Ottawa inks agreement to share more residential schools records to Winnipeg centre

Jan 20, 2022 | 8:41 AM

OTTAWA — Canada’s Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says Ottawa has reached an agreement with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to hand over more records on residential schools that Ottawa had been holding back.

The federal government says the agreement outlines how and when it will send the historical documents to the Winnipeg-based centre, will make them available to residential school survivors and work to preserve them.

Survivors and other Indigenous leaders have long called on the federal government to release remaining records that it had refused to fully disclose, citing legal reasons.

The demands grew louder last year after several First Nations announced ground-penetrating radar had located what are believed to be the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools.