Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talk about the residential school students who went to schools outside their communities. I talked somewhat about my uncle. I want to ask – I don’t know if it’s the Minister of Justice or the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, but maybe I’ll ask the Minister of Justice on this one here – about students that did not come back to their communities. There are some families in the communities who are waiting for their son or their brother or their sister. One of their family members has not come back. What is the Department of Justice doing to help the communities and family members to know what happened to those students at the residential school they attended?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not certain, but I will absolutely work with my colleague from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and other individuals throughout Canada, including possibly the representatives from the TRC to find out what the status of that is.
I appreciate the Minister taking the question. I wasn’t too sure which Minister would take it. I want to continue on with the Minister of Justice. For the students that did not come back from these residential schools, there are stories, there are innuendos, there are assumptions, there are people telling us this is what happened to that little boy or little girl. I want to ask the Minister of Justice if he would look into his department to see where he can look with the staff that he has, to say we want to get down to the bottom of this, what is it that we need to do. Can the Minister provide some kind of a process framework to answer this question?
We’ve heard the stories as well. They’re horrible, obviously. I’m not sure that it is the Department of Justice, solely, that would be responsible for that and, like I said before, I will work with my colleague with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, but we’ll certainly also discuss it at Cabinet level and see if there’s anything that can be done, or which department would be the responsible department, or what would be the responsible organization to help.
Where can former students of the residential school go to see what can be done if there is a situation where their family member did not come back home and they need to find out what happened to that family member? Where would those people go and who would they call in this government?
I would suggest that you could approach either the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Department of Justice, or the Department of Health and Social Services and we’ll try and find a way to work together. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How would people in our communities go about this? You say they can call, but who would they call? How would this be communicated to the people in our small communities? Would it be done on TV, ads, workshops, conferences? How would they know that they can call this number to know where they can get some information? Thank you.
I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’ll talk with the Minister of Education later today and hopefully we’ll be able to provide the Member with some additional information that will help those individuals. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
