Indigenous Tribunal on Residential Schools Convenes in Montréal

The Native Women's Shelter of Montreal is hosting the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves in Canada starting Monday—a gathering designed to document and demand accountability for alleged crimes against Indigenous children in Canada's residential school system.

Na'kuset, executive director of the shelter, frames the tribunal as an act of documentation itself. "We're bringing in the truth that we know that has been documented and that's what we're showing," she said.

The tribunal represents a shift in how the country reckons with residential schools. Since the discovery of unmarked graves at Kamloops Residential School in 2021, truth-telling has moved beyond government inquiries into community-led processes. This tribunal, convening in Montréal, is one of those spaces—a formal setting where survivors, families, and advocates can present evidence and narrative that official channels sometimes overlook.

The shelter, which serves Indigenous women and girls, has positioned itself as the requesting organization. The tribunal will hear testimony and examine documented evidence from residential school survivors and their families throughout the week.

For Montréal, it's a significant moment: one of Canada's largest cities becoming a site where Indigenous voices and accountability demands take centre stage, not as a sidebar to national news, but as the main event.