Indigenous Rights in the Discovery of Human Remains in Ontario II As we wrote in part one of this blog last week, when replaced in 2002 the sections specific to the burial site process in the Cemeteries Act (Revised) only received cosmetic changes. The one substantive change incorporated into the burial site process was not in the legislation itself, but the associated regulation that specified that a professionally licensed archaeologist was required to complete a burial site investigation. The new legislation did not address several critical shortcomings: * A professionally licensed archaeologist and a provincial official (Registrar) decide without any consultation whether human remains represent a formal burial; * A provincial official without any consultation decides which Indigenous community(ies) will represent the Ancestor(s) discovered at a burial site; * In…

Indigenous Rights in the Discovery of Human Remains in Ontario  …but they [archaeologists and government representatives] wished at the same time to win a recognition from the Native [Indigenous] people that archaeologists were not wicked despoilers of the dead, but really intelligent, disciplined and involved students of the past Dr. Doug Tushingham, Royal Ontario Museum, 1977. One of the most explicit reminders of the colonialist legacy of archaeology in Ontario is the process set out under the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act (2002). The FBCSA, proclaimed into force on July 1, 2012, is the most recent iteration of the legislation governing the discovery, investigation and disposition of human remains that are accidentally discovered in the province. Its predecessor, the Cemeteries Act (Revised) was an early example of Indigenous participation…

Unmarked Cemeteries of London