (#58) had explicitly asked for – was widely seen as a meaningful gesture, though some noted it stopped short of explicitly naming the church’s actions as genocide. Nevertheless, the sight of a Pope in Canada mourning Indigenous children marked a turning point in Church-Indigenous relations.
Yet, when it comes to accountability and records, survivors say the churches still have more work to do. Access to records is a lingering sore point. The TRC’s Calls to Action #71 to #76 deal precisely with missing children and burial information, and they urge all parties – government, churches, communities – to open their archives, share information about deaths and burials, and memorialize those who died. In practice, some orders (like the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who ran Kamloops and many other schools) have made efforts to share records with the NCTR and First Nations. The Oblates have turned over thousands of documents and even sought help from the Vatican to locate historic files. Other entities, such as certain dioceses or provincial archives, have also cooperated in identifying death certificates, student registers, and cemetery maps. For instance, in Ontario the Chief Coroner’s office undertook a special investigation of residential school death records and in late 2024 announced it had found 220 previously undocumented deaths of Indigenous children that were not in the TRC’s registry. These included children who died of illness or accident at several schools and whose deaths had slipped through gaps in record-keeping. Each newly found name is a step toward giving families closure. “It’s about restoring their identities,” said one researcher – ensuring these children are no longer just anonymous statistics.
Still, survivors and researchers often encounter frustrating barriers. Some church records remain in church custody and haven’t been released, sometimes due to privacy laws or internal policies. In other cases, records exist but are heavily redacted or hard to access. A particularly contentious issue involves the records of abuse from the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) – a compensation process where survivors gave testimony about abuses. Those records contain harrowing details and names of perpetrators, and as of 2025 they are slated to be destroyed (to protect confidentiality) unless individual survivors request their own files be preserved. Journalists revealed that “files documenting the worst abuses at residential schools [could] be destroyed unless survivors ask otherwise,” which sparked debate about preserving history. Many survivors are torn: they value privacy but also fear losing evidence of what they endured. The outcome will influence how future generations understand the full scope of what happened inside those institutions.
Accountability also means continuing to search for the missing children until every community has answers. Indigenous communities, often led by survivors, are making it clear they won’t wait for government or church permission to do what needs to be done. The Survivors’ Secretariat – a survivor-led group in Six Nations of the Grand River – has been conducting ground searches at the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario (one of the oldest residential schools, known as the “Mush Hole”). They’ve also been gathering documents and testimonies from across Canada related to that school. In late 2024, the Survivors’ Secretariat warned it might have to halt its work due to federal funding delays, saying it had been “denied funding” for 2025 and was at risk of insolvency. The federal government claimed the group still had unspent funds, a claim the Secretariat flatly disputed. “It’s petty politics,” one survivor said of the funding spat. The group launched a public appeal, stressing that time is of the essence – many survivors are elderly, and each lost month is a lost opportunity to gather their knowledge. The Chiefs of Ontario and other Indigenous organizations issued statements urging Ottawa to resolve the issue and keep the Survivors’ Secretariat operating. By August 2025, there was a bit of good news: the Ontario government stepped in with a one-time grant of $7.7 million to support searches and survivor initiatives at the Mohawk Institute and elsewhere in the province. It was a welcome boost, but the situation highlighted how piecemeal the support can be, and how survivor-led efforts still struggle for stability.
“Bring Them Home”: Toward Healing and Next Steps
As Canada comes to grips with this ongoing tragedy, the refrain “All we want is to bring our children home” echoes from community to community. For survivors and families, “bringing them home” can mean different things. In some cases, it is literal: if remains are located and identified, communities may choose to repatriate them to the child’s home territory for reburial. There have been a few recent examples – such as a family in B.C. who in 2025 finally brought home the remains of a great-uncle who died at a residential school 1,200 km away. But more often, “bringing them home” is a spiritual and symbolic process: it means acknowledging each lost child, saying their name, and ensuring they are no longer forgotten or hidden. Many Nations have held ceremonies upon announcing findings, offering prayers and songs to honor the children in the unmarked graves. The March for the Children on Penelakut Island, now held annually, is one such gathering – it coincided with the release of the Tribe’s latest findings, blending the hard work of investigation with the healing work of remembrance.
Healing is a long road. The revelations of the past few years have reopened old wounds for survivors of residential schools, many of whom suffer from PTSD and intergenerational trauma. Crisis lines have seen spikes in calls whenever a new gravesite is reported. Communities have mobilized mental health supports, elders and knowledge-keepers to help people process the news. One consistent message from survivors is “We told you so” – a mixture of validation and pain. “Elders and Survivors have always spoken of children dying and disappearing while at the school,” Chief Rosanne Casimir of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc reminded the public on the anniversary of the Kamloops findings. Now that the world finally believes them, survivors say, what will be done about it? That question hangs in the air, pointing to a future that is still unwritten.
There are some clear guideposts, however. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 71–76 laid out what must happen: the creation of a comprehensive death registry, an online memorial and cemetery registry, efforts to inform families of their loved ones’ resting places, protection of cemeteries, and full Indigenous leadership in all these initiatives. These calls to action, issued in 2015, were largely unmet until the events of 2021 gave them new urgency. Progress is now underway on parts of them – the NCTR’s National Student Memorial Register is being continually updated with new names, and governments are starting to invest in cemetery maintenance and commemorations. But as Murray’s report notes, much remains to be done to fulfill those obligations. There is a sense among Indigenous advocates that Canada is at a crossroads: one path leads to genuine reconciliation through sustained action and truth-telling, and the other to missed opportunities and deeper mistrust.
Encouragingly, many Canadians have demonstrated solidarity and a willingness to confront this painful history. The rise of the Every Child Matters movement – symbolized by orange shirts – shows that public awareness has grown immensely. Schools now teach more about residential schools than ever before; media coverage (both mainstream and Indigenous-led) continues to shine a light on developments; and grassroots initiatives to document and remember the lost children abound. Importantly, Indigenous voices are at the center of telling their own stories. Outlets like APTN News and Indigenous-led websites have provided nuanced coverage, ensuring that stories are not sensationalized but told with context and cultural sensitivity. They’ve highlighted not just the horror of what was found, but the strength and resilience of those demanding answers. This media landscape is itself part of reconciliation – a recognition that these stories matter and must be heard.
In reflecting on the past two years, an Elder from Saskatchewan said: “It’s like we had a wound that never healed, because it was never fully exposed to the air. Now the wound is open – everyone can see it – and maybe at last it can start to heal.” The process of truth before reconciliation is often painful, but it is necessary. Canada’s challenge now is to maintain the momentum: to support Indigenous communities in whatever decisions they make next – whether to excavate or not, how to commemorate, how to pursue accountability – and to implement the solutions that survivors have put forward. That includes legal reforms, educational efforts, and resources for healing that meet the scale of the tragedy.
As this Media Watch update has shown, 2024 and 2025 have been pivotal years in this journey. Unmarked graves continue to be found, and with each one, new layers of history are brought into the light. Governments and churches have taken some steps forward (and, at times, steps back), while survivors and communities persist in leading the way. The broader Canadian society, for its part, is watching – and learning – with a mix of sorrow, outrage, and determination that such injustices be addressed. The story of the missing children of residential schools is not an easy one to tell or to hear, but it is a story that must not be ignored or silenced. As Chief Gerald Antoine of the Dene Nation said, “The truth is being revealed… Families deserve justice. The truth is out there – there are many people who are missing.” For those families and for all the survivors, the work will go on until every spirit is honored and every possible truth uncovered.
In the words of the TRC Commissioners: “For the child taken, for the parent left behind” – we will remember, we will search, and we will seek to heal, together.