Second phase of excavation work will take a close look at 21 detected anomalies

Stephen David Cook · CBC News · Posted: Oct 21, 2021 7:30 AM MT | Last Updated: October 21

Excavation work resumed Thursday morning at the site of the former Camsell Hospital, the Edmonton facility that for decades was used to treat Indigenous people with tuberculosis — and where some of those patients are believed to have died and been buried on the grounds.

The Inglewood-neighbourhood area near the hospital, located at 128th Street and 114th Avenue, has been slated for the construction of residential properties.

This summer, the developer initiated a ground-penetrating radar search; crews dug up 13 spots that were flagged but only found debris.

But only a portion of the property was searched in that first phase. Over the next few days, crews will excavate 21 anomalies detected along its eastern side.

“There have been reports and stories over the years about people that were at the Camsell that passed away being buried on-site, specifically in the southeast corner of the property,” Chief Calvin Bruneau of the Papaschase First Nation said Wednesday.

Papaschase elders will again be present to observe the work, he said. If remains are found, Bruneau said next steps will require input from multiple treaty areas.

• Site of former Camsell Hospital searched for unmarked graves

• Camsell housing plan moves ahead after Edmonton city council agrees to rezoning

Indigenous people from across the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta were sent to what was then called the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital. It started accepting patients in 1945 when it was run by the federal government. The hospital was eventually transferred to the province and closed in 1996.

For decades, former patients shared accounts of people being buried at the hospital. 

There are reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse, accounts of forced sterilization, shock therapy and experiments with tuberculosis vaccines on patients without their consent.

Victor Bruno, an elder from Maskwacis, Alta., spent 26 months at the hospital in the 1950s when he was a child.

“We definitely went through a lot of abuse,” he said Thursday. “I once told my friend I felt like I went through a torture chamber.”

Bruno, a survivor of the Ermineskin Indian Residential School, remembers only being able to wave at his parents through shut windows when they made the journey to visit.

He believes he contracted tuberculosis because of the condition of residential schools.

“They weren’t looked after properly.”

Searching for closure

The search is being funded by the property’s developer. Architect Gene Dub said he was moved to act by the discovery of unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

“When Kamloops was discovered, suddenly we felt this area had to be searched to bring more truth and clarity to the situation.”

The cost is expected to run between $200,000 and $250,000.

Dub said the area being investigated is planned for eight single-family homes but if any remains are found they will not be built.

A memorial garden is planned for the northern side of the property.

The property is on the traditional lands of the Papaschase people, who have been fighting for years to regain recognition as an official First Nation.

Bruneau said supporting the effort to help find any possible remains is part of being a steward for the city.

“If they died there then they were just buried and without any proper respect or ceremony,” he said.

“And so it’s about respecting our people and our loved ones and then trying to bring closure to families.”

Workers have marked out areas of interest at the site of the former Camsell Hospital with stakes. Excavation work is set to resume Thursday. (Andreane Williams/CBC)

The second phase of excavation work will take a close look at 21 detected anomalies. (David Bajer/CBC)

Q&A: Justice for survivors of Nanaimo ‘Indian Hospital’ depends in part on political will, says class-action lawyer

Lawyer Steven Cooper explains where the class action lawsuit stands and what’s needed to restore justice.

Lauren Kaljur

October 7, 2021

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This article contains information about “Indian hospitals.” Please read with care and reach out if you need support. The Indian Residential School Survivor Society’s Crisis Line can be reached any time at 1-866-925-4419.

In January 2021, a class action representing survivors of former “Indian hospitals” across Canada was certified by the Federal Court.

The class lawsuit against the Attorney General of Canada alleges that the “Canadian government was negligent in the funding, oversight, operation, supervision, control, maintenance and support of Indian Hospitals,” and is liable for the various abuses endured by those who—often forcefully—attended them.

Steven Cooper of the Edmonton-based Masuch Law LLP is a co-council lawyer for the class. His law firm is one of four collectively representing people who were mistreated and abused in at least 29 of these segregated, federally-run institutions across Canada. Among these was the former Nanaimo “Indian Hospital,” the second largest of its kind in Canada, that operated on Snuneymuxw First Nation territory from 1946 to 1967.

Related: Community helps fund search of former Nanaimo “Indian Hospital” grounds

The representative plaintiff is Ann Cecile Hardy, member of the Métis Nation, who was a patient at Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta in 1969.

The Discourse interviewed Cooper to better understand the class action and where it stands today. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

What are the allegations in this claim?

The allegations themselves are quite simple and quite common, which is that the federal government set up a purposely designed system, the purpose of which was to provide minimal and often inferior and often negligent medical care to the Indigenous population, separate from the non-Indigenous population. 

And so Camsell hospital as an example (and, frankly, one that I’m most familiar with, having been raised in the Northwest Territories) is where everybody by the ‘80s, Indigenous and non-Indigenous were going. My own mother went to Camsell hospital because of a medical issue in the ‘80s. So there were wings, apparently, where the Indigenous population was still being treated separately from the non-Indigenous population. 

It reflects the fact that these institutions were set up to provide a modicum of care, but never approaching a standard that was expected by society, that the settlers’ colonial approach, so that the care that my mother would have gotten would have presumably been comparable to any other hospital, as opposed to an Indigenous friend of hers, who would have been treated with much less care. 

One really good example is Ann Cecile Hardy, who is the representative plaintiff, who came from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories to the Camsell hospital as a 10-year-old child when she came down with [Tuberculosis.]. They were about to perform a significant lung operation to remove a lung or part of it, and they didn’t even consider contacting her parents for permission. 

Now, Fort Smith at the time was one of the few isolated locations where there was telephone service in the ‘70s. If Cecile had come from a community farther north, there might not have been telephones. 

Number 1, they should have phoned her mother, and would she have not been Indigenous, it wouldn’t have been a question. 

Fortunately, Ann found the resources and some coins to use a payphone to phone her parents. They literally drove all night—it’s about a thousand miles from Fort Smith to Edmonton—and got there to stop the operation, which as it turned out, didn’t happen and she didn’t need. 

There was an attempt to operate on her. She was sexually abused. She was physically abused. She suffered from medical malpractice. She’s sort of the epitome of a representative plaintiff. Her circumstances really truly reflect the commonality of the group. 

So that gives you a very tangible example—in this case, of a representative plaintiff—who is treated as a second class or third class citizen in Canada and in our lifetime. This didn’t happen in the ‘30s or ‘40s. This happened in the ‘70s. 

And that’s really the basis of the allegations, is that the children that were there, the patients that were there, were not protected from sexual abuse, from physical abuse from negligence, from bad foods, from treatments that weren’t necessary.

What about consent? Don’t all individuals have the right to make decisions about their medical care?

I suspect, and this is part of what the historians will tell us and the experts will tell us, that the notion of consent was never [considered to be] important.

For example, we have what are called the skin grafting cases from Igloolik. Nobody thought about consent, certainly none was sought, none was given, let alone informed consent. 

Remember that legislation itself prohibited Indians as defined under the Act, which include what they called the “Eskimos” at the time, from even hiring a lawyer. [It would have been] inconceivable for a non-Indigenous person to have had that restriction. 

The government simply treated the Indigenous population, First Nations, Métis and Inuit as almost “wards of the state.”

Now, that’s come back to haunt them, because we sort of use that philosophy as a basis of some of the compensation that’s sought. If you want to take over an obligation, that comes with certain responsibilities.

So you know, ever since 1763, when good old King George III said, “You are my people,” the colonial powers have often presumed that they have the authority to proceed without consent, informed or otherwise.

And the example that I gave you with respect to the representative plaintiff Ann Cecile Hardy, is a good one, because they didn’t even consider it essential in the modern age in the 1970s to be seeking consent of the parents of a 10-year-old child for the most invasive surgery that one could imagine. 

Was it illegal? Of course it was. Was it perceived as illegal? Probably not. And that’s the problem, that nobody had the voice to speak. 

Editor’s Note: In the 2020 report about Indigenous racism in B.C. healthcare, In Plain Sight, the authors point to an incident described in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings. When a University of British Columbia medical genetics faculty member approached the principal of Kuper Island Residential “School” in 1968 about experimenting on the children there, he refused to participate, citing the need to contact their parents. “The importance of parental consent was clearly apparent to this principal,” the report notes, “further emphasizing the unethical — yet broadly accepted — actions of his colleagues at the other schools.”  

What’s the status of the Nanaimo “Indian Hospital” class action?

So what happens is, in a class action like this, we need to convince the court or, even better, we need to convince the government that there is a common group of people with a common group of issues that should be tried together. And that’s what we’ve done. They consented to the certification.  They agree, at this point, without us having to convince a court, there’s a case here to be heard.

The next issue becomes what years are covered, because these institutions tended to evolve and change. These hospitals were part of a more formal federal system around the years of 1947 to 1948. But it wasn’t as if, on one day, they all became federal institutions. Nor, as they move through their tenure, did they remain the same. Some got taken over by the province, some shut down, some got taken over by other institutions. 

Much like other large classes like this, such as the Federal Day Schools Class Action, that’s something that will have to be negotiated or settled by a court. But Nanaimo is certainly at the center of the group of hospitals that will be covered by whatever the outcome is.

The next issue is the number of people covered. So we’re talking with the federal government representatives and, at the same time, our experts, actuaries and historians are doing their own work, looking at numbers, working together and comparing those to see if we can come up with a common number.

Those numbers help us define what any trial or settlement might look like. It’s different when you’re dealing with 50,000 people than if you’re dealing with 100,000 people, or 5,000 people. So we’re getting a handle on that. 

One of the struggles that we’re going through right now on both sides is at what point were certain medical procedures no longer considered good medicine. So for example, body casts—we’ve heard many anecdotal stories at this point—were used to discipline children who wouldn’t stay in their room. Some of the children literally had their legs tied to the hospital bed. But others allege they were actually threatened and were ultimately put in full body casts.

This wouldn’t have happened to non-Indigenous children. It’s just inconceivable that it would have happened, particularly when the parents were around. So those are the sorts of allegations that we’re dealing with. And these allegations, some are historical, but many of them are very modern. I mean, certainly during my lifetime, up into the 1980s.

And then the discussions that take place, as we work towards trial, include what do we agree on? What don’t we agree on? So even if we can’t settle, we can at least agree upon a whole bunch of issues, theoretically leaving the areas we can’t agree upon up to a judge. 

That’s where we are right now. We’re slowly working towards trial, but also slowly working on the potential for settlement. Though we remain confident that, under the right government with the right reconciliation proposal, the class action will settle.I don’t think you’ll see much for the next maybe six to 12 months.

Will the “Indian Hospital” class action to court?

It’s really hard to predict how these things are going to work out. It really depends on whether there’s a settlement or if you go to trial. Most cases of this nature these days, under this government, don’t tend to get to trial for a variety of reasons. 

In fact, when we were in Newfoundland and Labrador in the residential school claim there, the judge noted that this was the first time this type of claim had ever gone to trial. And there was an election, resulting in the current prime minister being elected for his first term. Three months later, the matter was settled. So we never did even finish that trial.

So you know, we certainly hope this remains with the current administration. Because our experience with the Conservative forebears under Stephen Harper were 10 years of no-holds-barred litigation. That’s not a political statement. It’s just the reality of dealing with these types of things.

The philosophy behind settlements really is dependent on the government of the day and where, politically, reconciliation fits. 

Are there any issues with accessing the records due to privacy concerns?

The numbers of documents are in the hundreds of thousands. And yes, there is the issue of the personal nature of some of the material. But these types of files are all aggregated for purposes of moving ahead to settlement or trial. We use actuaries, we use statistics, we use trends, and only if there’s a settlement or a finding in favour of the class do we get in and really drill down into the personal data.

According to researchers, some of the Nanaimo “Indian Hospital” records have either been lost or destroyed. Will this present a problem?

At this point, the nature of litigation is that the party who holds the documents is responsible for collating them and providing them, and that’s by and large the federal government. But there are provincial archives, municipal archives, even private archives. There is enough material available in the principal government archives to get where we need to go at this point that we aren’t likely to drill down and look for other documents that may or may not have been destroyed, in one form or another. 

Almost every record that is produced is represented in some form of summary. That probably was not destroyed, even if the principal document was. So we’ll know for example, from the quarterly reports, how many patients were in, how long they were in for, what they are in for, how much food they ate. Those sorts of things tend to be summarized in a different location, which gives us some certainty that we’ll find what we need. 

Why should people pay attention to this claim?

If you want to understand the problems we’re having now, today, you’ve got to understand the history. And that involves understanding and acknowledging the “Indian hospital” system as an expansion of the residential school system, as an extension of the whole “kill the Indian in the child” philosophy of both the Canadian government and, before them, even the United States government. And this was all part of the treatment of individuals as second class citizens. There’s a reason why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was called that, because so much of what we experienced here was reflected in the apartheid in South African experience. 

You have to understand the impact that residential “schools” had, that the ‘60s Scoop had, that “Indian hospitals” had. The RCMP discrimination problem is ongoing, and we have two class actions going involving RCMP discriminatory behaviour against people in custody, both in northern Canada and southern Canada.

And class actions, whatever people think of them — it forces the government and, through them, the public — to face the reality of our past. 

What should people do if they think they may be part of the Nanaimo “Indian Hospital” claim?

At this point, we don’t know what the class definition will look like, since it’s being negotiated. But if you’re a survivor, you’re part of the class whether you know it or not. If there’s a settlement, there’s a huge notice period. There will be millions of dollars spent on radio spots, notices, television spots, to try to identify as many people as possible.

If you don’t opt out within that period of time, then you’re in. If there is a settlement at some point or a decision and you don’t apply for compensation, you’ll have a period of time to apply, after which you’re out of luck. 

It’s really important for people, if you’re a survivor of the “hospital” system, or you think might have been, to please contact our office and we’ll put you into a database. 

The database is really important for two reasons. Number 1, it keeps you, the survivor, informed. And the other reason is it gives us critical data that we pass on to experts. We’ll be able to say, for instance, we have 40 people who have contacted us in our database that went into Nanaimo “Indian Hospital” and suffered these types of abuses in these years. 

We’ll be able to say, ‘But don’t forget about that situation in Nanaimo where this happened, this year,’ so that we can try to include that in the settlement. If we don’t know about it, it’s not going to be there and it’ll be too late after the fact. 

So please contact us. The number to our office toll free is 1-800-994-7477. You can also contact us at info at [email protected]. And then we’ll send you a form. Fill it out to the best of your ability. It’s not a test, you won’t be marked. And we never give out any personal information. Even if you just include your name and address and phone number, at least we know where to find you. 

Editor’s Note Oct. 15, 2021: We updated the headline of the story to describe members of this class as survivors rather than victims.

“A time for change:” Teepee standing tall on Edmonton’s Winterburn Road to raise awareness of unmarked graves and residential schools

Author of the article: Kellen Taniguchi Publishing date: Aug 25, 2021  

After spending 50 days outside the former Charles Camsell Indian Hospital, Lorelei Mullings and Andrea Jenkins are hoping to call attention to one more of Edmonton’s unmarked gravesites.

A large teepee was erected along Winterburn Road Tuesday to help mark a new site where Mullings and Jenkins, along with other members of the Free Our Indigenous Children Facebook group, aim to raise more awareness of residential schools and unmarked graves leading up to Orange Shirt Day on Sept. 30.

Mullings said she believes discussions have died down and it is important to keep talking about the effects residential schools had on Indigenous people.

“We want to bring awareness and it still needs to be heard. The only way I can do it instead of just sitting back and posting and sharing is to be here,” said Mullings. “It’s part of my own healing, too, as well and to stick up for our people who don’t have this voice or can’t stand out, and for the ones that have died and suffer, that’s all I can do, that’s all we can do.”

Mullings said there is another unmarked gravesite at 7301 199 Street NW, but the site they chose shares a connection to the former Camsell site.

“A lot of bodies were brought from the Charles Camsell and buried here and according to people who live out here … there are bodies out here that don’t have a name, no identity,” said Jenkins. “So, we just felt we wanted to maintain that connection while still bringing awareness to people.”

The group plans to have representatives on location from Tuesday to Saturday starting at 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. weekly until Sept. 29.

Jenkins said anyone is welcome to stop by the new site to ask questions, learn about Indigenous culture or learn to smudge. Mullings added they don’t have a set schedule of things to do and they don’t want to set one.

“If they come here and want to sing, if they come here and they want to dance, they want to tell stories, they just want to talk and heal, that’s what we’re about,” said Mullings.

At the conclusion of their time at the Charles Camsell Hospital, those who stopped by and took part in the activities there made a list of things they learned during the seven-week period. One group made a list of 19 things they learned or took away from the site, including taking steps to reconciliation, learning from the stories, making friends and supporting others with their healing journey.

Alberta had the most residential schools, said Mullings, and she believes that means there will be many more unmarked gravesites found in the province.

Mullings and Jenkins hope Edmontonians who stop by the site will leave with a similar experience.

“This is a time for change with these children being discovered,” said Jenkins. “I think there needs to be change now for people to recognize that we’re not going anywhere, we’re here to stay and we’re just asking for a little more respect, a little more recognition. We are not who you think we are, get to know who we are as people.”

The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line for survivors is open 24-hours for emotional and crisis referral services 1-866-925-4419.

• About the 50-day ceremony at the Camsell site, where local Indigenous people and allies gathered nightly to bring awareness and try and halt construction

• Search for unmarked graves at former Edmonton hospital site to continue this month after first survey leaves questions unanswered

“Even if graves are found, those looking for answers may not get them.

Records are scarce and DNA testing is possible but expensive, Bruneau says.

He also hopes former patients or a witnesses who may have details that could help with the search will come forward, though he knows speaking about the past can be painful.

“It seems like a good thing that they’re finding all these graves, but its also opening up old wounds.”

• Updated article on the Indian Hospitals Class Action suit by Koskie Minsky and the Federal Government’s attempts to negotiate a settlement out of court [a correction: this suit is not new, as is stated in the article. It was launched several years ago]

“I think that people need to know that this happened in our hospitals, it happened recently and we need to acknowledge it,” [Chief Complainant Ann] Hardy told CTV News. 

“I know that sometimes Canadians think they’re just hearing too much of it, and ‘Why can’t we just get over it?’ and I think we’re not going to be able to, in my case, until we fully expose that this happened.” 

EDMONTON — Crews in Edmonton have started excavating the grounds surrounding the Charles Camsell Hospital looking for unmarked burial sites.

The former hospital is located in what is now Edmonton’s Inglewood neighbourhood and was used as a tuberculosis treatment centre for First Nations and Inuit patients.

For decades, patients from across Alberta and northern Canada were sent to the hospital for treatment. Many local Indigenous leaders recall how it was more commonly referred to as the “Indian Hospital.”

Others recall how patients sometimes were subjected to abuse, forced sterilization, and medical experiments.

Architect Gene Dub purchased the site with the intent to redevelop the area. He has now hired a company to scan the area once more, prior to any construction progress is made.

“After the shock of Kamloops we thought we better make sure there aren’t any burials that are not recorded,” Dub said.

The architect said in 2008, three reports were completed that concluded no burial sites were located at the Camsell location.

“That was just (looking at) recorded burials,” Dub said.

“The new surveys identified 11 potential areas of concern.

“We are daylighting, or opening up those 11 areas, to see if there is any possibility that they are burials.”

So far, crews found debris, copper wire, concrete slabs, and other material from previous buildings located at the site.

Dub described how crews excavated each site one inch at a time to the depth the ground penetrating radar indicated.

One-third of the entire site has been surveyed and Dub says the plan is to continue surveying and searching to provide closure to Indigenous families. He hopes the remainder of the grounds can [be] searched with the aid of federal or provincial funding.

Members of the Papaschase First Nation are taking part in the search efforts and observing as crews excavate.

Shiela Desjarlais, a representative from Papaschase First Nation acting as an observer at the site, said there has been oral history for generations about unmarked burial sites at the Camsell Hospital.

Desjarlais said it is “important work” being completed.“

People are now hearing us when we’ve been talking about it for so long,” she shared. “We’ve always known.“

The fact now that somebody is saying, ‘Let’s look,’” she added, “gives us that confirmation.”“It’s very emotional.”

As an observer, Desjarlais said Indigenous community members are present, ensure ceremony is observed, and that the process is respectful.

“The fact that we get to be part of it is really helpful,” she said. “Being able to watch to see what they are finding.”

‘LOTS’ MORE TO SEARCH

Elder Fernie Marty said there’s still lots of work to be done.

He’s pleased no remains have been located to this point but recognizes there is still lots more site left to search. Marty shared how Indigenous elders have indicated that the southeast part of the site had an unmarked burial area. That part of the site is next to be searched.

“There was a lot of atrocities that went on at this hospital,” Marty said. “I know people that came to here years ago.

“All kinds of atrocities that shouldn’t have happened, happened here,” he added. “They’ve got a lot more work to do.”

Contact the Indian Residential School Survivors Society toll-free 1 (800) 721-0066 or 24-hour Crisis Line 1 (866) 925-4419 if you require further emotional support or assistance.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Touria Izri

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com Tue., July 20, 2021

A five-inch bone fragment alleged to have been found on the grounds of the former Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton is not from a human.

Architect Gene Dub, who is in the process of developing the site with residences, says he received verbal confirmation from the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) that the coroner had determined the bone to be from an animal. The bone was turned into Dub a couple months ago by someone who said it had been found it on the site. In turn, Dub contacted the EPS.

While that mystery has been solved, Dub is still waiting to hear back on the results from ground penetrating radar (GPR) that was conducted in June on the southeast portion of the Camsell site where no excavation work has taken place.

Dub’s development plan sees that area slated to contain eight single-family dwellings along with a one-acre park.

Dub commits to making the findings public, but says he will first be consulting with Calvin Bruneau, chief of the Papaschase band in Edmonton, and Dr. Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology with the University of Alberta, who has overseen the methodology of the GPR work.

GPR findings are not definitive and indicate only anomalies in the ground that may be burials. Based on the probability of burials, the decision may be made to uncover some of the areas to determine exactly what has been found.

“We wouldn’t want to decide without input from all the parties and those parties would be perhaps Indigenous peoples who were involved in the hospital, whose relatives were there,” said Dub, who is certain those who are interested will approach him.

Bruneau says there are stories that surround this one-acre parcel of land as burial grounds.

“People who had gone to the Camsell, that’s where they were pinpointing over the years, the southeast corner of the property,” he said.

The site in the Inglewood neighbourhood first housed a Jesuit College before being leased to the American military. Shortly after, the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps took it over as a military hospital for veterans.

It became the Indian Hospital in 1945, operating in that capacity until 1979. It served primarily as a tuberculosis sanatorium, bringing Indigenous patients from western provinces, the western Arctic and the sub-Arctic.

There are many stories by former patients and relatives of mistreatment of Indigenous people at the hospital, some of which have been documented in books.

Bruneau says those who died in the hospital were buried at the Poundmaker residential school grounds (now Poundmaker Lodge), Winterburn (on Enoch Cree Nation), and St. Albert.

But it was the accounts of the burials on the grounds of the Camsell that Bruneau discussed with Dub before the COVID pandemic hit. However, says Bruneau, Dub “was skeptical.”

Dub admits it was the uncovering of 200 graves at the former Kamloops residential school, coupled with his earlier discussions with Bruneau, that pushed him to undertake the GPR.

“It is disturbing (that Dub waited until the Kamloops uncovering), but the thing is, it is good he’s taking that approach where, like he knows, there’s a very real possibility here that human remains are here and we better deal with it,” said Bruneau.

Dub is now considering going a step further, undertaking GPR along the east property line. It’s a two- to three-acre area where there are no longer buildings. The buildings that were there were only up for five to 10 years and didn’t have basements.

“We’re trying to imagine what areas there possibly could have been burials and that’s one that could have had burials before the buildings were built,” said Dub.

That decision won’t be made until the results come in from the first GPR study. Those results are expected later this week.

What will happen if burials are confirmed on the grounds is unclear.

“I don’t know if you want to take them out … especially the way things are (with the uncovering of other gravesites). It could re-open more wounds,” said Bruneau. “I think it would be better if it was sectioned off, fenced off and that area protected.”

Dub has already committed to a commemorative identification for those impacted by the Camsell.

He also said that if a burial ground were found in the southeast corner, he would not go ahead with his planned development.

The overall project involves the hospital being converted into housing; 20 townhouses built to the north of the hospital and a seniors project to the south. Land to the west has been zoned for an apartment, but there are no plans at this time to build that apartment.

Windspeaker.com

The Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-721-0066.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

The NWT Help Line offers free support to residents of the Northwest Territories, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is 100% free and confidential. The NWT Help Line also has an option for follow-up calls. Residents can call the help line at 1-800-661-0844.

In Nunavut, the Kamatsiaqtut Help Line is open 24 hours a day at 1-800-265-3333. People are invited to call for any reason. 

In Yukon, mental health services are available to those in both Whitehorse and in rural Yukon communities through Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services. Yukoners can schedule Rapid Access Counselling supports in Whitehorse and all MWSU community hubs by calling 1-867-456-3838.

Northerners recall abuse at the facility as crews process results from the recent search for graves

Natalie Pressman · CBC News · Posted: Jul 14, 2021 12:55 PM CT | Last Updated: July 14

WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.

Don Gruben Sr. spent many of his early years traveling between his home community of Inuvik and the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton. 

Originally sent south to treat a broken leg, hospital staff told Gruben, then six years old, that he also had a collapsed lung. 

“To bring these things up, it hits the heart because I was one of the lucky ones,” Gruben said. “I survived and I’m grateful for that.”

The former Camsell Hospital in Edmonton is one of 29 segregated medical facilities that treated Indigenous children throughout the 20th century. 

Also known as Indian hospitals, former patients — some of whom stayed for months at a time — recall being vulnerable to medical experimentation, violent scolding and abuse. 

• Do you have information about residential schools? Email your tips to [email protected].

“When I was in Camsell Hospital I was afraid to disobey what was being asked of me,” Gruben said. “I was scared, they had their own ways of making you listen.”

The Edmonton site is now being searched for unmarked graves — a process that will provide closure and comfort for northern families, said Duane Smith, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) CEO. 

As a larger facility than the northern treatment centres, residents of the Northwest Territories were often sent to Camsell Hospital. 

Smith emphasized the scale of its impact on Inuvialuit residents in his region. 

The search for Indigenous grave sites provides accountability on the part of the federal government, Smith said, “and hopefully some form of comfort for those who had family members that didn’t make it back.”

Camsell, along with the 28 other facilities, are listed in a $1.1 billion class action lawsuit against the federally funded segregated hospitals. Edmonton based lawyer Steven Cooper said that while the total number of northern patients at the Camsell site is unknown, he’s confident it is in the hundreds, with the total number of victims across the country believed to be in the tens of thousands. 

Ann Hardy, a Métis woman from Fort Smith, N.W.T, is the suit’s representative plaintiff. While she said it is difficult to relive her time spent at the Alberta hospital, she remains committed to speaking out against the Canadian sites in order to educate others on the realities of Canada’s history.  

“I will always educate,” she said, adding that through the challenges of reliving her trauma, she’s motivated to speak up on behalf of her parents and grandparents who “bore their troubles quietly.” 

“I will continue to fight for it and to make sure that the future is better for my grandchildren,” Hardy said. 

For Hardy, and others, uncovering bodies at Camsell would not be surprising. 

“We have been saying for many years now that there have been unrecognized deaths, unrecognized graves, things that happened in the residential schools and in the federal Indian hospitals that had never been noted before by the government or in society,” she said.

“It isn’t news to us, because we’ve known about it. It’s confirmation of what we’ve known.”

Norman Yakeleya, Dene National Chief, said that the search for unmarked graves will bring closure for those whose loved ones never returned home from Camsell. Still, the use of ground penetrating radar does not replace an apology, he said. 

“People suffered just as they suffered in the residential schools,” Yakeleya said of the hospitals. “People died without notifying the families, patients were experimented on for medical purposes, we have a lot of our people who suffered in these Indian residential hospitals.”

Dene Nation is another plaintiff in the lawsuit against the federal hospitals. 

As discussions on the case are legally required to occur in person, the case has come to a near standstill throughout the last 16 months of the pandemic. 

In the interim, Cooper said the legal team continues to work with experts on properly defining which institutions are included in the Indian hospital system as well as the timeline of when exactly they operated.  

“Like most class actions, there is an equal focus on compensation and validation,” Cooper said. “Canada talks a good game in terms of reconciliation but has a well documented history of fighting cases of historical injustice.” 

• Site of former Camsell Hospital searched for unmarked graves

• CBC INVESTIGATES’Canadians would be shocked’: Survivors, lawyers describe treatment at Nanaimo Indian Hospital

Yakeleya stressed that there is no justice until Canadian officials publicly acknowledge their wrong doings, visit communities and sit with Elders to learn the impact of its colonial institutions.  

“We want to make things right through the path of reconciliation, it is Canada’s move now,” he said. “Canada has to have a heart. And so we wait for them to apologize and set things right.” 

Do you have information about unmarked graves, children who never came home or residential school staff and operations? Email your tips to CBC’s new Indigenous-led team investigating residential schools: [email protected].

Support is available for anyone affected by the effects of residential schools, and those who are triggered by the latest reports.

The Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-721-0066.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

The NWT Help Line offers free support to residents of the Northwest Territories, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is 100% free and confidential. The NWT Help Line also has an option for follow-up calls. Residents can call the help line at 1-800-661-0844.

In Nunavut, the Kamatsiaqtut Help Line is open 24 hours a day at 1-800-265-3333. People are invited to call for any reason. 

In Yukon, mental health services are available to those in both Whitehorse and in rural Yukon communities through Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services. Yukoners can schedule Rapid Access Counselling supports in Whitehorse and all MWSU community hubs by calling 1-867-456-3838.

First Nations, developer wait for results of ground penetrating radar search

Natasha Riebe, Ariel Fournier · CBC News · Posted: Jul 09, 2021 7:00 AM MT | Last Updated: July 9

Crews are working to determine whether human remains are buried at the site of the former Camsell Hospital in Edmonton, where for decades, Indigenous people were sent for treatment.

Edmonton area First Nations and the site’s developer are both waiting to hear the results of the recent radar search. 

Gene Dub, architect and owner of the site, initiated a ground-penetrating radar search on the grounds at 127th Street and 115th Avenue in late June. 

He hired Maverick Inspections Inc. to do the scan after remains were found at the residential school in Kamloops, B.C. in late May and after consulting Chief Calvin Bruneau from Papaschase First Nation.

“Some people still feel like there could be burials on this site,” Dub told CBC News Thursday.  

The operations manager for Maverick, Steve Toner, said his teams are analyzing the data and preparing a georeference report, which he expects will be complete by next week. 

Dub said he plans to continue with the search after getting the first report. 

“We discussed this with Chief Calvin Bruneau and his feeling was that this is an area that we should look at so we’re taking it one area at a time and it is our intention to do all of the area along 127th street.”

• Dene Nation seeks formal apology for TB treatment in ‘Indian hospitals’
• Camsell housing plan moves ahead after Edmonton city council agrees to rezoning

Dub has been working on the building for several years to turn it into an apartment complex. Two more buildings are planned for the west and south of the hospital. 

For the past two weeks, a group of Indigenous people has gathered at the former hospital site demanding construction at the site stop so more searching can be conducted. 

Trinity Brandon-Demeuse from the Michel First Nation started a petition a year ago calling for a halt to the construction on the site. 

She said a year ago, there was barely any interest.

“Now that people are able to listen and hear us and understand what we’re saying, I feel like it’s finally making a difference and people are finally taking this seriously.” 

“People went from being really negative about it to supporting the movement to get this done.” 

‘People remember graves there’

Bruneau said unless remains were dug up years ago and sent to other sites, he believes the radar work may find something. 

“People remember graves being there,” Bruneau told CBC News. “I’m thinking there is a good chance that there will be graves.”

• N.W.T. filmmaker to shine light on historical abuse at former Edmonton segregated hospital

Indigenous people from the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta were sent to the Camsell, mostly to be treated for tuberculosis. 

The Camsell was a federally run hospital in 1944, then taken over by the province until it closed in 1996.

For decades, former patients shared accounts of people being buried at the hospital.

There are reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse, accounts of forced sterilization, shock therapy and experiments with TB vaccines on patients without their consent

A class-action lawsuit is currently underway against the federal government over the alleged treatment there. 

Bruneau said they’ve been talking about searching the grounds for many years, and it took the findings of remains in other parts of the country to bring attention to the Camsell site. 

“I think it’s long overdue,” Bruneau said. “Now we can start looking at it, dealing with this, and try bringing closure to some families and to the issue.” 

Brandon-Demeuse said she’d like to see the grounds turned into a healing centre or cultural centre for Indigenous people.

“Whether or not there’s mass graves here or anything like that, I want to see it reclaimed by our people and to be revitalized for our people.” 

Reproduced from – https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/06/30/indian-hospital-in-edmonton-being-searched-for-remains.html

By By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.comWindspeaker.comWed., June 30, 2021. 7 min. read

“Our hearts were heavy,” say Andrea Jenkins and Lorelei Morin Mullings in explaining why they decided to take a stand last week at the former Charles Camsell Hospital site in northwest Edmonton.

The two close friends spoke on June 25. It was one day after the announcement of the location of remains in 751 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former residential school on Cowessess First Nation. Just that week, the Alberta government had announced $8 million for work to locate burial sites on the grounds of the Indian residential schools in the province.

The women had heard stories from their Elders and others who had been at the hospital about graves dug on the grounds of the Camsell when it served as an Indian hospital. They were told about bodies burned in the incinerator in the basement and they wanted people to know about that.

So Jenkins, Métis/Dene from the Northwest Territories, and Mullings, from the Enoch Cree Nation, decided they would raise their voices and bring awareness by standing at the site, which is now being developed for multi-family residences.

Their occupation was only supposed to last for the evening of June 25, but when 18 or 19 people joined them the first day, and then it swelled to 35 people, including Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey, who stopped by a few days later with water and food, Mullings said they decided they would extend their evening stays until July 1.

Mullings says she’ll be marking Canada Day with an orange shirt at the Camsell site.

Jenkins and Mullings want people to know the sordid history of the Camsell.

“It’s just mind blowing to me that so many people to this day have no idea what has happened there,” said Jenkins.

The site in the Inglewood neighbourhood first housed a Jesuit College before being leased to the American military. Shortly after, the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corp took it over as a military hospital for veterans.

It became the Indian Hospital in 1945, operating in that capacity until 1979. It served primarily as a tuberculosis sanatorium, bringing Indigenous patients from western provinces, the western Arctic and the sub-Arctic.

In Dr. Samir Shaheen-Hussain’s book [Fighting For] a Hand to Hold, Shaheen-Hussain recounts incidents and treatments reported to have happened at the Camsell: children’s legs were put in casts to force them to remain in their beds; new tuberculosis treatments were tested on patients; children were sexually abused and assaulted by staff; there were suspicions that Indigenous peoples were being experimented on with medical procedures and treatments; and there was forced sterilization of women.

In her book entitled Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s, Maureen Lux writes that dormitory-style wards at the hospital allowed for cross-infection and that the University of Alberta Hospital and medical school used Camsell patients as subjects for studies. The patients were not in a social position to formally question their medical treatment.

“I know there are spirits there. I know they want to be free,” said Mullings. “We all feel it.”

All of this, say Jenkins and Mullings, is why the Camsell site should be left alone. Both women have signed an online petition calling to “Stop the redevelopment of the Charles Camsell hospital.”

The petition, reads, in part, “The Charles Camsell hospital is the site of many human rights violations against Indigenous people’s (sic). These violations include human experimental testing on Indigenous people, ties to Residential Schools, forced sterilization of Indigenous people, as well as the site of thousands of abuse cases against Indigenous people’s (sic).”

As of the morning of June 30, the petition, which has been online for seven months, had 394 signatures.

Petitioner Trinity Brandon-Demeuse is calling for the hospital to become a commemorative site.

Gene Dub, architect and developer of the site, says he is unaware of the petition. He also says that as work has already begun in the former hospital to turn it into condominiums it would be unsafe for a half-constructed building to remain standing.

Last week, Dub hired personnel to undertake ground penetrating radar (GPR) scans of the southeast portion of the Camsell site where no excavation work has taken place. The methodology for the scanning went through Dr. Kisha Supernant, who is the director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archeology with the University of Alberta, says Dub, and he is anticipating the results later this week or mid-next week.

The scans come well into the development of the project, which involves the hospital being converted into housing; 20 townhouses built to the north of the hospital and a seniors project to the south. Land to the west has been zoned for an apartment, but there are no plans at this time to build that apartment.

A group of developers, of which Dub remains the only original member, purchased the land from the province in 2004.

“At that time there wasn’t nearly as much interest or concern about burial grounds. I think now we’re sort of shocked into finding we should investigate this more seriously,” said Dub.

The decision to undertake the GPR was based on both the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops residential school and concerns voiced by Calvin Bruneau, chief of the Papaschase band in Edmonton.

According to Bruneau, says Dub, as there are no existing buildings at the southeast corner of the site that could be a burial location.

In 2016, Dub says they worked with the city archivist, who told him there were no records of burials on the Camsell site.

“We have been counting on his opinion, but when we heard about Kamloops, we thought maybe we should be looking beyond that opinion,” said Dub.

The southeast part of the Camsell site is slated for a subdivision of eight single family dwellings and a one-acre park. The park is to include “some kind of commemorative identification of people who felt the Charles Camsell was an influence in their life,” said Dub.

“Certainly if anything was found in the way of burials, certainly we wouldn’t be building single family dwellings there. We would be perhaps turning that into some kind of memorial area …. If the various Indigenous groups that might have been involved would want to explore it further, they could excavate to see if there are in fact bones there, but we wouldn’t be doing anything if we found any bones,” said Dub.

If it is a burial site, Dub is unclear as to who would then own the land. He anticipates he would lose the money he spent on purchasing that parcel, but “it’s certainly not the biggest issue, I think.”

Dub says a five-inch bone fragment alleged to have been found on the site was brought to his office about a month ago. He says it was unclear whether it was an animal or human bone and whether it was old or recent. It has been turned over to the Edmonton Police Service for a forensic investigation. Dub says he has yet to hear back from the police.

The final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which came in 2015, included an entire volume on “Missing Children and Unmarked Graves.” It states that Protestant patients who died at the Charles Camsell, whose families couldn’t afford to have the bodies shipped home to their communities, were buried at the cemetery on the Edmonton residential school property.

Research undertaken by Travis Gladue-Beauregard, whose great grandfather died at the Charles Camsell in the late 1960s, also shows that burials occurred in the Winterburn cemetery on the Enoch Cree Nation.

Maxime Beauregard served as chief of Bigstone Cree Nation from 1947 to 1962. Gladue-Beauregard says he always wondered why his great grandfather wasn’t buried on the nation.

When he started asking questions a few years ago, he found out that Maxime had died at the Camsell.

“It was back then, the way the government was, the way Indian Affairs was, they didn’t have a lot of roads (or) infrastructure to haul bodies back home and I know that affected my family…. No one from the family, from my understanding, was actually there (when he was buried) or no one from the nation so I don’t even know if he got even a Christian burial or a traditional burial. I don’t know,” said Gladue-Beauregard.

He is hoping that GPR scanning will be done at the Winterburn cemetery so his great grandfather’s remains can be located.

“I think for a lot of families who didn’t have their loved ones come home, the idea is we’d just like to see some type of acknowledgement and also really try to bring some closure. For myself and for my family, for my family’s legacy, we want to have something to go to,” said Gladue-Beauregard.

If Maxime’s remains can be identified, Gladue-Beauregard is uncertain whether attempts will be made to repatriate them to Bigstone Cree Nation.

Gladue-Beauregard says he’s pleased that the scanning work has been undertaken at the Charles Camsell site and is anticipating work will be done at the other two sites connected to the Camsell.

That it took the discovery at Kamloops to get the ball rolling is a “little disheartening,” he said, but added, “These are the little stepping stones. But finally to get to this point, I’m happy that it’s happening now instead of happening in another 100 years from now. But should the government have been listening back then? Absolutely.”

Windspeaker.com

Click here for a video featuring Dr. Crystal Fraser speaking about the Camsell hospital and possible burial sites (Global News)