Canada's Notorious Residential School System for First Nations Children

"This report has caused renewed grief and dismay in Indigenous communities, especially for those who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School and for intergenerational survivors."

"Many of those grieving are devout Catholics who, with others, are seeking solace, affirmation, and accountability from the Catholic Church."

Tk-emlups Ngyuen report, May 27, 2021

"[The GPR survey was] very preliminary [in reference to] initial horrific findings of what potentially could be ... they are very preliminary ... there could very well be children beneath the surface."

"This is not a mass grave, but rather unmarked burial sites that are, to our knowledge, also undocumented."

Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Nation chief Rosanne Casimir

Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir on Thursday, September 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

In May of 2021, Canada was horrified to be informed of the news that an unproven legend among First Nations, was true, where it was found -- mostly Catholic-church-operated residential schools for Canada's First Nations children -- that large numbers of children died after being mistreated by nuns. Schools where children were forbidden to speak their native language, were given insufficient food, were physically assaulted, persecuted, and required medical attention withheld. The word was out, that in Kamloops, B.C. close to one of those notorious schools, a 'mass grave' had been discovered and in that unmarked grave hundreds of First Nations children were buried.

 

Soon enough, where other residential schools operated across Canada, tribes chimed in with their reports of 'unmarked graves', after years of intake of thousands of First Nations children to be educated for the purpose of 'taking the Indian' out of them; inculcating in their impressionable young minds the values and the culture of white Europeans. As the tales of the horrors inflicted on helpless children taken prisoner to a scheme the government of Great Britain initiated in the first half of the 19th century forward to the early era of the government of Canada up until the end of the 20th century, excuses such as their purpose being to teach children the three Rs, and self-management to enable them to take their place advantageously in the larger society were ignored.

When some former residents of the schools came forward with their personal stories of having benefited from the curriculum, enabling them to further their educations independently after graduation from the schools, and reaching professional status in employment, they were ignored. The misleading announcement of May 27, 221 that informed the world "the confirmation of the remains of 215 children" were discovered adjacent to the long-since-closed Kamloops Indian Residential school was broadcast widely to Canada's shame.

A survey using ground-penetrating radar had led to the announcement. The radar results merely suggested that the ground had been disturbed at some time in the past; there was no suggestion that human bodies were buried in the area in question. Yet the uncertain statements of children's bodies having been surreptitiously buried went unquestioned, no affirming evidence or action was involved, simply an assumption. Suddenly a "mass grave" had been discovered.

 

Shoes, toys and more were a set up around the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in Ottawa June 2, 2021 in recognition of what's believed to be the discovery of children's remains at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. (Brian Morris/CBC)

 

A story picked up by international media where the headline in the New York Times read: Horrible History: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada. Criticism of China at the time over its treatment of its Muslim Uyghur population led Beijing to sneer at a Canada that would slaughter its First Nations children. CTV News reported: "The discovery of the mass grave is gripping the nation tonight..."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau required no evidence of the truth of the allegations to move him to regret that 'genocide' occurred in Canada, calling for a period of national reckoning. A committee for nation-to-nation reconciliation was struck to investigate past claims of Canada's indigenous populations to institutional racism. Chief Casimir of the Tk'emlups in Kamloops attempted to emphasize that her original charges of deaths at the Kamloops residential school were speculative, with no basis in fact.

Justin Trudeau, however, was 'way ahead of her, declaring that the Canadian flag would be lowered to half mast on Parliament Hill; any Canadian flags flown anywhere, across the country or at diplomatic missions abroad were to be lowered to half-mast in grief over Canada's genocidal past. And there they stayed for months. Wherever residential schools were operated, local Indigenous groups averred their intention to dig up the grounds where suspected children's bodies lay mouldering.

 

 And then reality intruded. The disturbed ground was likely the results of sewer pipes' installation, irrigation ditches, trenches cut by backhoes for utility lines, anything but mass graves. The estimated 1,300 children whose lives were lost to maltreatment and pathological racism disappeared in a poof of investigatory revelations. It was accepted that during mass infections where children in the general community died, so did aboriginal children who were more susceptible to infectious disease impacts. Children were buried in established community cemeteries.

 

 

But before the rebuttal of realities kicked in, a rampage of church burnings took place. Shrines were desecrated and vandalized, many burned to the ground. Indigenous Catholics were dismayed to see that activist First Nations protesters saw fit to destroy their Indian reserve churches. Riots ensued, statues were brought down, and anti-Catholic criminal acts took place. No authorities in government felt it suitable to condemn these criminal acts, nor to investigate the perpetrators and bring them to justice. As far as they were concerned, 'justice' was being done by the 'protesters'.

 

They were acting out to proclaim their resentment and hatred toward the white colonialists who had attempted to destroy their history, their culture, their beliefs and their values. Even if they had set out to do no such thing. Now, it is acknowledged that residential-school era 'missing children' are no longer missing. The Catholic Church apologized to First Nations. The Pope made his apology on behalf of the Church he leads.

Chief Casimir was given an independent site-inspection report dated 2022, suggesting that whatever 'anomalies' the original GPR (ground-penetrating radar) survey had detected, they were in all likelihood the result of ground disturbances going back decades. And while it has been declared for years that excavations could finally clear matters up to the satisfaction of First Nations, and funding from the federal government was provided to do just that, no such excavations have ever taken place.

A child’s dress is seen on a cross outside the former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., on June 13, 2021. Photo by Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press