New Report Finds at Least 3,000 Died at Indian Residential Schools

By Jason Warick
Leader-Post
February 19, 2013

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/report+finds+least+died+Indian+residential+schools/7982418/story.html

Students in a residential school classroom.

Rita Custer is searching for answers about her late daughter, Monica, who died mysteriously in 1986 while attending an Indian residential school in Prince Albert.

"I want the truth for my family, but for all of the other families, too," Custer said Monday in a telephone interview from her Pelican Narrows home.

A national report released Monday stated at least 3,000 children are known to have died during attendance at Canada's Indian residential schools.

"As parents, this is painful, but we have the right to know how our children died (and) how many of them died," Custer said.

While deaths have long been documented as part of the disgraced residential school system, the findings are the result of the first systematic search of government, school and other records.

"These are actual confirmed numbers," said Alex Maass, research manager with the Missing Children Project.

"All of them have primary documentation that indicates that there's been a death, when it occurred, what the circumstances were."

The number could rise as more documents - especially from government archives - come to light.

The largest single killer, by far, was disease. Maass also linked deaths to drownings, fires, exposure, suicide and other causes.

"This is all very sad to hear. I hope this will bring some closure to the families," said Lac la Ronge Indian Band Chief Tammy Cook-Searson, whose community hosted a major gathering for residential school survivors last summer.

"We need to think about those children who'll never be coming home."

Details surrounding the death of Monica Margaret Charles are scant.

She attended the Prince Albert Indian Residential School (PAIRS) with two of her sisters. When Monica was 13 years old, she was placed in the school infirmary, said Custer. None of the students knew why, and Custer was not informed by nurses or school staff that her daughter was sick.

Several days later, Custer received a phone message that her daughter was in a Saskatoon hospital, but she was not given any details. A plane flew Custer to Royal University Hospital, where a doctor said her daughter was brain dead. Monica was taken off life support shortly after.

Custer feels she never got a chance to say goodbye to her daughter, and is frustrated she can no longer remember their last conversation.

One official told her Monica may have had meningitis. Some of the students told the family about rumours that Monica had died in the ambulance en route to hospital. Monica's sisters told Custer that Monica may have been neglected in the infirmary.

Custer and other relatives accompanied the hearse carrying Monica's body on the 500-kilometre trip home. On the way, P.A. residential school officials asked that the family stop at the school for a memorial ceremony.

Custer stood in the gymnasium, students and staff filing past her daughter's open casket.

"I could just hear a few voices, but it was like my whole body and brain were numb."

Custer arrived home and organized the funeral. Custer had wanted the body placed next to her late husband, who had drowned when Monica was three years old.

There was no room, however, so the girl's body rests in the far end of the Anglican cemetery.

"My kids are so angry about what happened. We don't know what to believe," Custer said.

North Battleford lawyer Eleanore Sunchild, who handles hundreds of residential school cases, is helping Custer in her search for answers.

Sunchild said there will likely be many more than 3,000 deaths once more documentation is released by the federal government.

"This just adds to the level of harm that was done. It was so deep," she said.

"I think it's important all people know about this. It needs to be told."

In all, about 150,000 First Nations children went through the church-run residential school system, which ran from the 1870s until the 1990s. In many cases, native kids were forced to attend under a deliberate federal policy of "civilizing" aboriginal peoples.

Many students were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Some committed suicide. Some died fleeing their schools.

Acting Aboriginal Affairs Minister James Moore, speaking in Vancouver, called the deaths a "horrific circumstance" of the Indian residential school system.

"The residential school fact of Canada's history is a Canadian tragedy," Moore said.

The records reveal the number of deaths only fell off dramatically after the 1950s, although some fatalities occurred into the 1970s.

"The question I ask myself is: Would I send my child to a private school where there were even a couple of deaths the previous year without looking at it a little bit more closely?" Maass said. "One wouldn't expect any death rates in private residential schools."