CANADA
Hamilton Spectator
By Chinta Puxley
The commission that has spent five years examining one of the darkest chapters in Canada’s history is winding up its work with a key question left unanswered — exactly how many aboriginal children died in residential schools?
Justice Murray Sinclair, who heads the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says the federal government stopped recording the deaths around 1920 after the chief medical officer at Indian Affairs suggested children were dying at an alarming rate.
“He was fired,” Sinclair says. “The government stopped recording deaths of children in residential schools, we think, probably because the rates were so high.”
Sinclair has guessed up to 6,000 children may have died at the schools but it’s impossible to say with certainty.
“We think this is a situation that needs further study,” he said.
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