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Announcement
In confronting recent efforts to minimize the history and legacy of Indian Residential Schools, I had occasion to revisit Volume 4: “Missing Children and Unmarked Burials” of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC). With the assistance of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) and statistician Dr. Jeffrey Rosenthal, I am able to publish a set of machine-readable tables relating to these institutions and the deaths of their students.
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Background
The TRCC created a Register of Confirmed Deaths of Named Residential School Students (the “Named Register”) and a Register of Confirmed Deaths of Unnamed Students (the “Unnamed Register”). The first register contained reports on the deaths of students whose names the TRCC had been able to identify. The second contained reports on the deaths of students whose names the TRCC had not been able to identify. It was probable that not all residential school deaths had been recorded in either register. On August 29, 2014, the TRCC contracted with Dr. Jeffrey Rosenthal, a professor of statistics at the University of Toronto, to conduct a statistical analysis of the information in both these registers. Rosenthal completed a final report of his statistical analysis on January 14, 2015.
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Data recovery
On March 2-3, 2025, I emailed Dr. Rosenthal, first to ask “Are you able to speak about/share more details of the statistical analysis of deaths at Indian Residential Schools that you conducted for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015?” and then to clarify “It would be helpful even to have (1) the data tables underlying the graphs that appear in the Statistical Analysis section of the TRCC Final Report, Volume 4; (2) description of methodology.”
On March 10, 2025, Rosenthal responded, “Hello, and thank you for your enquiry. My statistical analysis was done under contract to the TRC, and I am not allowed to discuss or release any
of it without their permission. However, I have been told that my report is now apparently available upon request to [redacted] at NCTRrecords@umanitoba.ca. So, please contact her for further assistance and for all data enquiries. Thanks and best wishes to you.”
On March 11, 2025, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR)’s Reference and Access Intake Coordinator confirmed, “We are currently working on getting the Rosenthal Report up on Public AtoM. Our database updates weekly, so I will let you know next week if it is available yet.”
On March 18, 2025, the NCTR’s Reference and Access Intake Coordinator advised, “Here is the link to the Rosenthal Report in our Public Database: Statistical Analysis of Deaths at Residential Schools by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal – NCTR Public. Our Public Database did its weekly update so that is ready for you now.”
My first step was to convert the numerous tables contained in Rosenthal’s report from PDF format to machine-readable format.
Along the way, I noted that Rosenthal refers to three datasets:
- Information entered in the detailed database version of both the Named and Unnamed Registers as of November 18, 2014 [p. 2]
- Enrolment figures from the “Total Res Sch Enrolment Table” file at the start of each year (1869-1965) [p. 9]
- Attendance figures for each denomination and year (1898-1939), as supplied in the supplementary data file “DIA Annual Report Statistics” [pp. 55-56]
I assumed that the detailed database version of the Named and Unnamed Registers contained confidential information about individual students – and that the NCTR would consider its release only after redacting its contents. The other datasets seemed to contain information about enrolment and attendance that the TRCC had compiled from publicly available sources. For example, in Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, the TRCC cited the Annual Reports of Indian Affairs and Northern Affairs as their source of information about enrolment [p. 14].
My second step was to obtain these two datasets.
Beginning March 18, 2025, I exchanged emails with the NCTR’s Reference and Access Intake Coordinator, regarding the release of the “’Total Res Sch Enrolment Table’ file” and “supplementary data file ‘DIA Annual Report Statistics’” referenced in Rosenthal’s report. On March 21, 2025, the Coordinator concluded, “We looked through our drives and could not find that dataset that you mentioned from your email on Wednesday, March 19. We also looked for “DIA Annual Report Statistics” as well as any data sets related to the Rosenthal report. Unfortunately, we could not locate any data set relating to this report. I would recommend reaching out to Dr. Rosenthal himself for these datasets. I believe he is at University of Toronto and his webpage has his contact information: https://www.probability.ca/jeff/contact.html Sorry we could not be more helpful in this regard.”
On March 21, 2025, I shared the NCTR’s recommendation with Rosenthal, who then gave of his time generously to recover and forward the enrolment and attendance datasets on March 22 and March 25, 2025, respectively.
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Final dataset
We have consolidated our machine-readable versions of the Rosenthal’s statistical tables into a single downloadable data file (ODS or XLSX format). Table 1 cross-references Rosenthal’s tables with the worksheets in our data file. The two datasets provided by Rosenthal personally appear at the beginning of the data file.
| Section, Title, Page | Worksheet Tab |
| “Total Res Sch Enrolment Table” file, p. 9. | Rosenthal_Enrolment |
| Supplementary data file “DIA Annual Report Statistics”, p. 56. | Rosenthal_Attendance |
| 2.1. Number of Deaths, by Time Period, p. 2. 2.2. Number of Deaths, by Time Period and Gender, p. 3. |
Count-Gender-Period_All |
| 2.3. Number of Identified Deaths, Year by Year, p. 6. | Count-Yr_Named |
| 2.4. Number of Identified + Unidentified Deaths, Year by Year, p. 8. | Count-Yr_Named+Unnamed |
| 3.1. Identified Deaths: Annual Rates per 1,000 Students, p. 10. | Rate-Yr_Named |
| 3.2. Identified+Unidentified Deaths: Annual Rates per 1,000 Students, p. 11. | Rate-Yr_Named+Unnamed |
| 3.4. Comparisons to the General Population (Identified Deaths), p. 13. | Rate-Period_Named vs GP |
| 3.4. Comparisons to the General Population (Unidentified Deaths), p. 13. | Rate-Period_Named+Unnamed vs GP |
| 4.1. Overall Deaths by Time Period and Province/Territory, pp. 14-15. | Count-Prov-Period_All |
| 4.1. Overall Deaths by Time Period and Province/Territory, pp. 14-15. | Count-Prov-Yr_Named |
| 4.1. Overall Deaths by Time Period and Province/Territory, pp. 14-15. | Count-Prov-Yr_Named+Unnamed |
| 4.2. Identified Deaths by Year and Province/Territory, pp. 16-25 | Count-Prov-Yr_Named |
| 4.3. Identified+Unidentified Deaths, Year by Year and Province/Territory, pp. 26-35 | Count-Prov-Yr_Named+Unnamed |
| 5.1 Identified Deaths by Location Type, p. 37. | Count-Location_Named |
| 5.1 Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Location Type, p. 37. | Count-Location_Named+Unnamed |
| 5.2 Identified Deaths by Location Type and Province/Territory, pp. 38-47. | Count-Prov-Location_Named |
| 5.2 Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Location Type and Province/Territory, pp. 38-47. | Count-Prov-Location_Named+Unnam |
| 6.1. Total Identified Deaths by Religious Denomination, p. 48. | Count-Den_Named |
| 6.1. Total Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Religious Denomination, p. 48. | Count-Den_Named+Unnamed |
| 6.1. Total Identified Deaths by Religious Denomination 1898-1939, p. 48. | Count-Den-1898_Named |
| 6.1. Total Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Religious Denomination 1898-1939, p. 49. | Count-Den-1898_Named+Unnamed |
| 6.2. Identified Deaths by Denomination and Province/Territory, pp. 49-55. | Count-Prov-Den_Named |
| 6.2. Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Denomination and Province/Territory, pp. 49-55. | Count-Prov-Den_Named+Unnamed |
| 6.3. Identified Deaths by Year and Denomination, p. 57. | Count-Den-Year_Named |
| 6.3. Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year and Denomination, p. 63. | Count-Den-Year_Named+Unnamed |
| 6.3. Rate of Identified Deaths by Year and Denomination based on Enrolment, p. 58. | Rate-Enr-Den-Year_Named |
| 6.3. Rate of Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year and Denomination based on Enrolment, p. 64. | Rate-Enr-Den-Year_Named+Unnamed |
| 6.5. Rate of Identified Deaths by Year and Denomination based on Average Attendance, p. 69. | Rate-Att-Den-Year_Named |
| 6.5. Rate of Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year and Denomination based on Average Attendance, p. 74. | Rate-Att-Den-Year_Named+Unnamed |
| 7.1 Identified Deaths by Contributing Causes for All Years, p. 79. 7.1 Identified Deaths by Contributing Causes for 1867-1939, p. 80. 7.1 Identified Deaths by Contributing Causes for 1940-2000, p. 81. |
Count-Cause-Periods_Named |
| 7.2 Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Contributing Causes for All Years, p. 82. 7.2 Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Contributing Causes for 1867-1939, p. 83. 7.2 Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Contributing Causes for 1940-2000, p. 84. |
Count-Cause-Periods_Named+Unnamed |
| 7.3. Identified Deaths byYear and Major Diseases for 1869-1965, pp. 85-87. | Count-Year-Disease_Named |
| 7.3. Rate of Identified Deaths by Year and Major Diseases for 1869-1965, pp. 89-90. | Rate-Year-Disease_Named |
| 7.3. Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year and Major Diseases for 1869-1965, pp. 94-96. | Count-Year-Disease_Named+Unname |
| 7.3. Rate of Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year and Major Diseases for 1869-1965, pp. 97-99. | Rate-Year-Disease_Named+Unnamed |
| 7.4. Identified Deaths by Year, Province/Territory, and Major Disease, pp. 103-105, 121-123, 139-141, 157-159, 175-177, 193-195, 211-213, 229-231, 247-249, 265-267. | Count-Yr-Prov-Dis_Named |
| 7.4. Rate of Identified Deaths by Year, Province/Territory, and Major Disease, pp. 106-108, 124-126, 142-144, 160-162, 178-180,196-198, 214-216, 232-234, 250-252, 268-270. | Rate-Yr-Prov-Dis_Named |
| 7.4. Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year, Province/Territory, and Major Disease, pp. 112-114, 130-132, 148-150, 166-168, 184-186, 202-204, 220-222, 238-240, 256-258, 274-276. | Count-Yr-Prov-Dis_Named+Unnamed |
| 7.4. Rate of Identified+Unidentified Deaths by Year, Province/Territory, and Major Disease, 115-117, 133-135, 151-153, 166-163, 187-189, 205-207, 223-225, 241-243, 259-261, 277-279. | Rate-Yr-Prov-Dis_Named+Unnamed |
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Next
This project arose in the course of our confronting recent efforts to minimize the history and legacy of Indian Residential Schools. We have expedited the publication of our machine-readable version of Dr. Rosenthal’s Statistical Analysis of Deaths at Residential Schools in hopes of supporting a better appreciation of – and further research into – the history and legacy of these institutions. I will be sharing some data visualizations and supplementary analyses as time permits; meanwhile, I am happy to help others – particularly Indigenous researchers – to work with this dataset (send enquiries to paul@hartallen.com).
We have requested the database version of the Named and Unnamed Registers that the NCTR shared with Rosenthal in 2014/15. Undoubtedly the database contained confidential information about individual students – and the NCTR will need to redact the database before releasing it publicly.
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Licence
We are publishing this material under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence. If you find use for our work, please credit Paul Allen (https://paulallen.ca).
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