First Nations advocates disappointed as UN working group on enforced disappearances postpones visit

CBC

6 hours ago

A United Nations body that investigates cases of enforced disappearance is postponing a visit to Canada due to a lack of money, though First Nations advocates hope the group will soon visit to probe the deaths of children at residential schools.
"The postponement of the visit is not only a disappointment, but a continued delay in addressing the real systemic issues," said Linda Debassige, grand council chief of the Anishinabek Nation.
Debassige advocates for 39 First Nations in Ontario and wrote the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in August 2024, inviting it to visit Canada and shine an international spotlight on this issue.
"The disappearances of these children constitute an ongoing human rights issue, impacting the
families and communities," her letter said.
However, unbeknownst to Debassige, the working group had already asked to visit Canada — the request went out in February 2024 — and Ottawa accepted on Oct. 24, 2024, the UN's website says. It lists the visit period as between June 2025 and June 2026.
That would "mean a lot" to many, Debassige added.
"It's not just about me; it's about the survivors and their families," Debassige said.
"It's only been in recent recent years that truth has started to come to light."
However, the group's chairperson told CBC Indigenous the visit is on hold because the UN had to cut the number of country visits it can do.
"The visit is not likely to take place anytime soon, mostly due to the overall UN liquidity crisis," wrote Gabriella Citroni, a professor of international human rights law at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, in an email.
The UN outlined its " deepening financial crisis" in May 2025, citing among other things a shortfall of $2.4 billion in unpaid dues from member states. The main culprit is the United States, which owes about $1.5 billion and is withholding money as it cuts spending.
Steve Lands, a co-ordinator with the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin Project, started by Grassy Narrows First Nation to investigate the former McIntosh Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario, said it would be important for the UN group to visit sites like that for a firsthand account.
"It was quite exciting for us that the UN would be coming to visit because the UN has a lot of clout," said Lands, a McIntosh survivor himself.
"I believe the whole team would be agreeable on the UN to come and visit McIntosh."
Last year the project located 114 unmarked burial features on the property, of which 106 were in the historical cemetery. They know of 166 people buried in that cemetery, so they are still trying to find everyone, said project technical lead Aaron Mior.
"I think it's good to have an independent body come in and give their opinions and insight into what they've seen, compared to other atrocities or other similar examples across the world," he said.
Kimberly Murray, the former federal special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves at residential schools, rendered her final report in October 2024 — just days after Canada agreed to the UN working group's request.
Yet Murray said federal officials never told her about this potential visit, even though she argued at length these children were disappeared by the state and victims of a crime against humanity.
"They never mentioned anything about it at the closing when the minister of justice spoke," said Murray, a law school professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
She also met with ministers a month after her final report, yet there too no one mentioned the visit, she said. Murray suspects she was kept in the dark because Canada wants to minimize publicity.
"I think that they want to keep it quiet, don't want the public and Indigenous communities to know that the working group has an interest in coming to Canada to investigate whether there is enforced disappearances," she said.
In a statement, Global Affairs Canada said it has had a standing invitation for these UN special procedures in place since 1999.
"Canada welcomes opportunities for dialogue to help us better implement our human rights obligations," wrote spokeswoman Dina Destin.
Citroni, the chairperson, said Canada will be notified of subjects to be covered and places to be visited when the planning reaches a more concrete stage, which can't happen right now.
Still, she added, it would fair to consider that, were the working group to visit, missing children linked to residential schools would be of interest, citing interest in related issues from UN entities in the past.
She provided as an example an allegation letter sent to Canada in 2021 expressing concerns with the lack of progress implementing the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.