Organization investigating Indigenous residential school threatened with bankruptcy

An Ontario organization documenting what happened at an infamous Indigenous residential school faces bankruptcy by the end of the month unless Canada makes a decision on its funding.

The Survivors’ Secretariat, which is working to uncover the truth about what happened at the Mohawk Institute, a former residential school in Brantford, Ont., says the Ministry of Crown-Indigenous Relations is failing survivors because delays in processing their requests.

I have to go tell the survivors that Canada made a promise and once again has broken itsaid Laura Arndt, head of the secretariat.

Whenever survivors ask me for answers to funding questions, all I can say is I don’t know, because they don’t answer my phone calls.

According to Ms. Arndt, this treatment is the historical reflection of how our people are treated when dealing with Canada: we are simply pushed aside and ignored.

In 2021, after many First Nations reported finding what appeared to be human remains at the sites of former residential schools, Ottawa injected funds to fund research into the sites and documentation of what happened in boarding schools.

More than 150,000 children were forced to attend residential schools and many survivors have told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about their horrific abuse.

An estimated 6,000 children have died while attending these schools, but experts say the real number could be much higher.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada concluded that these schools constituted a systemic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy indigenous cultures and languages ​​and assimilate indigenous peoples, such that they no longer exist as a distinct peopleand that they amounted to cultural genocide.

Nearly 50 children dead

The Mohawk Institute opened in 1828. Nearly 50 children died there, according to the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.

Part of the work of the Survivors’ Secretariat is to investigate these deaths, conduct field research to try to find burial sites, review reams of documents regarding the school, and support survivors in their journey of recovery. healing.

But this work cannot continue without funding from the Government of Canada, which Ms. Arndt says she has not received for months, even though the group sent its requests within the prescribed deadlines.

It paralyzed our organization. By the end of December I will have no money and I can’t get any answers from the governmentdenounced Ms. Arndt.

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In a statement, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree did not directly address Arndt’s concerns, but said the deadline for funding applications was November 15 and that It corresponded to the deadline of previous years.

As with all programs, we must evaluate applications based on criteria provided to communities and organizations. We created this fund to support communities in their healing journey in response to the shameful history of residential schools [pour] Aboriginal people. We are firmly committed to doing sosaid Bahoz Dara Aziz, from the minister’s office.

With information from The Canadian Press