THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 29, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. [ET] to examine the federal government’s constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and any other subject concerning Indigenous Peoples; and, in camera, to examine the federal government’s constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and any other subject concerning Indigenous Peoples.
Senator Brian Francis (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening, everyone. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples from across Turtle Island.
I am Mi’kmaw Senator Brian Francis from Epekwitk, also known as Prince Edward Island, and I am the Chair of the Committee on Indigenous Peoples.
I will now ask committee members in attendance to introduce themselves by stating their names and province or territory, starting on my left.
Senator Arnot: Senator David Arnot, from Saskatchewan. I live in Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Greenwood: Margo Greenwood, British Columbia, from Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Boniface: I’m Gwen Boniface, province of Ontario.
Senator White: Judy White, province of Newfoundland and Labrador, also known as Ktaqmkuk.
Senator Prosper: I’m Senator Paul Prosper, Nova Scotia, land of the Mi’kmaw.
Senator D. Patterson: Dennis Patterson, from Nunavut, Inuit Nunangat.
The Chair: Thank you, everyone. Before I proceed, I want to note that the content of this meeting relates to Indian residential schools, which some may find distressing. There is support for anyone requiring assistance at all times, free of charge, via the National Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419; and Hope for Wellness, 1-800-721-0066; or, at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
Now, I want to give you some background about today. You may recall that last March, the Committee on Indigenous Peoples heard from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and the office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools regarding their respective work honouring, amplifying and uncovering the truth about the residential school system and its painful and lasting impact.
Based on this testimony, on July 19, the Committee on Indigenous Peoples, issued an interim report entitled Honouring the Children Who Never Came Home: Truth, Education and Reconciliation. One of the recommendations made in this interim report included a commitment to hold a public hearing with governments, church entities and others who continue to withhold records about residential schools and associated sites. During tonight’s meeting, we will continue to hear from these witnesses.
Now, I’d like to introduce our witnesses. From Indigenous Services Canada, Lori Doran, Director General, Individual Affairs, and John Gordon, Indian Registrar, Individual Affairs.
Wela’lin. Thank you to you both for joining us today.
Ms. Doran will provide opening remarks of approximately five minutes, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the senators. I will now invite Ms. Doran to give her opening remarks.
Lori Doran, Director General, Individual Affairs, Indigenous Services Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation that you have extended to me and to John Gordon, Indian Registrar, to appear today at committee.
I also want to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
We appreciate the meaningful and important work of this committee and the work of the Senate in amplifying and uncovering the truth about residential school experience from elders, survivors and their families.
I’m going to take a few moments to describe the information management policies governing the Indian Register and the type of research conducted in support of the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association, or CSAA, and other groups in search of their missing loved ones. There’s more detail in the written response that the department sent over in the last day or two.
Indigenous Services Canada, in accordance with sections 589 and 11 of the Indian Act, is responsible for maintaining an Indian Register in which the name of every person registered as an Indian is recorded. As per the Indian Act, the Indian Register is maintained by the Indian Registrar, currently John Gordon, who is with me today.
The register was established by the authority of the act in 1951, and at that time it was a paper-based recording system. In 1985, the department introduced the current electronic database platform. Record-keeping prior to the creation of the register was done through documentation such as treaty pay lists and census records. As a result, the register has many limitations for the records held in the early 1900s.
It’s important to note that the Indian Register contains personal information as defined under the Privacy Act, including names, date of birth, gender, registration number, band affiliation, active or inactive registration status as well as linking documentation that was used to assess entitlement to registration. This might be a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or licence.
This personal information is only to be disclosed with the written consent of the individual concerned or as otherwise permitted pursuant to the Privacy Act. The Indian Register does not record or include information on residential school attendance or cause of death.
That said, its records have been used as a secondary source of information in combination with other data sources held by other government departments, church records, Library and Archives Canada, and records of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in attempts to identify individuals and support the identification of missing children.
Indigenous Services Canada has expertise and some research capacity to conduct historical and genealogical searches in the Indian Register and other department data sources. To this end, our department has made efforts to assist in identifying individuals at the Shingwauk Indian Residential School. In April 2020, officials searched the limited records — primarily band pay lists — available for the period requested, but we were unable to find matching results for the specific children.
The results were shared in a meeting with the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association in October 2020, which led to a request for Ontario pay lists from 1900 to 1920, which were subsequently provided. The department remains available to deliver presentations or to support the alumni association and any other interested groups on the pre-1910 pay lists and other information in historic census data.
The department has also encouraged the alumni association to contact the genealogical research help centre of the Library and Archives Canada for additional support, as this is where many archives are available.
John Gordon and I are now ready and happy to take your questions. Thank you, chair.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Doran.
We’ll now move on to questions from senators. Just before we do, to help keep us on time and ensure equity to each senator, we’ll have five minutes for a question-and-answer exchange, and we will have a second round of questions if time permits.
I’ll go to my deputy chair, if he has an opening question, or we’ll open the floor.
Senator Arnot: Ms. Doran and Mr. Gordon, this committee is concerned about the administrative policy and legislative barriers that have prevented the Government of Canada from identifying and releasing records related to residential schools, day schools, hospitals and sanitoria. I’d like you to comment on the policies and the barriers that you’ve identified which impede what is fundamentally a right of access to this information held by Indigenous people seeking that information.
Secondly, I have a concern about the time length, the transparency and the difficulty of this process, so I want to know if you believe that the lack of resources in either the registry or your organization is fundamentally responsible for creating the situation where records are simply not available and can’t be released or aren’t released and can’t be found.
Thank you.
Ms. Doran: Thank you for the question.
We can speak to the Indian Register. There are other data sources held by Indigenous Services Canada or other government departments.
Senator Arnot: Just speak to what you are responsible for.
Ms. Doran: Yes, so the Indian Register, as I mentioned, is an electronic database that includes information on all individuals registered under the Indian Act, and it includes private information and personal information. So we are subject to the Privacy Act. When there is a request for information, the ability to disclose information must be considered in the context of the Privacy Act. That is administered by the group within the department who administers the act.
We can search the records based on search terms, but we are not in a position to, sort of, hand over full access or unfettered access to the Indian Register. People who have access to the Indian Register are within the department and who are authorized to access the system for the purposes of determining entitlement to registration.
Senator Arnot: So you’re saying the Privacy Act is a big impediment? It creates an impediment for you to answer legitimate questions that Indigenous people have about records they want to see?
Ms. Doran: Individuals who are seeking information on their own application for entitlement typically have access unfettered to that information, but for general research purposes, the Indian Register is not publicly available, nor does it include information that would contain information specific to residential school attendance, so there are very significant limitations in the data that the register —
Senator Arnot: If the Privacy Act didn’t exist, what barriers would exist, other than that act?
If the Privacy Act, for instance, excluded your records, then what would change?
Ms. Doran: The Privacy Act wouldn’t exclude our records because of the —
Senator Arnot: Well, I’m saying it might. Assume it doesn’t exist. That’s what I’m trying to get at.
It doesn’t exist; what are the barriers now?
John Gordon, Indian Registrar, Individual Affairs, Indigenous Services Canada: The information that we hold in the Indian Register is on individuals and their ancestral connections. Even if we allowed access to those records, if the Privacy Act weren’t there, there would be little value to somebody researching attendance at residential schools.
We could tell you an individual was at a certain band at this point in time or on a certain census record, and I think we’ve actually opened up our documents and records to some groups. Because of the limitations, we can do that with information over 100 years old or so many years after a person has died. There are ways that we can release those records. I think we’ve done that with the group, with the alumni association. We’ve worked with them with our genealogical group to help them access records that may be of benefit. But the Indian Register itself, only includes ancestral information and personal data of registered Indians of Canada, so it’s really of little value when it comes to something such as they’re looking for.
The Chair: I was wondering — you might have mentioned this already; I was busy writing things down here — what the specific provisions of the Privacy Act are you referring to, and could you point us to it?
Ms. Doran: Thank you for the question. Mr. Gordon and I aren’t experts on the Privacy Act. Any request for information contained in the register is vetted by the group within Indigenous Services Canada who are responsible for applying the Privacy Act, but the Privacy Act applies in this case because the information is personal — individual names, dates of birth — and includes other information of a personal nature, such as birth certificates and marriage certificates, et cetera.
I can’t speak to the application of the Privacy Act, but any sharing of information within the register does fall under the provisions of the Privacy Act.
The Chair: Would that include information for those that are decades or centuries old?
Ms. Doran: Every request for information would be assessed, and those sorts of parameters would be taken into consideration.
Mr. Gordon: In response to your question, senator, there are limitations in what we can provide, with regard to the Privacy Act today. After a person has been dead for a number of years — I’m by no means an expert on the Privacy Act. You can ask some privacy folks that question, but we have been able to direct the alumni association in the direction of certain records that we do have available.
Yes, there are some considerations that after a person has been dead so long that we can release personal information about that individual. The difficulty or challenge for us is that some of that is ancestral information for other people who are still alive. We really count on our privacy experts to tell us what we can and can’t release. Any request that comes to me as the Indian Registrar for information that is held in the Indian Register, we vet through the privacy folks within Indigenous Services Canada to see if we’re able to release the information or not.
I can assure you we do everything we can to try to give access to the records that anyone can legally obtain and look at.
The Chair: Thank you for that.
Senator Coyle: Thank you for being with us. I’m just curious whether your office works in collaboration with the Residential School Documents Advisory Committee. If so, in what capacity? That’s my first question.
My second question is: You have the register, and you have other information. Could you tell us about the ways that you can be helpful in uncovering the kind of information that people so desperately need?
Ms. Doran: Thank you. In terms of the committee related to documents, Indigenous Services Canada is a member of that committee, along with many other government departments. I think you heard from the independent chair of that committee, not too long ago.
The representative is not Mr. Gordon, or I. It’s another ISC official. The work of that group is still in its early stages, but, of course, to the degree that the Indian Register and the records that we hold within our organization are relevant, we would certainly be in a position to share or collaborate in ways in which those records could be used in a meaningful way. I think that was your first point.
Second, we do and have worked with the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association and with others. We do have within our organization a small group of individuals who have a certain expertise in doing genealogical and archival research on historical records. We continue to offer the expertise and support of that team to alumni associations and to others who are seeking to find information or to help understand the past traumas related to Indian residential schools.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much for joining us. I’m an interloper at the committee.
Having listened to the questions, what would be helpful to understand is in your registry of all the information that you have, what would be most relevant to the needs of residential school survivors, so we have a sense of what the percentage may look like?
Ms. Doran: I can start. Thank you for the question. The register, established by order of the act in 1951, has limitations in the information it contains prior to that date. In fact, it was a paper-based system between 1951 and 1985, so there were some limitations.
To my earlier point, its main purpose is to record individuals who are registered as Indians under the Indian Act, but by virtue of that, it includes information of a personal nature that goes along with an assessment of entitlement. There’s not a lot of information in the Indian Register that is applicable to the types of research and search that alumni associations and others are seeking.
It can be used as a data source in combination with other data sources that may be held by churches or other departments. The research team that I made reference to have a certain expertise in trying to do that kind of linking research in archival material. But the register itself does not record attendance at residential schools, nor cause of death, so there’s no direct information in the register. It can be used as a point, as a data source, but in and of itself, it’s incomplete.
Senator Boniface: Can I just be clear? It registers individuals, but it doesn’t register a death?
Ms. Doran: Yes. It records when a death occurs, when we know about it. We often don’t know. It’s one of our challenges.
Senator Boniface: That’s one of the gaps, clearly.
Ms. Doran: It doesn’t record the cause of death.
Senator Boniface: Cause or location?
Ms. Doran: Correct.
Senator Boniface: Did you want to continue, Mr. Gordon?
Mr. Gordon: We do record deaths if we’re informed of a death, but we’re not always informed of a death.
You have to understand that in 1951, when the register was created, that’s when we actually started to maintain a list of registered Indians in Canada. Prior to 1951, we defined, starting in 1850, who was and who was not an Indian, but the lists were band lists, treaty pay lists and other lists of that nature. It wasn’t until 1951 that we actually started to identify, document and hand out registration numbers to individuals.
Senator Boniface: Thank you.
Senator D. Patterson: Thank you very much for being here.
I think we’re just trying to get at the facts here. I’d like to ask about the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association, which you mentioned in your presentation.
My understanding is that they were asking for information about four students who had died while attending residential school in the early 1900s, and I believe they wanted to try to identify whether their names were in the register. I understand that they were told that they could not look because of privacy issues. I think they received a letter from you, Mr. Gordon. Yes. So I guess I have a couple of questions.
First, I understood that the Privacy Act doesn’t go back to cover dead people, especially that long ago. You have also said that it was imperfect before 1951 and that it didn’t, and still doesn’t, include students’ names who attended residential schools.
I’m just wondering, why would you have told the Shingwauk group that privacy issues were what stopped them from searching the register if the Privacy Act doesn’t apply to people who are long dead? I don’t quite understand that.
Mr. Gordon: That’s a very good question. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to it. I think some of the requests have been taken a little bit out of context. I don’t want to get into the whole “They said, we said, she said.” At the end of the day, the request was to have full, unfettered access to the Indian Register. That was the request. The response was to this request, not specifically to certain children in the 1900s or certain individuals. The request was couched in a way, or put into the context of, “We’ve had limited access to the resources and to these records. We have been stymied in trying to achieve these records. When we ask for certain records, we don’t want the government to give us access to records; we want the government to give us unfettered access to the Indian Register.” That’s what I was responding to, saying, “No, I cannot do that because of the Privacy Act.”
I think the outcome of that was that we started to work with the Shingwauk group to figure out what we could provide them with, to support them in helping track down the four children of whom we are speaking.
I regret responding to the letter in the way I did and not offering to work with them more effectively or efficiently. I guess in the end, I was responding to the request for unfettered access to the Indian Register. I think I made the right choice in responding that way. I can’t recall the correspondence because I sign a tremendous number of pieces of correspondence per year — you can imagine how many people write to the Indian Register to ask a question — but in answering them, I think I offered them an opportunity to discuss further what we could provide to support them, and I think that work did happen with our genealogical people.
The request was for unfettered access to the entire Indian Register, which, of course, I couldn’t provide. Everybody wants to talk about the Privacy Act being an impediment. There are a number of registered Indians in Canada that would say, “Thank God for the Privacy Act because it keeps our personal information private.” I know there’s some discussion about that as well — the fact that registered Indians don’t want their information shared in any way than any other Canadian.
Senator D. Patterson: Thank you. It’s helpful to know what went on. I’m glad you reached out to them. It seems that this registry is not of help because of its lack of information.
Just quickly, if I may, you mentioned information management policies in your presentation, Ms. Doran. We’ve been talking about what’s in the Privacy Act and what’s not. Would those information management policies be publicly available information that could be shared with the committee? I think it would help us understand the constraints that you’ve described, under which you work.
Ms. Doran: Thank you for the question. Yes. We do have policies. We do have information management policies that individuals who are recording information in the register are obliged to follow. We can look to follow up with the committee on those policies as they are written, recorded and used by individuals, but they’re largely policies and procedures to ensure consistency in the way the data is recorded, to ensure quality controls. I’m happy to go back and follow up with what might be helpful, but they are more in that spirit and with that intent, ensuring that the information is recorded and done in a consistent manner, in a manner that upholds certain policies and principles and is consistently applied. Mr. Gordon?
Mr. Gordon: I would just add that the majority of the policies we have in place for the information in the Indian Register is to protect the information, in order not to give it out to everybody and to protect individuals’ privacy. We hold a tremendous amount of personal information. Some adoptions are very sensitive, so we hold information that we actually can’t even release to the individuals themselves because of various reasons.
I think the majority of the document policy management we have is to protect individuals’ privacy.
Senator D. Patterson: I understand that. I understand that you are going to see whether you can share those policies with the committee. I will say, I would hope that since this is a statutory public registry, it should be possible to share those, as boring as they might be to read. It’s procedural. I understand that. But I think it would help us to answer our questions about what constraints the Privacy Act is imposing on you. Thank you. That would be through the clerk.
The Chair: I wonder if he could provide some background information about how the access to information and privacy unit operates at Indigenous Services Canada, how many requests are received annually and how long it takes ISC to fulfill requests for information.
Ms. Doran: Thank you for the question, chair. Neither Mr. Gordon nor I would be in a position to respond to that series of questions. We would need to consult individuals within the organization who apply the Privacy Act. The Privacy Act applies to many requests for information coming into the department, not only requests related to access to the Indian Register. We receive many requests for information related to the Indian Register that we vet through our privacy expertise in the organization, but we’d have to go back and follow up on global numbers and turnaround times.
The Chair: Can you do that and provide the information to the clerk in writing?
Ms. Doran: Yes.
The Chair: Is that a yes?
Ms. Doran: We’ll go back and see what we can provide.
[Translation]
Senator Audette: My first question is the following. I understand that another department is responsible for the Access to Information Act. However, you have important information. I think that the information is important when it comes to cross-referencing data searches for loved ones who have disappeared or never returned. Is it possible to think a bit outside the box and see that, in other parts of Canada, legislation will be adopted for ten years that will give various departments the opportunity to provide information to families that have lost a loved one?
Have you had internal discussions with the departments involved to find a way to show flexibility and perhaps propose temporary legislation until access to information is granted?
My second question is as follows. Given that some forms are very old, can you tell us what your forms looked like in the past and what they look like today, without naming anyone?
[English]
Ms. Doran: Thank you for the question. As mentioned, the Indian Register was established in 1951. Prior to that, there was very limited record-keeping, so the information that predates 1951 has significant limitations.
We do go back in time, in history, and we do, with the expertise of our genealogical research team, extract information from that to support various requests and interests. We continue to offer the expertise of that team to assist alumni associations and others, and that offer continues.
The register, on its own, has limitations. In order to do a more comprehensive search, other data sources need to be considered. It’s through that linking of various documents through different databases that sometimes we are able to paint a clearer picture.
Again, I can only speak to the information held in the Indian Register. There are other records that the department and other departments hold that may, in fact, have more specific information on residential school attendance. I believe the committee that has been struck to look globally at records will probably be very helpful in looking at opportunities across the various data holdings.
Mr. Gordon: I would just add that a lot of individuals in Indigenous Services Canada, especially in the Individual Affairs Branch, have been looking outside the box in supporting the alumni association and other organizations to access things such as treaty pay lists, band membership lists and documents that we often use and we have regular access to determine entitlement. When we are looking at entitlement, we often look back to those old records. We often look back to census records and census data. That information is all there.
My understanding is that our genealogical and archival research folks have actually gone and supported the alumni association in accessing some of those documents. I think that’s what this committee is trying to do.
I think there are a number of people working outside the box, trying to find solutions. In my experience — I don’t know if I should mention that — I have not seen anybody stymie access to records. I have seen people try to protect the personal information of people in the Indian Register, but I don’t think anybody is trying to withhold records that I’ve seen or noticed. If anything, we have gone the other way and are pushing the privacy people, trying to release more records.
Senator Audette: If I may ask the question in another way. Do you think that if there’s legislation that permits all those departments and the minister to make sure that there are no systemic barriers — I don’t say you do now, but just to help you to make sure that you, you’re awesome, but the next person in your position might not have the same value.
Mr. Gordon: That’s a good point, but we’re dealing with historical records, and there is no impediment to releasing those now. The impediment is more in finding them and finding the causal relationship. How do they work together to actually tell the story, that we want to know at the end of the story?
I don’t think there’s any systemic barrier to some of these historical records. I think it’s just finding them, accessing them and putting them together to answer the questions that need to be answered.
Senator Audette: The example of what was in the form of registration in the past and today with no name, is it possible that we have a copy of that? I don’t know how it looks.
[Translation]
It’s the registrar’s document.
[English]
Mr. Gordon: It was in 1951 when we started actually having handwritten registers, that we would actually write an individual’s name on a band list and have their registration number. That was migrated in 1985. We have these black register pages that were created that we hold in our archives. That is only starting in 1951. They were built off the actual band membership lists or treaty pay lists that were pre-1951.
But as I said, our genealogical and archival research folks know this, know what they’re able to provide, and I think they’ve been working quite collaboratively with the group to try to get them the information that they need.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you for being here this evening. I’m just going to follow up on some of the things that have already been said.
If I understand correctly, the records that you have really started in 1951 and were built off of historical records. Is that correct? So do the band lists, the treaty lists, the Indian agent lists live with you or do they live in the archives pre-1951?
We know that colonial governments have been creating lists of Indian people in this country since the 1850s. We also know that in 1876, there was the Indian Act, so they have some lists somewhere.
I want to know, are those lists with you? Are they in the archives? I’m just thinking of people trying to get information. Would you have some of those lists? Would your genealogical teams have some of that, or would it all be in the national archives? Let’s start with that question. I have another one after.
Mr. Gordon: From 1951, we have the actual Indian Register where we had names and registration numbers. Pre-1951, we had black register pages, which go back.
Yes, you are 100% correct. Since 1850, when we first defined who was an Indian in Canada, we have been maintaining lists, but we have not been maintaining complete, accurate and thorough lists since then. We would often have people put on, people scratched off and things of that nature.
We hold a substantial number of those records in our genealogical archives because those records are what we need to determine whether or not somebody applying today is entitled to registration or not. However, some of those records have also moved over to Library and Archives Canada. It’s a mishmash — some with us, some with Library and Archives Canada.
In walking around the floor when we used to have space, you could actually go into the controlled environment room where these records were held and put on a pair of gloves and go through some of them. With some renovations to our buildings and other things, we have some difficulty with accessing those, and some of the condition of the records have moved over to Library and Archives Canada for maintaining them. We have some; they have some.
Our genealogical and archival research people know where to access this information. Those are the individuals who are working with the alumni association and other groups to provide as much information as we can and be as helpful as we can.
Think in Ms. Doran’s opening presentation this evening, she actually mentioned that we’d be willing to do more presentations on what we have with the genealogical experts who know where their records are located and know where to look for these records. We’d be willing to go out and do that presentation and work with other groups to try to get those answers.
Senator Greenwood: I write a few things, and I know that after 50 years, you don’t have to cite somebody if they’ve been dead for 50 years. I do know that. You may not know the answer to this, but perhaps there are some rules that after a person has been dead for a number of years, that you can actually access and share information. I think about that. I’m not going to put you on the spot for that answer because you’ve already said you need your genealogical people to share that information, but I think about that.
The residential schools themselves had lists of children who attended. I wonder how difficult it would be — and this is not to get to private information — to simply cross-reference those lists of names with your registry. You’re not asking where they’re from, any of that, but you could cross-reference pretty straight forwardly. Now, some of that would have to go into these archival records, and I assume your team would know how to get access.
If we have lists of children from schools, people already have a fairly significant idea that this child was from this community, perhaps — or not — but we would know what school they were at, and you could cross-reference those.
Would somebody doing that kind of work be able to access? Then at least they would know if they were part of that registry? Would that be possible?
Mr. Gordon: It wouldn’t necessarily be on the Indian Register, because that was created in 1951. Oftentimes in the residential school situation, we’re talking pre-1951.
An Hon. Senator: Not in Quebec.
Mr. Gordon: Not in Quebec. I wanted to nuance that a little bit.
In pre-1951, you could cross-reference band pay lists, band lists, treaty pay lists, and you could probably also cross-reference census documents, where they often listed if someone were an Indian or not an Indian. There is a possibility to cross-reference that. I would need to talk to the genealogical folks to see if that’s been done already, but I would think some of that work has already been undertaken by genealogical and archival research and the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association.
Senator Greenwood: The records you hold or have access to, though, are another source of information for people who are searching, right?
Mr. Gordon: Yes.
Ms. Doran: If I may add, yes, the work that we have done is very much in that spirit of cross-referencing bits of information from different sources to try to piece together a picture. We remain committed to doing that work with the information that we have, relying on the experts within our organization and importing information from groups who have relevant information to offer to us.
I’d also like to say that because of the fragility of some of these old archival records, we have undertaken a very purposeful digitization effort to maintain their integrity as well as they can. Recognizing Mr. Gordon’s description, they are paper-based and old, so we have been taking those measures to preserve that information.
The other comment, senator, around 50 years — and I think Mr. Gordon might have made a reference to this — but the way the Indian Register holds information is that it links ancestors, and entitlement to registration is based on an ancestral tie.
Let’s say a root ancestor is deceased 50 years, the register will include information to the present day, so the privacy of individuals alive today included on the register would be very difficult to piece apart that ancestral tie information that is contained within the register, which is part of the challenge that we have in assessing requests for information.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you.
Senator Prosper: This is a fascinating discussion, and thank you for coming before this committee.
My question gets a bit to what Senator Audette was getting into. I think you suggested maybe a legislative focus, potentially, with respect to allowing — and maybe this is inaccurate — some kind of way for people to gain access, given the current constraints that exist through privacy legislation.
I guess my first question deals with Ms. Doran. You mentioned that the nature of the information isn’t quite, I guess, going to the Point A, were they at residential school? You mentioned data with respect to deaths could be recorded, but chances are it’s not a given that they are, but you did mention that it could be of some secondary source value.
I’m just curious, when we’re looking at consideration of access, you mentioned earlier that the individual would, obviously, if they’re looking for their own information — say, maybe information on adoptions, from what you mentioned, Mr. Gordon — that it would be unfettered access. How does that operate with respect to family members, children or grandchildren, or is it a blanket prohibition there with respect to family members?
I’m just curious about how that works.
Mr. Gordon: I’ll try to contextualize it. When an individual applies for registration, they sometimes ask for their mother’s records or their father’s records. I, unfortunately, can’t give them access to their mother’s or father’s records because of privacy concerns.
You can’t have access to your entire family. You have the right to privacy from your family members, so you can’t necessarily get records of your adult children or your grandfather or your father. They might not want you to have access to that information, so they are protected by the Privacy Act.
Senator Prosper: Just a further question: I just got out of a committee where we had the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada came before us on Bill S-231, and one of the things that they brought about was this concept called a privacy impact assessment.
From what I understood, the context of that was that when considering legislation or initiatives that it might be one of those things where consideration of privacy and the impact upon privacy is taken into account.
I’m wondering, was that ever a consideration as it relates to residential school records?
Mr. Gordon: I do understand the provision of the Privacy Act that you’re talking about with the privacy impact assessment and whether or not the person would benefit from us releasing the information or giving access to somebody that we normally wouldn’t be able to. Oftentimes, this is done in a police investigation or another investigation of that nature.
The better person to ask that question would be access to information and privacy people, who actually conduct the privacy impact assessment and determine whether or not to allow it. I’m not personally aware if a privacy impact assessment was done in regard to the four children that the alumni association is looking for, with regard to residential school records.
What I can say, again, is that I don’t think there is a systemic or institutional barrier or a legislative barrier to accessing those records because of the time frame. I think we’re trying hard to get that information to them, because if I recall correctly, this is the early 1900s, so we’re talking 120 years ago.
I think we can get access to the records without privacy concerns. It’s just accessing the right records and helping tell that story. That’s a personal opinion, and maybe I shouldn’t be doing that as a witness.
Senator Prosper: I’m just trying to reconcile that with the fact that there’s a blanket prohibition on family members trying to —
Mr. Gordon: That’s for a number of reasons, right? You could have two siblings that are arguing, or mom and dad — there are a number of reasons that people need their privacy protected. But the privacy impact assessment could be done, and it’s always a way — again, the privacy folks in the Access to Information and Privacy Office, or ATIP, would be better to answer that type of question.
Senator Prosper: To your knowledge, no consideration was given with respect to an impact assessment on privacy?
Mr. Gordon: I believe there needs to be a request made, and then it is followed through by the ATIP people.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: As you can see, we’re all just trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle that others have been trying to navigate to get the information they need.
Our briefing tells us that they’re looking for the records of four residential school students around the period 1914-15, so as you said, almost 110 years ago. They were able to get some provincial records.
You have told us, Mr. Gordon, that when they submitted their request to you, I believe you said it was for unfettered access to the register. You responded that you could not, for the reasons we’ve all heard today, provide them with that unfettered access but that you and others have been working with them to get them what could be helpful and that is available to them.
Now, our briefing tells us that they did get some records for that period but that they were not legible. I think they’re thinking what they need that would be legible is in the register, but you’re telling us that the register doesn’t cover this period anyway. Even if it did, you couldn’t let them have it, but it doesn’t cover that period.
The fact that the records they now have are not legible, as per their request, do you think that has to do with the degrading of the original records? Is there anything further that can be done when there is an issue of records not being legible?
Mr. Gordon: In dealing with individuals applying for entitlement and looking back to historical records, we often run into challenges with some of the very old historical records in the condition that they’re in and whether or not they’re legible.
When Ms. Doran mentioned that we worked on digitizing these records for preservation, we’ve also digitized them with the ability to read and search with optical character resolution, which is really important in digitization. But we, in our role, in my role as Indian Registrar, when I’m looking at historical documents, we still run into challenges with regard to the ability to actually read what a document says. We see that there are some concerns about some of these really old records, whether or not they’re legible, and we can determine somebody’s entitlement. We run into some of the same challenges as they do.
I think one of the big underlying principles is that when they look for these records, they think we’re withholding the records. But I can tell you, in my role as the Indian Registrar, there are times when I’m looking for records, and we’re just not finding them because then don’t exist or they’ve been lost to a fire, they’ve been lost to a flood, they’ve been lost in a band office or they’ve been lost in the Indian agent’s office. These are some of the historical records, so we often have to look to secondary and third information at Statistics Canada and census records and other documents that we can try to find. That is part of the genealogical and archival research, but they know, okay, we can’t find this record here, so we can go over here and look for this.
Because of the time frame, we do run into some situations with documents and it’s very unfortunate. We’re doing everything we can to preserve the integrity of the documents we currently have, the same as Library and Archives Canada, whom we work with.
Senator Coyle: In this particular case, they have something that they’re not satisfied with, because it is not legible. Do you happen to know whether you’re still helping them find something that will satisfy their needs? Is this case alive with you?
Ms. Doran: I documented the various sorts of interactions and information that we have shared thus far. To my knowledge, there isn’t an active request with us, but we remain open to conducting further research with different parameters, should there be an interest.
Senator Coyle: I’ll just probe a little deeper. Is it always request-driven? Is it ever proactive on your part, where you see these people are hitting a dead end, how else can I help them, even if they’re not necessarily asking for it?
Mr. Gordon: It’s definitely collaborative. We definitely try to work with people to provide whatever we can. We often get requests for support with archival information. These are individual requests for determination of entitlement, so we often get requests from people. Instead of just saying, “Well, what exactly are you requesting,” we often say, “If you’re requesting this, maybe you can look here as well and you can ask Library and Archives Canada.”
We try to be as helpful and collaborative as we can in providing them what we know their objective is, rather than just saying, “No, we’re not meeting your specific request.” We do try to be collaborative.
Senator Coyle: Thank you.
Senator Arnot: Witnesses, I get the feeling and my impression is that we’re going through a lot of bureaucratic obfuscation. We’re going in circles. We come back to privacy. The Privacy Act is an impediment. It’s paralyzing. You can’t answer the questions. Or you’re telling us that you’re not the right people to actually answer our questions. That’s my impression.
In that regard, do you keep records about your client or public satisfaction rate on those who actually ask for your help? Do you measure the quality of your work in any objective manner? And if so, does it show that you have a high satisfaction of public service?
Ms. Doran: Thank you for your question. I appreciate where you’re coming from in terms of the obstacles that the Privacy Act in particular appears to apply in this instance.
To Mr. Gordon’s point, though, with that aside, because of the personal information that is maintained in the register, we know we need to follow certain guidelines and procedures and respect the privacy of individuals, but we try to find ways to work around it. We’ve hopefully provided a few examples today of our efforts in that space.
We don’t systematically record information on client satisfaction, but on a daily basis, we are working with individuals to locate ancestral information to help them, in particular, with their entitlement application for registration. We do often hear back from individuals who are thankful for the guidance that we have offered and the ability to support them in their application process. Mr. Gordon, maybe you want to elaborate?
Mr. Gordon: I would just say the level of satisfaction from individuals requesting work from our genealogical unit is very complimentary when they’re entitled to registration. When they find they’re not entitled to registration, it’s very uncomplimentary, unfortunately.
We do provide them with the service. Sometimes they don’t like the service they get whenever they’re responded to as, “No, you’re not entitled.” Those are the ones who are the most vocal and usually I have to deal with the most correspondence and complaints.
Unfortunately, I have to deal with this, but fortunately, there are a number of individuals who do work well with our genealogical department and end up being entitled and are quite satisfied with our service. I don’t know that we actually provide an opportunity for people to provide us with feedback on the level of service that the genealogical department does, but I think the majority of interactions are positive.
The Chair: Thank you for that. We’re shortly running out of time, but I know Senator Patterson has one last question to ask.
Senator D. Patterson: Yes, just a quick one. Since we’re short on time, you can provide the answer in writing. It’s about the government’s Residential School Documents Advisory Committee. That’s what we’re after in this study. That committee has 14 federal departments and a special interlocutor as well.
My question is very simple: Is your office working with that Documents Advisory Committee? And if not, why not? Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Senator Patterson, I asked that question earlier.
Senator D. Patterson: You did? I wasn’t paying attention. Forgive me.
The Chair: They can answer again.
Ms. Doran: Yes. I hope I give the same answer.
Senator Coyle: The answer was yes.
Ms. Doran: In brief, Indigenous Services Canada is represented on that committee. Neither Mr. Gordon nor I are individually involved, but because we hold certain information that is relevant to this exercise, we are collaborating. The work of this group is still in its early stages.
The Chair: Thank you for that.
The time for this panel is now complete. I wish to thank again all our witnesses for joining us today, and if you wish to make any subsequent submissions, please submit them by email to the clerk within seven days. We’ll now suspend the meeting briefly to allow us to go in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)