FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron. (980 CJME/ file photo)

By CKOM

lost children

Sask. gov’t joins FSIN to demand more investigation of residential school sites

May 31, 2021 | 2:12 PM

The Saskatchewan government is joining the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) in calling for radar ground searches of residential school sites in the province.

After the remains of 215 children were found on the site of a former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, the FSIN called on governments to start looking into undocumented deaths and burials on the sites of similar institutions in Saskatchewan.

That included radar ground searches at the sites of the Muskowekwan Indian Residential School (IRS), Onion Lake St. Anthony’s IRS, Beauval IRS, Guy Hill IRS, Lebret IRS and Sturgeon Landing IRS, along with additional sites in consultation with First Nations in Saskatchewan.

“Our First Nations communities and families need closure to begin healing from the traumas forced upon them at these residential schools,” FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron said in a media release Monday.

“There are thousands of families across this country and in our Treaty territories that have been waiting for their children to come home. These children deserve the respect and dignity of proper burials and we must follow protocol and work with our Elders to ensure that their souls are at peace.”

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The FSIN called on the federal Liberal, NDP and Conservative parties to support the plan.

In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe said in the release his government was fully behind the FSIN endeavour.

“With an estimated 20 federal residential schools operated in Saskatchewan, meaningful reconciliation in our province must include research into the estimated hundreds of children that did not return home after attending these institutions, including radar ground search,” Moe said in the release.

“Saskatchewan is prepared to support this work through the Ministry of First Nations, Metis and Northern Affairs in collaboration with the FSIN and First Nations in Saskatchewan.”

Flags at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building are being flown at half-mast to commemorate the children whose remains were found in Kamloops.

According to the federal government, 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and put into the residential school system, which operated in Canada for more than a century.

The federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission believes around 20 residential schools operated in Saskatchewan from the 1880s to the 1990s.

The provincial government noted it has taken action to protect cemeteries at residential school sites in Saskatchewan.

In 2019, the Battleford Industrial School Cemetery — the final resting place of at least 74 children who died while attending the institution — was designated a Provincial Heritage Property. The same designation was given in 2017 to the Regina Indian Industrial School Cemetery, where at least 36 children are buried.

CKOM