In December 2024, Kimberly R. Murray, Canada’s Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Residential Schools, reached the end of her mandate, concluding a term that had started in June 2022. Her work in this role culminated in a Final Report, presented in October 2024 at the seventh National Gathering on Unmarked Burials, in which she outlined several actionable obligations that Canada’s government and other public institutions have to Indigenous Peoples. Despite the far-reaching and positive impact of Murray’s work under the Special Interlocutor role, the Canadian government has made the conscious decision to neither extend her term nor identify a successor.
Beyond the research Murray conducted to inform this report, her mandate with the Office of the Special Interlocutor (OSI) also involved serving as an impartial third-party mediator in court cases relating to residential schools and unmarked graves. Murray’s role in such cases was to fact-check and to intervene if other parties made derogatory comments about Indigenous peoples, offering a platform through which survivors could be properly represented in legal matters without the fear of being shut down or ridiculed.
Alongside her work in the courtroom, Murray fought against misinformed and denialist myths surrounding residential schools. A lack of conversation on Canada’s history of Indigenous harm allows the Canadian government to avoid accountability and maintain the status quo without internal reform efforts. As such, Murray dedicated significant portions of her time in the Interlocutor role to emphasizing the government’s obligation to reflect, take accountability, and offer reparations to the families of missing Indigenous children.
The Canadian government’s highly intentional decision to neither appoint a replacement to the Interlocutor role nor renew Murray’s mandate will have repercussions on the trust-based relationships established between Indigenous Peoples; the legal frameworks that Murray worked hard to establish will be jeopardized. This failure to fill Murray’s role also suggests that the government considers its work on Indigenous justice to have concluded with Murray’s term. This places the reality of residential schools in a temporal framework that is untrue to the deep and persistent impact of colonialism in Canada. Given the ways in which Indigenous Canadians remain systemically affected—in sectors from foster care systems to healthcare—by these histories of oppression, Canada must not allow their investigations into residential schools to end with Murray’s term.
Standing beside the Canadian government’s clear choice to not extend the Interlocutor mandate, their choice not to implement the report’s obligations speaks to a broader truth that Canada has failed to treat Indigenous justice as an active battle. When the National Advisory Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)—of which Murray served as Executive Director—similarly collected testimonies from Indigenous Canadians and outlined their own recommendations in 2015, the Canadian government remained completely inactive. Funding organizations like TRC and the OSI to collect data and compile actionable suggestions is a convenient front the government can hide behind to claim it is doing its due diligence. Such behaviour begs the question of whether a government founded in past and present colonial oppression will ever meaningfully support long-lasting anticolonial change.
Such failure to take productive and respectful action in reconciling the sustained colonial realities faced by Canada’s Indigenous populations is not limited to the government; other public institutions, like universities, have been similarly passive. Murray’s report outlined universities’ responsibility to fill their curricula with resources to address myths of denialism, an obligation that McGill could begin to tackle through the establishment of a full Indigenous Studies Program. Without this program, the burden of education on Indigenous histories, cultures, and identities has fallen on the student at the cost of widespread awareness.
Beyond these internal curricular obligations, Murray also made frequent reference to McGill’s New Vic Project and associated legal battle with the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers). Without an Interlocutor to ensure meaningful, considerate dialogue, it is increasingly crucial that McGill approach relations with the Mohawk Mothers in a manner dictated by respect and attentiveness. McGill must commit to recognizing the neo-colonial violence that is taking place on the New Vic site in accordance with the demands of the Mohawk Mothers. It is the university’s responsibility to move beyond bandaid solutions towards long-term justice.
