B.C. hands over aboriginal child-death records from residential school period

VANCOUVER – The B.C. government has handed over the records of 4,900 First Nations children who died in the province over more than a century while residential schools were in operation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission says it will now review each record to determine whether those children died while in the care of the schools.

The records are for children aged four to 19 who died between 1870 and 1984, when the last such school closed its doors in the province.

Commission chairman Murray Sinclair says B.C. is the first jurisdiction to turn over the records, and he hopes others will follow suit.

The commission was formed in 2008 as part of the federal government’s apology to victims of the country’s aboriginal residential school system, to document their history and try to bring healing to former students.

About 150,000 First Nations children across the country went to the church-run schools, the last of which closed in 1996.