Image Credit: Kamloops Residential School

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: Let’s hope 2022 will tell us more about the missing children

Dec 15, 2021 | 4:40 AM

IT’S NOT AT ALL A SURPRISE that residential school gravesite discoveries are the biggest news story of 2021.

Editors of Canadian Press news outlets have chosen it as the story of the year over other major events such as B.C.’s wildfires and recent floods, and the global climate change issue.

I hope one of the big stories of 2022 will be that further research will provide some closure — if that’s even possible — for First Nations and for the country.

A big piece of that quest is confirming the identities of the missing children of residential schools. It’s a daunting task but not necessarily impossible. Shortly after ground-penetrating radar discovered the 215 sites at the Kamloops school, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced there were as many as 751 at the residential school site there.

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Since then, names have been put to 300 at Cowessess; no small achievement. It’s also been confirmed the site was once a Catholic cemetery — from which grave markers were removed — rather than a secret burial ground and that some buried there were from neighbouring towns.

One of the biggest impediments to confirming the full story behind all of these findings, including at Kamloops, is the tardy release of records or even the destruction of some records.

Kamloops is different than Cowessess or a similar finding in Cranbrook because, in those two cases, it was found that the gravesites were in official cemeteries.

And, unlike the other situations, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc so far has no names at all it can attach to its discovery. Independent research has found that none of the 51 Kamloops residential school kids listed in the Truth and Reconciliation report was buried at the school.

That’s a small piece of good news but real progress will be identifying the remains at the school itself — a big challenge but hopefully one on which progress can be made in the year to come.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.