The federal government will discontinue funding a committee created to help Indigenous communities look for unmarked graves at former residential schools at the end of next month. Although the search began in 2021, no bodies have been located or exhumed as a result. 

“The National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials is extremely disappointed to learn that the Government of Canada has decided to discontinue funding to support their work to help Indigenous communities in their efforts to identify, locate and commemorate missing children, and is urging the federal government to reconsider,” wrote the NAC in a statement released Thursday.

The committee, co-administered by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the federal Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, was launched in 2021.

Its creation was in response to claims made about 200 potential burial sites based on ground-penetrating radar at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site.

“We are extremely concerned by the decision,” said NAC member Kona Williams. “We urge the federal government to reconsider this decision which we believe to be a giant step backwards on the path of reconciliation.”

The Kamloops story gained international attention, prompting Ottawa to create an interactive online map marking the locations of former residential schools to help identify unmarked graves as the majority of residential school buildings have been demolished.

The Indian Residential Schools Interactive Map allows the public to locate where the former buildings stood and includes historical and contemporary aerial photos.

However, nearly four years later, no human remains have been recovered and the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation has maintained “anomalies” had been discovered but has since stopped short of calling them graves.

The claims sparked global interest, leading Pope Francis to visit Canada in 2022 to issue an official apology on behalf of the Catholic Church for its role in operating residential schools. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that at least 3,200 children died while in federal custody at residential schools in a report released in 2015.

In August 2021, a team of researchers in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia excavated the former Shubenacadie Residential School in search of clandestine burials but found no conclusive evidence. 

In October of 2021, an excavation was conducted for unmarked graves on the site of the former Camsell Hospital in Edmonton. The hospital used to treat Indigenous people who suffered from tuberculosis and some believed that the dig would uncover patients that had been buried there, however, no such evidence was discovered.

After several years, Ottawa initiated funding cuts for unmarked grave searches last July.

In August 2023, a four-week excavation was conducted in a church basement in Pine Creek, Manitoba, which was formerly part of a residential school run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969.  

Minegoziibe Ashinabe, a First Nations tribe northwest of Winnipeg, hired a team of archaeologists to dig up the church basement following 14 abnormalities that were detected in the soil by ground-penetrating radar equipment. 

However, no human remains were found in the search. 

Ottawa initiated its funding cuts for unmarked grave searches last July and the committee’s operations will come to a halt entirely on March 31 as the remaining funding expires.

The Committee’s request for continued funding was denied.