Names of priests who served in residential schools made public

National Observer

29-05-2025

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) has released a list of 140 priests and brothers who worked in Canada's residential school system as part of the Oblates, a Catholic missionary religious group.
This new research, out today, is the result of years of work between the NCTR and the Oblates of OMI Lacombe Canada. The Oblates shared important documents and records that many families have been asking for — especially those still searching for information about survivors and the many children who never came home.
The list is online and available through the NCTR Archives. Each profile will include background information about the individual and links to the residential schools where they worked.
'While this was a devastating system, it was run by ordinary people who chose in a variety of ways to be involved in it,' said Sean Carleton, a historian and Indigenous Studies scholar at the University of Manitoba.
'This is part of the accountability and justice that's so important for the reconciliation process.'
The Catholic Church operated the largest share of residential schools in Canada, where thousands of Indigenous children faced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
'These personnel files supply a human measure to a story that is too often only institutional,' said Raymond Frogner, Head of Archives and Senior Director of Research at the NCTR, in a press release.
'These personnel files supply a human measure to a story that is too often only institutional,' said Raymond Frogner, Head of Archives and Senior Director of Research at the NCTR.
The Oblates had a key role in running residential schools, mainly in western and northern Canada. They operated 48 schools, starting with the Dunbow Industrial School in Alberta in 1884.
For a long time, it was very hard to get information about the priests who worked in these schools. Records were scattered, incomplete, or kept private — sometimes for up to 50 years after a priest died. A new agreement now allows the NCTR to see these files just two years after a priest's death, speeding up access to important information.
'It can bring a lot of closure to families and survivors,' said Crystal Fraser, a historian and Indigenous studies scholar at the University of Alberta. 'It helps people understand more about who they were and where they came from — how an abuser fits into the bigger picture of how these institutions operated.'
The list was compiled with OMI Lacombe and will be updated as more names are confirmed.
This release comes after years of public pressure and is part of a wider effort to confront the legacy of residential schools, especially after the discovery of unmarked graves at former school sites across the country.
'The Oblates do have a history of being quite secretive, of hiding and protecting their brothers. What this shows is that there is a change — that the Oblates want to work with organizations like the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to be part of the process of establishing the truth,' Carleton said.
He said that many Canadians mistakenly view residential schools as a chapter in the distant past. But the system operated formally between 1883 and 1997 — meaning many survivors are just middle-aged today.
Fraser said that the system wasn't limited to residential schools.
'There were so many other institutions that were connected into this bigger network of colonialism, like Indian hospitals, like orphanages, like receiving homes, psychiatric institutions,' Fraser said.
She said the knowing these names is important to understand the history of residential schools as part of Canada's national reckoning with genocide, but also to support the tens of thousands of survivors still living today as they continue their healing journey.
She pointed out that only 15 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action have been completed so far.
'It was former TRC Commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair who said that this [reconciliation] is something that is going to take many generations to slowly work at and fix and implement. So we're still just really in the beginning stages,' Fraser said.