“Council Fire is proud to host this year’s Indigenous Legacy Gathering once again, following a 20-month lockdown...in a setting that celebrates the resilience of residential school survivors,” said Andrea Chrisjohn, Board Designate, TCFNCC.

“The Indigenous Legacy Gathering celebrates and honors the resilience of residential school survivors and their families and is an important form of reconciliation...to honour survivors and their families, while exploring, learning about and participating in Indigenous activities,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory.

Approximately 50,000 children with the largest numbers in the Prairies and British Columbia were potentially affected by the tribunal's ruling. The ruling also covers First Nations children in Yukon.

"This problem was never mentioned when I was a minister. Never," said Chrétien of his time in the department from 1968 to 1974.

"I ate baked beans and oatmeal. And to be sure, it was hard living in a boarding school, extremely hard. Here in Quebec, we had to [in order to get into university]. In Shawinigan, we didn't have a college. We had to go to Trois-Rivières or to Joliette," Chrétien explained. "We had no choice. It was hard but my parents insisted I go to university and I had to do it," said Chrétien, and added that while he didn't enjoy sleeping in a dorm with 200 others, he "never had a problem."

"Respectfully, I don't think Mr. Chrétien knows exactly what residential schools are...The word boarding school makes people think it was a school where we teach people to write, but it wasn't that," said Jean.

​"My mother's cousin told me that when there was duck, the nuns would keep the duck meat and cut the feet off, with its toenails still on, boil that in water, and that's what they gave to the kids...There is someone in my family who attended a residential school in Fort George who was sexually assaulted every day for eight years by a nun. It was called a boarding school, but it was not a school," said Jean.

"I even adopted an Indigenous son, to lead by example...proves my investment in this issue," said Chrétien.

Canada's last of the residential school sites closed in 1997, while Chrétien was prime minister and  stories of physical and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in residential schools were documented only in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

"Families should have as much information as possible. That's their loved one that they lost and clearly a tragedy for them. And so there is the expectation throughout the organization that coroners are readily available and regularly communicating," Ontario's chief coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer, told CBC News today.

Anna Betty Achneepineskum, deputy grand chief with the Nishnawbe Aski Nation also said that coroners did not regularly communicate with Indigenous families living in remote communities when they are investigating the deaths of loved ones. 

"It just adds to the grief and loss if [family members] don't know where or what's happening with their loved one, and why they died," said the deputy grand chief with the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political organization representing 49 First Nations across Treaty 9 in northern Ontario, CBC News reports said.

"While we can't change the past, we must be resolute in confronting these truths in order to chart a new and better path forward. Together, we have a long way to go to make things right with Indigenous Peoples," said Trudeau, who spent his day with his family.

"There is an opportunity for all levels of government to act on First Nations' priorities," Bellegarde said in a video message. "There is a strong foundation for continued progress, but there remains much more work ahead of all of us. We cannot lose the momentum."

"It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa Nation, neighboring First Nations communities and the community of ʔaq'am," read a media release from the band.

According to the predictions of Indigenous leaders and archeologists, there will be more such discoveries with the support of the federal and provincial governments along with private corporations for First Nations to deploy ground-penetrating radar technology to search for gravesites.