The Government of Ontario is providing a streamlined process to reduce the burden for Indigenous communities, organizations, and family members trying to locate death records for children who attended Indian Residential Schools in Ontario.
As part of this process, fees are being permanently waived for death registration searches, death certificates, and certified copies of death registrations. Fees are also being waived to register a delayed registration of death for children who attended Indian Residential Schools.
There is now a one-window process that eliminates the need to request death searches from two offices — the Archives of Ontario and ServiceOntario’s Office of the Registrar General.
A request for a search for a death records will be conducted at no cost through the provincial archives’ new centralized one-window process.
The province is also permanently eliminating fees for reclaiming a traditional Indigenous
name.
“The tragic legacy of Indian Residential Schools continues to be a source of pain and suffering within Indigenous communities,” said Todd McCarthy, Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery. “Our government is committed to advancing reconciliation and making it easier and more affordable for Indigenous people to access records and services.”
The Ontario government has committed over $65 million to search the grounds of 18 former Indian Residential Schools in the province looking for potential burial sites.
Across Canada, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their communities and sent to Indian Residential Schools between 1870 and 1996. The last of Ontario’s schools closed in 1991, according to the government.
