In 2021, the Governor General assigned Kimberly Murray the role of special advisor to Justice Minister David Lametti on “Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools.” Halfway through that mandate, she has submitted an interim report . Two of its recommendations reach beyond her mandate, in ways that should concern us.
First is the recommendation for affirming “Indigenous data sovereignty.” Murray states: “Indigenous data sovereignty involves amending the laws that put power in the hands of government institutions, universities, and church organizations — the ‘creators’ or copyright holders of documents — and shifting that power back to the Indigenous people that are documented within records.”
