Saddle Lake Cree Nation requests visit from Trudeau after child’s remains found at former residential school

Leaders of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to visit their community after members say the remains of a child were recovered from a communal grave.

The leaders say the remains were found near the former Sacred Heart Indian Residential School (Blue Quills).

“Nobody’s ever supposed to be denied dignity and death and buried in a mass communal grave because it denies the people in their dignity but it also denies family their last rights, and the person’s right to identity in death,” said Leah Redcrow, the investigation director with the Blue Quills Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Inquiry.

Redcrow, who’s also the CEO of Acimowin Opaspiw Society (AOS), tells CityNews she would like Trudeau to set up a meeting, adding the “least he could do with his busy schedule” is meet with those who have missing family members.

Redcrow says the community is still in possession of the child’s remains, adding the medical examiner will not examine them unless they are picked up by the RCMP. But she says police won’t come get them.

“So taking care and ensuring the respectful repatriation and recovery of this mass grave of these children who died in residential school is a Canadian responsibility,” Redcrow said. “And I hope Canada steps up to the plate and honours these children because that’s what we really want. We want them honoured and buried respectfully.”

Redcrow also says there has been a lack of support from Health Canada. She says they need more mental-health support to help address the trauma brought up by the “horrific” discovery.

In a statement, Alberta’s Ministry of Justice says it empathizes with the “tragic generational consequences of residential schools for Saddle Lake Cree Nation and other Indigenous communities across Alberta.

“We recognize the importance of the work the Acimowin Opaspiw Society is undertaking. However, the Fatality Inquiries Act does not give the medical examiner the power to excavate cemeteries or mass graves on their own.”

The investigation of the remains would fall under the National Advisory Committee on Residential School Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, the Ministry of Justice says.

“They have technical experts, including archeologists, geophysicists, anthropologists, and forensic pathologists on hand to provide guidance as they undertake this important, but difficult, work.”