An agreement years in the making is being called “a significant step” in the ongoing push for transparency by confronting the difficult truths surrounding a dark part of Canada’s past.
The Oblates of OMI Lacombe Canada and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation signed a supplemental agreement Tuesday in Winnipeg that is expected to quicken access to personnel files of Oblate members who worked in Canadian residential schools.
Through the memorandum of agreement, the centre will gain unprecedented access to previously unreleased records held by the Oblates, NCTR executive director Stephanie Scott said.
“[This] agreement is a significant step…. We believe that this collaboration will help tell an even more complete story and by doing so, we will be honouring all the children who were taken to those institutions, including those who never came home.”
Scott, whose mother was a residential school survivor, says the enhanced sharing of records, information and documents will afford the NCTR the opportunity to better educate Canadians and those who deny the “tragic and shameful history” of residential schools.
“We know that additional residential school records will provide more information and that the research must continue to not only explore the historical documents but to further help us … on how we move forward together in unity and reconciliation,” she said.
The agreement will ensure the personnel files of Oblate members who have been dead two or more years will be available for research. Such files were previously sealed for 50 years after an Oblate member’s death.
Raymond Frogner is head of archives and the senior director of research at the NCTR. He said the centre’s archives currently hold more than 9,000 Oblate records from across the country — a relatively low number compared to the number of records that he says are believed to exist.
“These personnel files will bring greater clarity to the history of the residential schools system,” he said.
Frogner and Rob Meilleur, chief administrative officer for the Oblates, travelled to Rome in July 2022 to look at the archives held in the general administration.
It marked the first time in history anyone outside of the Oblates had access to the records, and it marked a personal “turning point” for Meilleur.
He called the change in releasing records “a profound shift” and one that underscores the “commitment to openness and transparency” on the part of the Oblates.
Fr. Ken Thorson considered Tuesday a watershed moment with the signing of the agreement.
Thorson, the provincial for the Oblate, said the progress that has been made is tied directly to the selflessness of Indigenous survivors, elders, knowledge keepers and intergenerational survivors who have spoken their truth with clarity and grace, often challenging the Oblates to engage this work with respect, humility and deep listening.
Sometimes the progress was “unacceptably slow,” he said, especially after the remains of 215 children were discovered at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., in May 2021. That finding “brought fresh urgency to the work of truth and reconciliation,” Thorson said.
But he says meaningful progress has been made, and that they’ve arrived at a new juncture — “a move from intention to action.”
“My prayer today is that this agreement marks a step forward, a fresh start on this shared pilgrimage of healing,” Thorson said.
Florence Painter, an Anishinaabe from Sandy Bay First Nation and an elder-in-residence at the NCTR, believes more documents from the Oblates will assist future Indigenous leaders and decision makers.
“Our younger generations are the future and need to understand the importance of knowing their history, and accessing the truth shared by survivors,” she said.
To ensure that personnel files of Oblates are digitized and transferred carefully, quickly and as comprehensively as possible, the organization will fund an archivist position at the NCTR to help support these efforts over the next year.
Meilleur says the signing represents more than an agreement.
“It symbolizes our shared commitment for transparency and the importance of confronting difficult truths,” he said. “It is a step forward in ensuring that the voice and experience of residential school survivors, and their families and their communities are honoured and preserved.”