I don't want to take too long with my answers, MP Battiste.
About 96 projects are under way across the country to search those former sites. I've had the opportunity over the last year or so to visit about 20 sites across the country. Each has unique stories and survivors who have suffered unspeakable horrors, some speaking for the first time, some still suffering in silence. That space we still have to recognize and honour.
The reality is that this will take years to figure out. Closure comes in many forms. It comes in being able to speak about it, or it comes in being able to trace a long-lost loved one. That means a lot of money and investment from the Government of Canada.
You tend to think that radar searches are where you see the financial pressure. That isn't the case. They're relatively cost-effective. The real work is working with survivors in communities, having community gatherings and having healing sessions. Obviously, there are going to be long-term infrastructure asks that we will have to work with communities to do. It isn't every community that wants to do a search. There are traditions and views that say you leave the space lying as it is and do not touch anything. There are others that differ wildly from that.
When you talk about a place that kids have been dragged to from different communities with different protocols, you can imagine that communities are reeling and trying to figure out what the best protocol is to engage people. That is time-intensive. It is also retraumatizing, but it goes to that process of accountability and closure that people are trying to figure out. Accountability may very well mean bringing someone to trial. Accountability may mean trying to find out where your loved one was lost so that you stop blaming someone else for their disappearance. There are specific examples of that that have been shared with me in confidence. Each of them is unique, and each of them has to be honoured and researched.
I would finally highlight—so I don't dig into your second question—that the funding of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation for the next few years and the investment in a new building are so key to making sure that survivors have a focal point where they can go, consult and get documentation so they can get that information and perhaps closure. That is outside the control and purview of the federal government, which obviously they still have some healthy mistrust towards.