THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 7, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples met with videoconference this day at 6:46 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.
Senator Brian Francis (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: 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 across Turtle Island.
I am Mi’kmaq 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.
Senator Arnot: My name is David Arnot. I’m a senator from Saskatchewan. I live in Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Coyle: My name is Senator Mary Coyle. I’m from Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Mi’kma’ki.
Senator Sorensen: My name is Karen Sorensen. I am a senator for Alberta, Banff National Park, Treaty 7 territory.
Senator Boniface: I’m Gwen Boniface, senator for Ontario.
Senator White: Judy White, senator for Ktaqmkuk, also known as Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Chair: 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 available for anyone requiring assistance at all times, free of charge, via the National Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-295-4419, and Hope for Wellness at 1-855-242-3310 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, or NCTR, and the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools. 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 report included a commitment to hold a public hearing with the government, 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.
I would now like to introduce our witnesses.
From the Government of the Northwest Territories, Kyla Kakfwi-Scott, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Cultural Safety, Department of Health and Social Services. And from the Government of Saskatchewan, Clive Weighill, Chief Coroner for Saskatchewan. Wela’lin. Thank you both for joining us today.
Kyla Kakfwi-Scott, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Cultural Safety, Department of Health and Social Services, Government of the Northwest Territories: Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the committee today.
[Indigenous language spoken]
As I introduced myself briefly in my language, I’m K’asho Got’ine and I live in Denendeh, “Land of the People.” My parents are Stephen Kakfwi and Marie Wilson. I am originally from Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories, and I’m joining you from Yellowknife, where I live and work with the Government of the Northwest Territories.
I want to start by clarifying for the record that I’m presenting today in my former capacity as Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Cultural Safety, with the Department of Health and Social Services. I have recently moved into a new position as Deputy Secretary in our premier’s office, but I wanted to honour my commitment to appear before this committee as part of the role transition process.
As an intergenerational residential school survivor with deep personal connections to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I have great respect for the importance of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in ensuring that current and future generations have access to their stories and histories. I have brought that lens to my work in my time with the Department of Health and Social Services, and I was very pleased to receive the letter from this committee bringing to my attention the issue of outstanding records requests and an outstanding invitation to appear before the committee.
I am aware that a written response has been previously provided to the committee, indicating the capacity challenges that have, to date, prevented the Government of the Northwest Territories, or GNWT, from providing the death records for children who died while attending residential schools in the N.W.T. The historical records in the GNWT’s possession, which span the years 1925 to 1956, exist only in original hard copy and must be manually searched and then entered into our electronic systems in order to generate reports that can be released to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
As a small jurisdiction, we have very limited staff capacity within our Vital Statistics office. To date, record searches have been completed alongside the regular work of the office on an as- and when-needed basis in response to specific requests from family members.
Over the last several months, we have worked to develop a plan to prioritize the work of matching, locating and digitizing the records for all children listed by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation as students who died while in residential school. Additional staffing will allow us to dedicate focused attention to the timely completion of this work.
We are also working with the territorial archivist to identify any additional information about these students that could be added to our files and provided to the national centre, such as the location of the school and the likely administrator of the institution at the time of death.
Finally, I can confirm that amendments to our Vital Statistics regulations to allow the GNWT to share vital statistics records with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation were completed in 2019. We are now able to work toward an information-sharing agreement to facilitate the transfer of records once they have been fully entered into our systems.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share with you how we plan to prioritize the timely completion of this important work. I would be happy to respond to any questions from committee members. Mahsi.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Kakfwi-Scott.
I’ll now invite Mr. Weighill to give his opening remarks.
Clive Weighill, Chief Coroner for Saskatchewan, Government of Saskatchewan: Good evening. My name is Clive Weighill, and I am the Chief Coroner for the province of Saskatchewan. We are home to Treaties 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10, and homeland of the Métis.
The Saskatchewan Coroners Service began working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Project in 2012. The Government of Saskatchewan hosted a national event for survivors, youth and others, which was held in Saskatoon on June 21 to 24, 2012.
In a letter to the Premier of Saskatchewan on June 12, the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, noted that the Government of Saskatchewan was seen as a champion and a leader of reconciliation due to their contribution and support for the national event.
The chief coroner of the day was complimented by Chair Sinclair for his expression of reconciliation at the national event. Chair Sinclair also complimented the chief coroner for achieving unanimous approval for a resolution at the chief coroners and chief medical examiners meeting that was held prior to the national event. The resolution supported engagement and discussions with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to fully understand the chief coroners and chief medical examiners’ roles in advancing the mandate of the Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Project. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided the Saskatchewan Coroners Service with a copy of the protocol that Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner had developed for identifying probable residential school deaths. To a large extent, Saskatchewan modelled its methodology after Ontario’s. However, law and procedures for record keeping and access vary by province and territory, and have changed significantly over time.
Saskatchewan established a judicial system of its own in 1915. By 1958, there were 21 judicial districts. Prior to 1976, coroners’ records were often maintained at the applicable judicial centre or the courthouse, particularly where an inquest was convened. All available files dating from 1915 to 2015 have now been collected from the judicial areas, catalogued and stored at the Government of Saskatchewan records centre for permanent storage.
Unfortunately, some of the historical records were not dated, and records for some years could not be located. Information other than inquest reports is limited to the name of the deceased, the date of birth, date of death, place of death and manner of death.
The service now has an electronic database that houses all files from 2015 to the present.
Taking into account the different records and access procedures, in conjunction with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Saskatchewan developed a two-pronged strategy: The coroners service will screen death investigation records, where feasible, for deaths of residential school students; and the national centre will share and regularly update their list of children who died or went missing while they were students of residential schools in Saskatchewan.
Using these two methods, a spreadsheet was developed regarding possible residential school deaths of Aboriginal youth. The spreadsheet records file numbers, names, age and gender, dates of death, places of death and causes of death.
During the development of the protocol, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided their list of approximately 620 potential residential school deaths to inform the Saskatchewan Coroners Service search. Of these, the service was able to search for records relating to about 400 children because sufficient detail had been provided. By 2015, the coroners service had completed its initial search of the readily accessible files and provided a list of potential residential school deaths to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The service further completed an examination of all its records from a search of the potential residential school deaths provided by the TRC and found two records for children on the TRC’s National Residential School Student Death Register. One death was from natural causes in Beauval in 1954, and 19 deaths from a fire of unknown but non-suspicious cause, as determined by the jury of the inquest, in 1927, also in Beauval.
These records were provided to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation on January 31, 2023. This information was communicated to the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools as part of her access to records information submitted in May 2023.
On September 7, 2023, the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan advised the coroners service that they had the register for the Regina Industrial School, as well as birth, marriage and death registers from some churches, which may identify students.
On September 13, 2023, the service received the register for the Regina residential school and completed a search of its case files that same month. No new deaths of children attending the residential school were identified.
The Saskatchewan Coroners Service plans to seek copies of church registers held in the Provincial Archives that may identify students. To accommodate this undertaking, the Provincial Archives has offered to approach the owners of the church records to facilitate this request.
The records previously provided to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation were believed to represent all records in possession of the Saskatchewan Coroners Service. However, on October 30, 2023, the service reviewed the September 20, 2023, Senate standing committee transcript and further reviewed records stemming from the additional information. A further search of records was conducted on December 7, 2023, and three additional records were identified. These have been forwarded to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
The Saskatchewan Coroners Service has always appreciated that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work is ongoing and that they are ready, willing and able to search further if and when new details are provided. The service would welcome further conversations with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation regarding this important work.
Those would be my opening comments, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Weighill, for your comments. We’ll now move on to questions from senators. If any senators have questions, the floor is open.
Senator Sorensen: Thank you to our witnesses. I want to start with more of a comment for the committee. It’s distressing to continue to hear that this work can’t be done because of capacity. Nobody sitting at this table will have the answer to that, but in terms of staffing and funding, we’ve heard from quite a few organizations that the problem is they just don’t have the capacity to do the work. I find that disappointing to hear.
My question is for Mr. Weighill. I’m referring to some comments that were in your briefing. I was confused by them. I was trying to pick up on some similar comments in your presentation.
First, it sounds like your department has done a lot of complicated work to reconcile data from different sources.
Mr. Weighill: Yes.
Senator Sorensen: In the briefing — and maybe you can explain this to me a bit more — you state that the NCTR has been unable to provide the province with a list of children who were in Indian residential schools. Then I think you made the comment that e-health records don’t necessarily differentiate between children who died at a residential school and general child deaths.
The briefing then states that “providing additional death records would require the release of all child deaths in the province from 1944 to the date of the last Saskatchewan residential school closure, which was not possible due to privacy issues.”
Can you elaborate on those comments I made, particularly around the privacy issues?
Mr. Weighill: We have no issues under The Coroners Act of Saskatchewan. I certainly have the authority to release any information regarding this, to families, or to the TRC, or the NCTR, or to any of those groups.
Senator Sorensen: Okay. So is the first part accurate — that the NCTR wasn’t able to provide names to you to narrow your search?
Mr. Weighill: I wonder if you’re looking at a different briefing note than I am. I’m not aware of that. We’ve received all the information that we can from the NCTR. We’ve checked all those names against that. I’m not sure what briefing note you’re looking at.
Senator Sorensen: That’s fine. I’ll let somebody else move on and compare my notes.
Senator Arnot: Thank you to the witnesses for coming here today. I have a question for Ms. Kakfwi-Scott, but I’ll save that for the second round.
I have a question for Chief Coroner Weighill. My question will be different in this sense: During your tenure as chief of police for the City of Saskatoon, you entered into that role at a time when there was great political polarization. You worked hard to foster reconciliation. In your current office, one of your coroners just finished a hearing with the James Smith Cree Nation about the tragedy that unfolded in 2022.
In my view — and in addition to the very comprehensive recommendations that were made by the coroner and the jury — that inquest provided an important opportunity for healing and reconciliation for those that were affected in those communities.
I’d like you to give us your opinion based on your experience. What works to establish trust, build relationships and enable reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and government agencies, in particular the Correctional Service of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who police in F division for the Province of Saskatchewan? I’m interested in knowing what you see coming out of that coroner’s inquest and what you would advise this committee about the things we should look at this year regarding reconciliation, and what we can foster in terms of what needs to be done. Thank you, sir. By the way, it’s really nice to see you here today.
Mr. Weighill: First, I’d like to comment on the work that we did leading up to the inquest and at the inquest itself for the James Smith Cree Nation and the Weldon incident. We made sure that we did almost every possible Indigenous ceremony in line with our legislative requirements. Previous to that inquest we had sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies every Monday morning — I was present at all of them — a teepee erected outside the centre where the inquest was held, with a fire burning for 24 hours for the whole length of the inquest; elders on site, wellness people who could help anyone having any emotional problems, smudging and prayers. We really tried to be inclusive to make sure that the Indigenous population that was affected felt welcome, felt that we were listening to their concerns and felt that we had their spiritual and well-being looked after. That’s very important.
When you look back to my record in Saskatoon and your question to start off with, that’s what we tried to do in Saskatoon. I think it culminated in around 2016, when we erected the monument in front of the Saskatoon Police Service headquarters in conjunction with the Saskatoon tribal council in memory of people, of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. It was a place for people to congregate and start their marches, et cetera, from that headquarters.
Senator Arnot: Would you like to amplify anything about what you’d recommend? That’s an example. You’re leading by example. Are there any comments you would have concerning what we should be looking for as indicia reconciliation in the future?
Mr. Weighill: We have to look at the two worlds coming together. There are two world views always looking at this. First, in my line of work here — that is, with what happened at the James Smith Cree Nation and some of the things that were happening with open hands — we must listen to what people have to say, hear what their concerns are and then act on them. I found in my various careers that it’s different provincially and municipally. Unfortunately, a lot of Indigenous people hear “no” a lot. They always feel like they’re having to push things uphill, always against a big bureaucracy. That’s one thing we’ve tried to do at the Saskatchewan Coroners Service, namely, have a family liaison consultant grassroots so that people don’t have to come up against a Chief Coroner or someone who, in their mind, has authority. They can deal with an issue that they have at the grassroots level and be comfortable being heard. I think that’s important.
Senator Arnot: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much to both of our witnesses. I have a question for clarification for each of our witnesses.
Ms. Kakfwi-Scott, first, congratulations on your new position. As my colleague, Senator Sorensen, mentioned, I think one thing that we take away from what you had to say was that all best efforts have been made and continue to be made. But the main take away is that there is limited capacity, along with everything else that’s being done with those who are responsible for this.
Could you speak to us a little bit about that issue of capacity and being satisfied in doing the job you would like to be doing? What would it take to go from where you were with that limited capacity to where you would like or need to be in order to be satisfied to actually be satisfying the goals that you have here?
Ms. Kakfwi-Scott: Thank you for the question. I want to clarify — and I’m sorry if I was unclear in my opening comments. I know that we have responded previously to say that this is a capacity issue. What I want to be able to communicate this time is that we have gone away and asked what we need to do to have the capacity to get this done, because it’s clearly not going to happen if it’s just off the side of someone’s desk.
Senator Coyle: Right.
Ms. Kakfwi-Scott: The advantage of being a small jurisdiction with limited capacity is that it doesn’t actually take an enormous amount of resources to significantly increase it. We have added one person who will be starting in February and focusing on this work. That amounts to a 50% increase over what our existing staff capacity was. By having someone who is focusing on this work, we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to get this done. I can’t tell you what the deadline is for this until we have them in place and can work plan it, but that is what we have done. We have ensured that it is someone’s job to get this completed and we’re not continually coming back and saying, sorry, we can’t make it happen with what we have.
Senator Coyle: Thanks. You probably said that, but I didn’t catch it. Thank you for that. I understand you can’t really say how long that’s going to take because you need to begin, at this level of capacity, to really understand this. Thank you for that.
Chief Coroner Weighill — sorry for my pronunciation — I’m trying to look at the whole system of which you are a part. You have the NCTR, you have the provincial archives. The provincial archives are, I believe you said, reaching out to the various churches. Is that correct?
Mr. Weighill: Yes.
Senator Coyle: Could you speak a bit more about that? Are they reaching out to the churches based on what is coming from you? What moves that system?
Mr. Weighill: They are going to be the conduit from us to the churches. They have the capacity and the issue to reach out to the churches.
I should explain to the committee as well that the Saskatchewan Coroners Service only deals with deaths from unnatural causes. We investigate deaths that are homicides, suicides, someone who drowns, someone who dies in a fire or from a drug overdose, things along that line. A lot of the deaths reported would have been natural deaths where a child has died from disease. Those would never be reported to the coroners service. We only deal with unexpected or unnatural death, so that’s why we don’t have a full record of all of the deaths that happened in Saskatchewan through the coroners service records.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
Senator Boniface: Thank you very much to both witnesses. I wanted to follow up on Senator Coyle’s question to the Chief Coroner. It’s nice to see you again. I join my colleague Senator Arnot in complimenting you on the work you have done on reconciliation, both in your time as the chief of police and also in your current role.
On the difference between what the TRC’s list of approximately 620 persons of potential residential school deaths and what you are able to find in the other records of the 400, have you done some work trying to figure out what information is missing and then join to that, as you said, natural deaths? Are you making the assumption that those may have been from other diseases and things like that? Do you think there is a gap in the original records? How are you looking at that?
Mr. Weighill: We’re looking at all the names and descriptions that we receive from the TRC or elsewhere, and we compare those names against the files of the Saskatchewan Coroner Services. Those are the only files that I am privy to. The other files would be under vital statistics or other parts within the Province of Saskatchewan. I believe they will be giving testimony here on what they have done on their files.
We have searched all our files from 1915. We brought them all in. We have hired summer clerks to go through all of those old files that are dated all by hand, bringing all those out, cataloguing them and making sure that we have all the names so that when we receive comparison names that we have a full list we can compare to. Anything that we’re receiving now in the province of Saskatchewan for the coroners service is compared against all of our files that we have since 1915.
Senator Boniface: Sorry, I’m not sure if you are saying 1950 or 1915.
Mr. Weighill: 1915.
Senator Boniface: That’s great. Thank you very much.
Senator Prosper: Thank you to the witnesses. I have two questions for each witness. I’ll start with Mr. Weighill.
Thank you for providing and itemizing those details and specifics in terms of the course of your work. One thing I find is when, on a sensitive topic like this, it seems — you mentioned ceremony, but you also mentioned a family liaison consultant, and I took particular reference of that. I’m hoping you could share a bit more about that, because I think certain approaches employed there can be quite beneficial in other places. Could you share a bit more about that? I would really appreciate that.
My second question is for Ms. Kakfwi-Scott. You mentioned that there is now some much-needed capacity to undertake the necessary work you need to do. I’m curious, in your mind, are there any statutory or institutional challenges that you were mindful of during the course of that work? Thank you.
Mr. Weighill: It’s a recent position that we have within Saskatchewan Coroners Service. We have only had it for about three and a half or four years now, the family liaison consultant. This position has paid off in spades not just for us but for the families that we deal with.
She works with the families who have issues. Sometimes the family may not agree with the findings of the Saskatchewan Coroners Service and she can work with them. Leading up to the James Smith Cree Nation inquest, she has worked for the last year with those 11 families and their family members, advising them about the process for the coroner, what we can do for them as the coroners service, how we can get disclosure packages to them so they can find out ahead of time what’s going to happen so that they will feel comfortable and not be surprised when they come to the inquest. She has worked with them and literally sat with them throughout the inquest, in the midst of all the 11 families, and made sure that their questions were asked to the inquest council and coroner. She made them feel that they were very well taken care of. This has really paid off for us, and specifically for the families who felt very comfortable by the end of that process, that they had their questions answered and that they were treated fairly.
Senator Prosper: Thank you.
Ms. Kakfwi-Scott: I think the challenges that we’ll have are really around the quality of the records. Many of the historical records are lacking in information. There is a fair amount of cross-referencing between the lists that the NCTR have and the work that the archives are doing to see if they have anything additional, and then manually going through the physical death records that we have to see where we can match things up.
As far as I understand it, under our vital statistics regulations, we have to do a bit of work to share information, but that work has been completed. We will need to make an information-sharing agreement formally with NCTR, but we have the regulatory authority to do that.
Senator Arnot: Thank you, Ms. Kakfwi-Scott. Through your work and personal background, I believe you understand — better than many, perhaps — the pain and suffering of families and extended families who have lost children or who live a trauma based on the residential school system.
From your experience, what would you advise about the importance of the records that need to be found to those families? More importantly, is there anything you might advise us about establishing and building relationships of trust for reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and government agencies?
Ms. Kakfwi-Scott: Thank you for the question. I have many thoughts on this.
As I said in my introduction, I am an intergenerational survivor. I’m also the daughter of one of the three TRC commissioners, so this has been a focus of our lives as individuals and as a family for many years now. It’s something I have brought to my work in my 11 years with the Department of Health and Social Services. We have had a huge focus on cultural safety and anti-racism in health care, specifically, but also on what it looks like to have representative systems, to have Indigenous people focusing on the healing work that they need to do, and to have governments focused on the self-awareness work that they need to do.
The work of reconciliation is so important, but I’m wary of it being capital R-branded reconciliation and turning into something that we do outwardly, that we can track progress on and have it be action items and all of those things. That is all important, but it’s incredibly difficult to do anything differently if that work of change doesn’t start at the individual level. That is something that each of us, as individuals living in this country, can commit to as a personal practice of self-awareness, self‑reflection and purposeful growth, even when that is uncomfortable, and then being conscientious in terms of how we bring that to our work, whatever that work might be.
Work is needed in every part of the country and in every industry and organization. It’s overwhelming if you think about all of that change being needed, but if you can make it personal and bring it back to what am I doing to be better myself and how am I applying that, that’s a helpful piece.
In a work context, we have taken on the mantra of “Nothing about us without us” and making sure that where we are speaking to the work that is needed, the approach that is needed, what it means to do it in a good way, that this is being informed by and led by Indigenous peoples themselves, and that those of us who work with the GNWT in that area are also careful about the fact that we, too, work for a colonial government. We need to be accountable to that and aware of how we’re managing ourselves and doing our work.
Senator Arnot: Thank you.
Senator Sorensen: I want to apologize to Chief Coroner Weighill. You’re correct; I had another briefing attached to your name. When we hear from that witness, I’ll ask my question again. That’s why I was confused that my notes didn’t match your comments. Thank you for all the work you have done.
Mr. Weighill: Thank you.
The Chair: The floor is still open, senators, if anyone has any other questions. Not seeing any hands raised, the time for this panel is complete.
Again, I wish to thank our witnesses for joining us this evening and providing your comments. If you wish to make any subsequent submissions, please submit them by email to the clerk within seven days. That brings us to the end of our meeting today.
(The committee adjourned.)