In this program, journalist Savanna Craig of Local 514 of CUTV spoke with Kimberly Murray, Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools about the evidence proving these graves exist and the dangers of the hoax narrative.

As she explains, there are unmarked graves across Canada with the bodies of Indigenous children that died in residential schools. Some of the deaths of these children were documented by the Catholic Church and Canadian government. A report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada shows that children died in these schools and many were burried near residential schools, but the exact location of these graves are in the process of being determined. 

In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation announced it had detected 215 possible unmarked graves at a former residential school in Kamloops. But some misinterpreted it to mean 215 children’s bodies had been found.

This process of uncovering these graves is slow and steady, with most of the bodied yet to be unearthed. But this process is causing distrust among some Canadians, fueling the narrative that mass graves are a hoax.

Murray has been invited into many reserves, where she has heard testimonies from survivors, family members of survivors and community leaders. She has also visited unmarked burial sites.

Murray’s role is to not only visit these sites, but put together a report on how these sites should be handled. An interim report was published in June and a final report will be published at the end of her mandate in summer 2024.

Murray said more needs to be done by the government to counter the hoax narrative. She says that that there is lack of education about residential schools in Canadian curriculums. She suggested Canada outlaw hoax rhetoric about unmarked burial sites, citing that Canada has criminalized denial of the Holocaust.