Should the RCMP not be involved somehow as these graves would be classified as suspicious, with no records to state date and cause of death?
They are investigating.
Why are there no records? The one thing the catholic church did very well was to keep records. The government at the time would also have kept records, and tracked these children. Where are/were the parents of these children?
Not really. These kids were regarded as savages. They were given new names and weren't allowed to see their parents (except for holidays, and only if parents paid for it). And the government only cared about how many school children there were. Here are hundreds of official records, letters and so from the Kamloops Residential School. You can see how they talk to expand the school, how they ask the government for more money, how they passed inspection and so on.
These are the records the government has. The Catholic Church didn't make anything public as of yet.
Many records were destroyed. There were laws passed in many provinces to only keep records regarding Indian Affairs for only a few years. So a lot of information got lost.
"According to a 1935 federal government policy, school returns could be destroyed after five years, and reports of accidents after ten years. This led to the destruction of fifteen tonnes of waste paper. Between 1936 and 1944, 200,000 Indian Affairs files were destroyed. Health records were regularly destroyed. For example, in 1957, Indian and Northern Health Services was instructed to destroy “correspondence re routine arrangements re medical and dental treatments of Indians and Eskimos, such as transportation, escort services, admission to hospital, advice on treatment, requests for treatment, etc.” after a period of two years. Reports by doctors, dentists, and nurses were similarly assigned a two-year retention period."
Should the RCMP not be involved somehow as these graves would be classified as suspicious, with no records to state date and cause of death?
They are investigating.
Why are there no records? The one thing the catholic church did very well was to keep records. The government at the time would also have kept records, and tracked these children. Where are/were the parents of these children?
Not really. These kids were regarded as savages. They were given new names and weren't allowed to see their parents (except for holidays, and only if parents paid for it). And the government only cared about how many school children there were. Here are hundreds of official records, letters and so from the Kamloops Residential School. You can see how they talk to expand the school, how they ask the government for more money, how they passed inspection and so on.
These are the records the government has. The Catholic Church didn't make anything public as of yet.
Many records were destroyed. There were laws passed in many provinces to only keep records regarding Indian Affairs for only a few years. So a lot of information got lost.
"Between 1936 and 1944, 200,000 Indian Affairs files were destroyed. Health records were regularly destroyed. For example, in 1957, Indian and Northern Health Services was instructed to destroy “correspondence re routine arrangements re medical and dental treatments of Indians and Eskimos, such as transportation, escort services, admission to hospital, advice on treatment, requests for treatment, etc.” after a period of two years. Reports by doctors, dentists, and nurses were similarly assigned a two-year retention period."
Should the RCMP not be involved somehow as these graves would be classified as suspicious, with no records to state date and cause of death?
They are investigating.
Why are there no records? The one thing the catholic church did very well was to keep records. The government at the time would also have kept records, and tracked these children. Where are/were the parents of these children?
Not really. These kids were regarded as savages. They were given new names and weren't allowed to see their parents (except for holidays, and only if parents paid for it). And the government only cared about how many school children there were. Here are hundreds of official records, letters and so from the Kamloops Residential School. You can see how they talk to expand the school, how they ask the government for more money, how they passed inspection and so on.
These are the records the government has. The Catholic Church didn't make anything public as of yet.