The Unexamined Reality

"School attendance by Indigenous children was only made compulsory in 1920 for the same reason that that rule was applied to all other children."

"The majority of Indigenous schoolchildren attended day schools, and those who attended residential schools only did so after applications were signed by a parent or guardian. A great many of these application forms are publicly available through government archives, and have been conspicuously ignored by those who find them inconvenient to their zealous mythmaking."

"Out of this farrago of malicious nonsense came the self-addressed blood libel of a genocide perpetrated against First Nations."

Conrad Black, columnist, (former media baron), National Post

A fire destroyed the century-old Catholic church in Morinville, Alta., about 30 kilometres north of Edmonton, on June 30. (David Bajer/CBC)

The volatile, shocking and shameful issue of "unmarked graves of missing aboriginal children" in Canada consumed headlines across the nation and internationally when the first reports were aired of 'unmarked' graves having been discovered on the sites of former residential schools in Canada. Controversy over these allegations arose, but not questions leading to evidence and proof of the accusations. The public was quick to shrink in shame at what earlier generations of government action had perpetrated on First Nations in Canada.

 

And the current Liberal Prime Minister of Canada leaped at the opportunity to once again charge that Canada was a deeply racist country, guilty of maltreatment of First Nations, guilty of ignoring its past sins, guilty of imposing white values, customs and expectations on visible minority groups, and amends were long overdue. This from a man whose privilege as an elite and an aspiring celebrity figure didn't hesitate to find humour in dressing in brown- and black-face costume himself.

 

While Canada does indeed have a history of white privilege through its original European migration and colonialism emanating from Britain and France, and its treatment of Chinese labourers, Jews and Blacks was reprehensible, so too was its neglect of people calling themselves indigenous to the land. As earlier settlers before European migration, it is now acknowledged to be a country of immigrants from global sources and Canadians themselves largely tolerant.

 

According to the current narrative, nearly every aboriginal child was removed from their family and forced to attend residential school. On the left, the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre. On the right, students of the Metlakatla Indian Residential School in British Columbia. (Source of right image: Courtesy of William James Topley/Library and Archives Canada)

None of which stopped Justin Trudeau from his usual theatrics of playing to his audience by ordering the Canadian flag to be lowered to half-mast in shame and memory of the Aboriginal children presumed to have been murdered by the staff at residential schools operated largely by the Roman Catholic Church. These were schools meant to usher First Nations children into the wider world, to teach them the basics of a sound education so they could find their place as equals in Canadian society. 

 

Children were taught how to comport themselves, taught the fundamentals of reading, writing, mathematics, geography, history, along with social mores and personal hygiene. Many children were homesick, as children were always wont to be, away from home. Some thrived in the educational environment, some resented their absence from family. Recall that in Britain children from a young age of the aristocracy were routinely sent to boarding schools; academies for boys, finishing schools for girls. As in the residential schools there were always nasty experiences along with the good.

 

In 2021, the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in British Columbia revealed that a survey of ground-penetrating radar had discovered "the remains of 215 children who had been students of the Kamloops Indian Residential school". "These missing children are undocumented deaths", declared the First Nation chief. While the anthropologist who had conducted the GPR search cautioned excavations would be needed to verify that the survey's findings were in actual fact, burials.

 

That caveat was ignored in favour of accepting the horrifying fact of deliberate hidden deaths of children, and hysteria ensued. "For decades, most Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families and forced into boarding schools. A large number never returned home, their families given only vague explanations, or none at all", reported the New York Times on May 28, 2021.

Flowers, shoes and moccasins placed on the steps of the Mohawk Institute, a former residential school for Indigenous children, to honor the 215 children whose remains were recently discovered on the site. Credit: Cole Burston Getty Images

Soon more First Nations that had hosted residential schools conducted GPR scans of their own, announcing similar results. All federal government flags of Canada lowered to recognize the "215 children whose lives were taken at the Kamloops residential school", and lowered they remained for six months, anywhere Canada had a presence, including missions abroad in the great wide world where the sad fate of aboriginal children became common knowledge.

 

Leading China to sneer at the deliberate killing of indigenous children, even as Beijing slammed Canada for implying official China was leading a genocide against Xinjiang province's Uyghur population and Turkmen Muslims.  Evidence to back up the allegations? There was none actually sought, for to do so would serve to dispel the overwrought self-flagellation by a distraught public, and would also offend the suffering sensibilities of those claiming victimhood.

 

Then in June the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced the discovery of 751 unmarked graves close to the site of its former residential school. This was the time when 68 mostly Roman Catholic churches, many established Indigenous parish churches, were vandalized, several torched in reprisal for the "murdered children". There were no investigations that might identify those responsible for the vandalism, a general public aura of 'serves them right' prevailed. 

 

Fire consumes a church at Gitwangak near New Hazelton, B.C. A number of fires have destroyed Catholic and Anglican churches across the country. (Submitted by Chasity Daniels)

 

Any Indigenous individuals who found their experience at the residential schools had given them opportunities they would never otherwise have had, and who had gone on to build on the education given them to become members of highly respected professions, or those who recalled their parents having expressed appreciation for the opportunity to learn how to live responsibly and with confidence in their abilities had their protests drowned out by the shame heaped upon them as betraying the narrative.

In point of fact, no groups of unmarked graves were discovered anywhere in Canada. Public funds were provided to conduct forensic investigations, but nothing has been done to clarify whether the disturbances in soil represent human burials. The majority of the GPR research took place in community cemeteries where others besides Indigenous people would have been buried. As for 'unmarked; originally simple wood crosses were erected and time and the elements had their way leaving thousands of unmarked graves.

As for "missing children", Alberta political scientist Tom Flanagan identifies that as a fabrication the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fantasized in its zeal to have the Canadian public accept that Canada had committed a 'social/cultural genocide'. In the 19th century many children died of communicable childhood diseases and of tuberculosis. Aboriginal children were particularly vulnerable to communicable diseases. All such deaths were recorded and families informed.

Unravelling the mystery: Archaeologist Scott Hamilton’s report for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into the burial of deceased Indian Residential School children included a wealth of information about how and why they died and what happened afterwards. This was available many years before the ground penetrating radar survey in Kamloops in spring 2021.

 

Never were there enquiries of missing Indigenous children filed with police or other authorities. Indian resident school students were enumerated meticulously in the calculation of per capita subsidy to the schools by the Department of Indian Affairs. And nor were 150,000 Aboriginal students "forced" to attend residential schools. Canada committed to $4.7 billion in reparations and federal budgets allocated hundreds of millions to "addressing the shameful legacy of residential schools". 

Schools that lifted children out of illiteracy, launching them into an educated adulthood. 

"Regardless of the start date, it is important to note that these schools were initially created at the express request of Indigenous leaders who wished to secure a formal English-language education for their people.In fact, a federal requirement to provide education was a key component of all nine numbered treaties covering Western and Northern Canada. The following excerpt from Treaty 3, concluded in 1873, is typical: “Her Majesty agrees to maintain schools for instruction in such reserves hereby made as to her Government of Her Dominion of Canada may seem advisable whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.” During his 1881 tour of Western Canada, Governor-General John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne, met with Indigenous chiefs who made repeated requests for better education. Dakota Chief Standing Buffalo asked, “Please give me a Church on my Reserve for I want to live like the white people.” Cree Chief John Smith had a similar plea: “I want a teacher to learn the English language and to teach it to my children.”  C2C Journal