Photo: The Canadian Press U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland listens during ceremonies before a meeting to hear about the harrowing experiences of Native Americans sent to government-supported residential schools. The president of the National Congress of American Indians says Canada’s progress on Indigenous issues is helping push the United States in the same direction. Fawn Sharp says it’s no accident that the US is getting more serious about investigating residential schools and missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. The other big catalyst, of course, is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American cabinet member in US history. Haaland launched a comprehensive search of former Indigenous residential schools less than a month after the discovery of what are believed to be human remains at a residential school in B.C. last year. Now, Haaland has taken aim at the disproportionately high rate of unsolved murders and disappearances in what the US refers to as Indian Country. Sharp says she expects Indigenous communities in Canada, the US and Mexico to work together in the future to ensure the issue is addressed in all three countries.