Host: In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled thousands of stories of residential school abuse would be destroyed unless survivors chose to preserve them. They gave survivors a ten year window to come forward, and that date is coming next year. But many don't know about the looming deadline. Enter a new initiative that is trying to raise awareness and set up a new national archive. Pulitzer prize winner and investigative journalist Connie Walker joins us in studio. How are you doing, Connie?

I'm well, thank you.

All right. Let's talk about the Indian Residential School Records project at TMU Toronto Metropolitan University. What exactly is the project?

The project is our attempt to try to preserve as much survivor testimony as we can. Survivors of Indian residential schools, I think, fought for for a long time to be believed about what they experienced in residential schools, and then really fought to have their voices heard. And this is our attempt to try to preserve as much of that as we possibly can in order to to, you know, not forget what happened in Indian residential schools.

I want a point of clarification. Unlike the testimonies gathered in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which are being permanently archived, these records, why are they being destroyed? These are part of the independent assessment process, a little bit different than the public facing TRC testimonies.

Yeah, it is a little bit confusing, and I think a lot of people do get confused because of the different ways in which survivors have told their stories. So obviously the work of the TRC is incredibly important, and the testimonies that they gathered will be archived at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. But something that a lot of people don't really know is, is that, you know, the TRC travelled across the country for six years. They held national gatherings, they held community gatherings, and in those six years, they recorded just over 6000 testimonies, largely of Indian residential school survivors. But there was another process that was was happening almost concurrently, in some ways, where survivors who wanted to receive compensation for abuse in residential schools participated in these hearings, called the independent assessment hearings. And more than six times more survivors participated in the IAP than the TRC hearings. Just to give some context of the volume, and that remains the most comprehensive archive that exists of survivor testimony. It was recorded through the IAP. And because, you know, it was part of the residential school settlement agreement, these were confidential hearings that survivors participated in, and very little information from those hearings has ever been made public, certainly not any survivor testimony. And those are the records that are going to be destroyed in 2027 by order of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Indian Residential School records project that I'm working on is separate from both of those archives. So what we what we are attempting to do is, is create another set of archives from the lawsuits that survivors filed that led to the residential school settlement agreement. And I think that work feels particularly urgent because the IAP records, the most comprehensive archive, is about to be destroyed.

Tell me about obviously, without going into too much of the details, but whose stories and whose voices are being captured in some of these?

Yeah. Well, there were, you know, as you know, over 150,000 indigenous children, First Nations, Inuit and Métis kids who attended residential schools. They were open for over 100 years. There were over 100 schools across Canada. And I think that, you know, we're in this era of truth and reconciliation. I think there's a lot more awareness and understanding about generally, residential schools and what survivors experienced in residential schools. But the Indian Residential School Records Project is our attempt to to fully comprehend and understand what happened at individual institutions. And this is very much for me, an extension of the work that I've done as a journalist over the last few years. In 2022, I did a podcast called Stolen Surviving Saint Michael's that was focussed on my father's experience at a residential school in Saskatchewan. And when I began that investigation, it was after, you know, a few years of reporting on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and understanding the link between that crisis of violence and the legacy of residential schools. But really, the podcast and the investigation that followed was, was so eye opening and so shocking to me, just, you know, to really dig deep into a single school, to really try to understand as much as we could about what my father and, and, you know, my aunts and uncles who were there at the school, actually for generations of my family attended that one school. What they really survived. And in a year long investigation, we were able to create this archive of survivor testimony. We were able to access 485 lawsuits that were filed by survivors of this one school. And in those lawsuits filed by individual survivors, you know, we were really able to understand the scale of abuse, the horrifying scale of abuse at a single school. And it was such a, you know, profound experience for me as a as a journalist. Absolutely. To understand there's still so much truth we have to uncover about residential schools. But also as a daughter of a survivor, it was so incredible to, to know and understand how my own life has been shaped by my family's experience. And I felt like that should happen at every school.

I have. This is a serious undertaking. And this is, as you mentioned, this is a story that stories that you have covered for a very long time throughout your career. And I am curious, you know, whether it is your father or another family member or someone that you have no connection to. Was there ever a moment, particularly with this project, that, you know, was there any trepidation in terms of entering this project and making sure that, you know, that these stories are heard? And, you know, there's a lot of weight in that?

Absolutely. I think that that was never something this work generally, and even with the podcast, was never something that, that I took lightly. I think that I was reminded at every step, almost of, of the seriousness of this undertaking, right? These are very incredibly sensitive personal stories like of, of terrible abuse that was committed against children, whether, you know, whether they're my relatives or other survivors of Saint Michael's or other other schools or institutions. That's something that I think, obviously, you know, is so incredibly important to, to consider in a, in a trauma informed way, in, in a way that really. Tries to amplify the voices of survivors. The thing that I kind of always have gone back to is that, you know, these institutions of these schools were open for so many years, for decades, really. And it wasn't until the 80s and the 90s where survivors started coming forward and talking about the abuse they experienced in Indian residential schools. And for a long time, you know, they weren't believed. They had to go to court. They had to, you know, try to prove these allegations in, in, in a system that wasn't conducive to believing them or to hearing them and to allowing for justice and accountability, even even the IAP hearings, you know, it was in some ways for a lot of survivors the first time that they had had come forward to share their stories. And when they told they had to, they had to tell in very graphic detail, you know, very specific things about the abuse that they experienced. And if they were believed, they received compensation. And I say if they were believed, because sometimes they they weren't believed. You know, we spoke to survivors who at Saint Michael's who, you know, whose initial claims had been denied despite the fact that they claimed they were abused by a priest who who was known to be abusive in the same way to other children. And I think that when you think about how much survivors had to fight in order to to receive even compensation, let alone like, you know, they were recording and testifying to, you know, crimes that were committed against them as children, but they were never investigated as part of the I. AP, you know, it was only for compensation. And so when I think about what survivors have done to try to share their truth, to try to, to share their stories, I think that, you know, obviously makes me want to be as sensitive as I possibly can, but really that this is very important work.

As you mentioned, the IAP and the independent assessment process. Let's talk a little bit about the project, because there is some some exciting elements to it in that you are tapping into the future of, you know, the of TMU with law students, some journalism students as well. Where are we at with this process and what is the role of those those students?

We're right at the beginning of the process. We've just received some some support from the Law Foundation Foundation of Ontario to essentially what our goal is to replicate the work we did and the podcast, Surviving Saint Michael's to file access to information requests to receive the file numbers of the lawsuits that survivors filed that led to the residential school settlement agreement. Now, those are public documents. And so our goal is to to work directly with survivors, their families and communities to create these new archives of testimony from the lawsuits that survivors filed. And when I was thinking about, you know, as soon as I finished the podcast, I felt like this should happen on a broader scale. It should happen for every school. It should happen for every community and family and survivor who wants it, and intergenerational survivor. And I thought a university would be an ideal place. You know, I think it's interdisciplinary in nature. There's obviously we're so lucky to work with law students at Lincoln Alexander Law School and with journalism students from the School of Journalism at TMU. And I'm really excited to have them be a part of it because I think this is really important for, for law students to learn and understand how to engage with indigenous communities and survivors. But also, I think, to for journalism students to understand how much of the truth is, is still yet to uncover in terms of understanding what happened in, in Indian residential schools.

You say that you guys are just about to start. Is there a timeline in terms of when you would like this to be all done?

Well, I mean, yeah, I think that at the outset, we're going to be focusing on on five schools in Ontario. And I think because we're going to be so focussed on working directly with survivors and their families and communities, we really want this to be a process where we are giving the agency back to survivors and their families in terms of, they can decide what should happen with this information, they can decide what should happen with their own stories. We're really hoping to develop some, some kind of processes and protocols around that engagement and really putting putting survivors and their families in the driver's seat. But I anticipate this is a project that goes on potentially for for many years and eventually expands to include residential schools across the country. You know, there were over 100 that were open for over 100 years. And I think that one thing that I've realised in doing the podcast about my my family's experience at Saint Michael's Indian Residential School is I heard from so many other intergenerational survivors when that podcast came out, you know, it was a very personal story about my father and his experience at this residential school. But they said it felt like it was their story, too. I was talking about them and their parents or grandparents, and it made me realise, you know, just how important it is for intergenerational survivors because, you know, obviously our lives have been shaped by our parents and grandparents experience in these schools, but so many of us don't know what it is they really survived, don't really understand what they went through. And I think this is an important part of, you know, my role as a journalist in helping to preserve as much of the truth and, and raise awareness. But I think it's also, you know, personally, it feels like a really important thing to be able to, to understand.

You mentioned truth, and there's a lot more that needs to come from that. But what do projects like this mean for truth and reconciliation here in Canada?

You know, I think that one thing that I've learned in, in the various reporting that I've done, you know, I've done a lot of reporting on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And that to me was really kind of, you know, led me to reporting on Indian residential schools because I think there are so many contemporary issues that, that we talk about in indigenous communities, especially in journalism. And I think my, my, my own career and my own investigations have taught me how it's so interconnected to this bigger story in Canada of Indian residential schools. But also of colonisation in Canada. And I think that, you know, this work has really shown me that there is, you know, that we're still in the truth phase of truth and reconciliation. There's still so much we need to know and understand. And as journalists, so much work for us to do, to really expose the truth of what happened in these institutions. And that's something that really motivates me and the work that I'm doing.

Do you have to ask from your early career to where you are now? Is it easier now to convince editors and producers that these stories matter? You telling your own story, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody? Like, if it wasn't for those recognitions, do you think these stories that they would have the same sort of weight in that sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I first started, I'm, you know, I've been a journalist since 2000, you know, at the very beginning, there was very little interest in stories about indigenous people and communities. And I think, unfortunately, there was there was a belief, a false belief that those stories were an important or that Canadians didn't care about them. And I think that has changed, obviously, dramatically over the last, especially ten, 15 years, because of the work of survivors, because of the work of the TRC. But it's never something that I take for granted. You know, I think that along with, you know, maybe this this awareness of truth and reconciliation, there's also growing denialism. There are people and organisations out there who actively deny what's happened in Indian residential schools and deny what survivors and truth commissions and interlocutor reports have have proven about what was happening in Indian residential schools. So it's never something I take for granted. I think also as much progress has been made in Canadian journalism. You know, there is still so much work to to do. I think, you know, I should point out that the the awards that I won, the Pulitzer and the Peabody was, were actually when I left Canada to, to work for an American news Organization and that supported that work about a Canadian story. So I think that, you know, that's never something I take for granted that's going to be a given.

I imagine a bittersweet feeling as well.

Yeah. I mean, sure, but I think that, you know, it's, it's, it's not an unfamiliar feeling. I think certainly I'm not the only indigenous journalist or journalist of colour who feels underrepresented in mainstream newsrooms, in legacy media, but who have then, you know, done the work of pushing these stories forward, of proving the significance, the importance, the relevance to Canada and to Canadians. And I think that's that's work that we're always just going to have to continue to do.

All right. Today is Red Dress Day what is something you would like people, Canadians, Ontarians, to reflect on today?

Yeah, I mean, in any you know, I've done quite a lot of reporting on on this crisis of violence and on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And, you know, I am always thinking of of them the, you know, Cleo Semaganis, Leah Anderson, Germaine Charlo and their families and communities. And how, you know, so much of my reporting has been obviously wanting to help people understand the scale again, of this crisis and understanding just how broad reaching it is in indigenous communities, but also never forgetting the real people at the heart of the stories and the real families that are grieving today and are remembering their lost loved ones and really just want to, you know, think of them and, and send them support because what they do when they obviously are grieving and mourning, they're often also forced to become advocates for their loved ones and to, to, you know, to work with journalists and other people to, to try to help fight for justice and accountability and, and the truth. And I think these two issues are very connected.

Connie. We are going to have to leave it there. But I want to thank you so much for the work that you do, of course, but for your passion as well, for such an important story. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.