Residential school survivor challenges Valcourt to review archival document destruction record
An Indian residential school survivor has issued a challenge to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt to review archival files that prove the government of Canada deliberately destroyed residential school documents.
By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
An Indian residential school survivor has issued a challenge to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt to review archival files that prove the government of Canada deliberately destroyed residential school documents.
Valcourt denied the Canadian government ever destroyed residential school documents last Thursday during a House of Commons committee of the whole appearance.
“If he wants, we can send him documentation on the department’s own, old letterhead verifying that it was factual and it was done,” said Michael Cachagee, who was four and-a-half years old when he was taken to residential school. “I challenge him on that publicly. We will send it to him just to refresh his memory.”
Valcourt’s office did not return requests for comment on Cachagee’s offer.
Valcourt faced questions during his committee of the whole appearance from NDP MP Romeo Saganash, who attended residential school and had a brother die at one of the institutions.
“Have historical files pertinent to the Indian residential school system been destroyed by the government of Canada?” said Saganash, who also pressed the minister on whether any destruction occurred to avoid lawsuits.
“To my knowledge, no,” said Valcourt. “I was not around in the 1940s, or the 1930s, or the 1920s. To my knowledge, no documents were deliberately destroyed simply to have them destroyed.”
The archival record, however, counters that. While no proof exists that documents were ever destroyed over lawsuit concerns, files were pulped as a result of three major rounds of government-wide document purging directives issued between 1936 and 1973.
Indian Affairs included residential school diaries, medical reports, building inspections, accident reports along with admission and discharge files among the lists of records it submitted for destruction.
Valcourt’s office has downplayed the analysis, saying it was done by a junior bureaucrat and did not reflect the government’s “view.” The minister’s office has never detailed the prevailing view.
Indian residential school records are a key component for former residential school survivors to obtain common experience payments under the multi-billion dollar residential school settlement agreement.
While the department maintains that no one who attended the schools have ever been denied a claim as a result of missing records, over 50,000 applicants have received less than they requested because they failed to prove they attended residential schools for the number of years they claimed.
Cachagee, who suffered sexual and physical abuse during his time at three residential schools, said he lost a year’s worth of compensation as a result of missing records.
“This whole thing is a fraud and it’s just an extension and all they do is they use the shelter of the House of Commons to lie about it,” said Cachagee, who used to head the National Residential School Survivors Society.
NDP Aboriginal affairs critic Jean Crowder said Valcourt needs to come clean about what his department is telling him about the issue.
“If the minister is truly not aware that documents were not destroyed, which would seem unbelievable, then he is either incredibly incompetent or he is misleading the public,” said Crowder. “If his high level bureaucrats are briefing him on something that is counter to what is in the public domain then he doesn’t have control of his department.”
@JorgeBarrera
