WARNING: This story contains references to the Indian residential school system. Resources can be found at the bottom of this story.
A group that’s been searching for missing children and unmarked graves at the former McIntosh Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario says it’s been denied federal funding to continue its work.
The search is being led by the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project team, an initiative started by members of Grassy Narrows First Nation. The Ojibwe community is also known as Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek.
In January 2025, the team said an investigation had detected 114 “unmarked burial features” on the former school’s property. The findings were determined to be consistent with the shape, size and pattern of graves or burials based on specific criteria.
The team was told funding for the 2025-2026 fiscal year was not approved because it failed to meet the government’s reporting requirements.
However, “Grassy Narrows has made clear that project-specific financial reports and progress reports have been submitted annually for the McIntosh search project, and that Canada should not use broader administrative issues to deny urgently needed funding for work that has clearly delivered results and must continue,” the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project team said in a statement March 27.
The decision not to renew the project’s funding “places at risk work that has already revealed more than a hundred unmarked burials at the site, with more graves expected to be found, and work that has provided former students, survivors, and families with critical information about children who never returned home,” the statement says.
About 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend Indian residential schools across the country between the 1830s and 1990s.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) concluded that residential schools were “a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”
McIntosh was one of more than 130 Indian residential schools in Canada. The Catholic institution operated between 1925 and 1969 and primarily saw students from Lac Seul First Nation, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation, Grassy Narrows First Nation and Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, according to the Centre du patrimoine (Heritage Centre).
Pascal Laplante, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations, provided an emailed statement to CBC News on Friday about why the project’s funding was denied.
He explained that funding agreements with Crown-Indigenous Relations, Northern Affairs Canada and Indigenous Services Canada “include mandatory reporting requirements for recipients to report back to the department on the work undertaken and account for funds spent.”
This includes annual audited financial statements, said Laplante.
“Despite repeated attempts to obtain such information, [Grassy Narrows] was unable to provide audited financial statements for the past three years, which made it difficult for the department to ensure that the funding was spent in accordance with the terms and conditions of the funding agreement,” he wrote.
This was communicated to members of Grassy Narrows in February, according to Laplante.
The Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund has allocated more than $3.1 million for the project to date, he added.
Meanwhile, the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project team says it’s asked the department to consider approving funding on an interim basis, “so this work can continue while any remaining reporting questions are addressed through a realistic plan.”
In addition to ground searches, the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project involves archival research, oral history and documenting.
Those involved work closely with residential school survivors and their families in a respectful and ethical way in line with the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action, the project’s website says.
“Residential school funding is supposed to be part of Canada’s promise to help repair harms that Canada created,” said Arnold Pelly, Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project lead and liaison, in a statement March 27.
“Instead, our people are being told that healing support will be cut off even after this work has already shown results and remains urgently needed. That is not reconciliation. It is a form of administrative violence.”
Grassy Narrows First Nation is calling on Grand Council Treaty Three, Chiefs of Ontario, other First Nations, survivor organizations, and allies to show their support, “and to speak out against budget cuts and denials of funding for this work.”
“We are prepared to do the work on reporting,” said Grassy Narrows First Nation’s Chief Sherry Ackabee in a statement March 27.
“What we are not prepared to accept is that survivors and families pay the price for delays in a system that was never designed for our realities. If reconciliation means anything, it must mean that Canada does not walk away from its responsibilities to our people.”
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.
Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca.
