Catholic Church and Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation unveil covenant on residential schools

The leader of Vancouver’s Roman Catholic archdiocese says the church was wrong to administer residential schools in B.C., and he hopes a newly released covenant with a First Nation can act as a road map for redress.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller and Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation Chief Rosanne Casimir have told an online news conference the covenant signed earlier this year contains commitments from the Catholic Church, including full transparency of records to identify children missing from residential schools.

Miller says the church will also provide “technical and scientific expertise” to address questions about ground-penetrating radar surveys for potential unmarked graves at sites around the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The covenant between the archdiocese, the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc and the Diocese of Kamloops was signed in March, about three years after the First Nation said about 200 possible unmarked burial sites had been found around the former school.

Indigenous communities across Canada have since conducted searches at other residential school sites and made similar discoveries.

Miller says he hopes the covenant in B.C. will lead to “similar journeys” in other First Nation and Christian communities in Canada, calling the “sacred” agreement “an instrument of further dialogue and accountability.”