Bhutila and her NDP colleagues are calling on all churches and governments to release any records related to residential schools.
There are 18 former residential school sites in Ontario, with potentially hundreds of unmarked graves where precious children lay. These children should have lived full lives, and their children and grandchildren should be here today. Residential schools were a genocide that erased generations.
This search for lost children must be Indigenous-led, community-based, survivor-centric and culturally sensitive. But there are records that could aid the search and ease the unbearable pain and trauma for Indigenous people who lead the search, and no acceptable reason to hide them.
The government of Ontario must implement the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Indigenous people are still denied safe drinking water and decent housing, and equitable access to health care and mental health supports. First Nations children are still dramatically overrepresented in the child welfare system, and denied equitable access to education. Ontario has the power to act on all of these things, but generations of governments have chosen not to.