Question Period Note: Indian Residential School Sites (Calls to Action 72-76) – Unmarked Burials

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• Our thoughts are with Survivors, their families and communities as the truth about residential schools unmarked burials continues to be revealed.
• Funding is available to support communities, Survivors and their families on their healing journey through researching, locating, and memorializing those children who died while attending Indian residential schools.

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• Canada has partnered with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to continue the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work on the National Residential School Student Death and Memorial Registers.
• In 2019, the Centre launched a searchable online Memorial Register compiled from information collected while establishing the National Residential School Student Death Register.
• The Centre is developing an online registry of residential school cemeteries and unmarked burial sites.
• This work will provide important information for Survivors and families and contribute to inter-generational healing.
• Building on previous budgets, Budget 2022 and Budget 2024 allocated an additional $135.6 million over three years and $91 million over two years ,bringing the Government of Canada’s total investment to $342.2 million to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 72 to 76.
• These investments support community-led efforts to locate, document, commemorate, and memorialize burial sites associated with former residential schools and to honour families’ wishes for next steps.
• As of May 13, 2025, 161 funding agreements are in place that will provide $246.8 million to Indigenous communities and organizations to support their community-led and Survivor-centric efforts.
• In 2022 Canada established the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, and co-administrated the Committee with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
• The Committee brought together individuals with experience and expertise in areas such as Indigenous laws and cultural protocols, forensics, archaeology, archival research, criminal investigations, and working with Survivors.
• The Committee engaged with communities to identify needs and provide information and resources.
• Funding for the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials ended in March 2025.
• We continue to fund communities in their searches for the missing children and are working together to identify experts who can support this work.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called upon all governments and institutions to support work to address the legacy of residential schools and contribute to reconciliation.
• Under Call to Action 71, provincial Chief Coroners and vital statistics agencies were asked to share records on the death of Indigenous children in the care of residential school authorities.
• The work of coroners is under provincial legislation. It defines the powers coroners can use to investigate and share records. They have unique expertise they can use to help uncover new information about missing children from residential schools.
• We all have a role to play in supporting communities’ research. The work of coroners is complimentary to that of other institutions.