General News and Announcements

March 19, 2008

In early 2008 Kevin Annett, along with members of a group he founded called The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, presented letters of demand to the Canadian government, the British Monarchy, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and United Churches.

The February 8, 2008, letter addressed to the Moderator and General Secretary of The United Church of Canada demanded that within 30 days they

• publicly disclose the cause of death, and whereabouts of the buried remains, of all children who died in Indian Residential Schools operated by the United Church
• arrange for the immediate repatriation without conditions of the remains of these persons to their homes for proper burial
• publicly name and surrender all persons in or employed by your church, or formerly in such service, who are responsible for or complicit in these deaths and disappearances

The United Church’s General Secretary, Nora Sanders, responded to this letter of demand on February 29, 2008.

Subsequent to this Mr. Annett has been quoted in the media as saying he has received no response from the churches to his letters of demand. This is clearly untrue.

The text of the United Church’s response is available here [PDF: 2 pp/53 KB].