Commission to report on residential schools

The commission that has spent five years examining Canada’s Indian residential schools says it still doesn’t know how many children died in the institutions.

Justice Murray Sinclair says the federal government stopped recording the deaths around 1920 after a damning report suggested children were dying at an alarming rate.

He says the commission wants to see the issue studied further.

Survivors of the schools marched through Ottawa Sunday to mark the end of the commission’s work.

The walk drew thousands of people, who made their way along a five kilometer route from Gatineau, Quebec to Ottawa city hall.

The commission is set to release a summary of testimony gathered from survivors, as well as recommendations tomorrow.

Over much of the last century, about 150-thousand first nations children were taken from their families and forced to attend government schools.