Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

By Doug Kanentiio George.

Delegates from the Akwesasronon Shonatater:ron (Residential School Survivors organization) took part in the "National Gathering on Unmarked Burials" conference in Vancouver, BC from January 16-18.

The group monitored sessions as follows:

Importance of Data Sovereignty and Access to Records in the Search and Recovery of Missing Children

Indigenous Archives

How to Access Records

National Archives Research

Youth Voices of Survivors Families

The Power of Data

Indigenous Law Relating to Information and Knowledge

Media: Ensuring the Respectful Treatment and Public Discourse of Community Information

The Transfer and Condition of Records

Akwesasronon Richard Jock was a presenter representing the First Nations Health Authority. He spoke on how data is crucial in locating the missing children and how it was essential to preserve the information as part of the justice and repatriation process. It was also important to know how to find specific data which may be held in local, regional and national depositories. It is complicated work which will take years to complete.

The Akwesasronon worked with their kin from Ohsweken to emphasize four major points:

1. No action of any kind should occur without the direct participation and approval of the residential school survivors and their respective organizations, that the emergence from being victims required the survivors to be control.

2. All residential school grounds must be considered crime scenes. As the burial grounds are located there will be a need to use contemporary technology to complement the stories of the survivors. This means working with forensic scientists to identify the remains, determine cause of death, connect the remains with existing communities and families and develop an appropriate method of return. This may also lead to criminal actions depending on the finding of the investigations.

3.There is a pressing need for a national museum to enable the survivors to tell their stories and to preserve for all time this part of our collective history. The museum would house displays, a recording facility, and an archive.

4. A permanent pension needs to be paid to every survivor. The method for compensation set by the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not work and resulted in a "cash for trauma" method imposed upon the survivors in which federal bureaucrats determined the degree of harm then gave a dollar value on each incident but each claimant had to prove their claim which was extremely difficult given the lack of access to records. Since there is now an acknowledgement that every survivor was harmed by the residential schools and that the survivors are being asked to take an active part in the investigations at the former schools it is logical to provide them with the financial security to do so.

Also presented was the Akwesasne experience in developing its own media in response to the negative press most Native events received in recent times. Rather than tolerate bad reporting the people of Akwesasne, under the direction of the Mohawk Nation Council, established its own methods of communications from the White Roots of Peace, Akwesasne Notes-Indian Time and the Akwesasne Communications Society.

One suggestion made by survivor Doug George-Kanentiio was to tackle the big lies including the renaming of British Columbia which is neither British or Columbian.

Richard Jock, CEO First Nations Health Authority, speaking at Third Gathering on Unmarked Burials.

The next national meeting of the group, led by Kanesatakeronon Kim Murray will take place March 26-27 in Toronto with an emphasis on the legal aspects of the residential school recovery efforts. Ms. Murray is the director of Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites.

For Akwesasne the act of gathering data will prove to be unique since many children were taken across the international border and placed in institutions such as Carlisle and the Thomas Indian School among other places. Stories are told of children being kidnapped from their homes north of the line by US authorities and some taken from the "American" side and placed in Canadian schools. The duty of the AS is to find everyone so taken regardless of where they were confined.

The conference delegates from across Canada were welcomed to the homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations by chiefs Jennifer Thomas and Steven Point along with Joe Desjarlais of the Metis Federation.