For years, Pierre-Paul Niquay wondered if his two older brothers could still be alive and living somewhere in Quebec.
Two of his siblings, Joseph Jean Antonio Niquay and Paul-Émile Niquay, were taken from their community of Wemotaci and admitted to a hospital in La Tuque, Que., — 115 kilometres away — after experiencing a health issue as toddlers.
They were never seen again.
Niquay’s parents were informed shortly after their admission to the hospital that they had consumed spoiled milk and died as a result.
“It’s a story that doesn’t add up,” Niquay said in a recent interview.
After decades of trying to find answers on their own, his family became one of more than 100 Indigenous families to request medical records through a Quebec law adopted in June of 2021.
The law, known at the time as Bill 79, allows Indigenous families to access the medical records of their loved ones who went missing or who died in health-care facilities in Quebec before the end of 1992.
According to a recent government report, 129 Indigenous families have started the process of searching for 221 missing children since the law came into effect.
Only 21 of those files have since been closed — ten of them in the past year.
Quebec’s Indigenous affairs ministry’s department of family support, as well as an Indigenous-led organization called Awacak, have been tasked with helping the families access the records and supporting them as they take next steps.
“When we search, we search with our hearts,” said Françoise Ruperthouse, general manager of Awacak. “We try to find answers because I know what it does when we search and we don’t find them. It hurts so badly. We are always in waiting.”
Ruperthouse lost two of her siblings in the health-care system herself, and worked for years to help her mother find information about them, long before this law came into place.
Ruperthouse was eventually able to reconnect with her sister in a health-care facility in Baie-Saint-Paul, Que., but by that point her health had deteriorated and she died in 2000.
“If there had been a law while we were searching or before, I think we would have found my sister, we would have found my brother,” she said. “I think we would have gotten the chance to live with them a little.”
For a lot of families, Ruperthouse says, accessing the medical records is just the start of a long path to healing.
In Niquay’s case, his family was able to use the documents to find out his brothers’ cause of death as well as the approximate location of their unmarked graves — a cemetery his family was eventually able to visit.
“Tears were shed because the site had not been maintained at all,” he said. “The idea of a burial without witnesses … [We wondered] whether they were buried with dignity.”
For Niquay, the moment only brought partial closure.
“There are limits on what [the law] can bring. If we ask for the body to be exhumed, they will tell us it’s impossible,” he said, explaining no one can pinpoint the precise location of the remains in the mass grave.
Norman A. Wapachee, from the Cree community of Oujé-Bougoumou, has been working with a cemetery in Mashteuiatsh, near Saguenay, Que., to try to find a way to repatriate the remains of his sister, Hattie.
His family lost her after she was hospitalized in Roberval, Que., when she was less than a year old.
Her parents were never able to see their infant’s body and she, like so many, was also buried in an unmarked grave, making it impossible for Wapachee to bring her remains home.
“I made a cross and my dad helped me varnish it, but when we went up we didn’t know where to put it,” he said.
Reg Nepinak, who lives in Fork River, Man., also struggles with the fact he was never able to bring his sister’s body home.
His sister, Marlene Charlette, was born with spina bifida at the end of the 1950s and when she was around nine years old, his parents were told by health authorities that she could no longer be cared for at home.
She was admitted to a health-care facility at the other end of the country, in Austin, located in southern Quebec, and they never saw her again. She died sometime around her 14th birthday.
“We didn’t get notification of her death until four days after she had passed away and she had already been buried,” said Nepinak, who is Anishinaabe.
Through Quebec’s law, Nepinak eventually got some of the answers he’s been seeking, but he only has access to the medical records from the time she was in the province, leaving him with missing pieces of the puzzle.
He and his sisters were eventually able to find the approximate site of her unmarked grave, but not knowing exactly where she was, they were forced to leave her body there — in a cemetery in Magog, Que., far from home.
“My sisters and I started this with the intent of having her body exhumed and brought back to Manitoba and put with mom and dad,” Nepinak said. “[But] the cemetery agreed to put up a plaque with her name on it, and being we’re a traditional people we did a ceremony at the site and we brought her soul home.”
Not being able to access records across Canada left many Indigenous families in Quebec in limbo, Ruperthouse says.
Many Indigenous children in Quebec were admitted to hospitals in other provinces, such as in Ontario, meaning Awacak cannot access those records or give families answers.
“A national law would have done so much good for so many families,” said Ruperthouse. “Because there are so many families. It isn’t just in Quebec.”
In a statement to CBC News, Indigenous Services Canada says health data and hospital records fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Ontario’s Indigenous affairs ministry did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.
Ruperthouse also believes the law should be expanded to include medical records after 1992. Her organization has been forced to turn down some families because of that time limit.
“After 1992, things still happened and there are a lot of children who disappeared and who we don’t know where they are,” she said.
But the law has also brought hope and answers for many, she says. Since it was adopted, four families have been able to bring the bodies of their lost children home.
And earlier this month, a fifth family in Manawan, an Atikamekw community, was given permission from the court to repatriate their loved one’s body.
Ian Lafrenière, minister responsible for relations with First Nations and Inuit, said in an interview with CBC in April, that he is committed to ensuring this law continues to be applied and to supporting the families carrying out their searches.
“This is a very dark side of the Quebec history,” said Lafrenière. “Most Quebecers don’t know about it and one of the challenges we have is to maintain that knowledge.”
