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

Churches Aflame in Canada

Early Wednesday morning, a historic Catholic church in Alberta was destroyed by fire. What remains of the St. Jean Baptiste Catholic church will be levelled. (David Bajer/CBC)

"They were both intentionally set, no doubt about that."

"I'm aware of the fires at the other churches on reserves. It could be related."

Tim Littlechild, director, emergency services, Siksika Nation, Alberta

"We have a pretty good guess this was done because of the Kamloops Indian Residential School and finding of the burial sites of 215 children."

"I can understand it. I don't like the Church. I don't believe in the Church."

"Many residential school survivors hate the Church with a passion -- but I have never heard any of them ever suggest people turn to this."

"There is a proper way of displaying anger. I mean, I'm angry about it. I talk to a lot of residential school survivors and sure, there is a lot of hatred and bitterness and anger -- but that still doesn't mean you go and do arson."

"We think it is the same group of punks that burnt all of them down. And the young people that burned down these churches never went to residential schools."

Chief Clarence Louie, Osoyoos Indian Band, northern British Columbia

"These churches represent places of worship for community members as well as gathering spaces for many for various celebrations and times of loss."

"It will be felt deeply for those that sought comfort and solace in the Church."

"We understand the grief and rage felt by others across Indian country to support the discovery of unmarked graves at Kamloops. This is a symptom of the intergenerational trauma."

Lower Similkameen band statement, Upper Similkaeen Indian Reserve, British Columbia 

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)

 

There has been an unstoppable epidemic of church torchings. Along with the defacing and pulling down of statues all over Canada. States of former British notables who had a hand in colonizing Canada for the Crown. Statues of Queen Victoria who reigned at the time. A statue of the current Queen of England and of the Commonwealth of which Canada is a part; Queen Elizabeth II. The defacing of statuary whose presence is seen as offensive to some people considering themselves anti-colonialists has been taking place in the United States and Great Britain itself.

But burning down churches, symbols of the oppression and indignities and racism suffered by Indigenous Canadians appears to be a very Canadian specialty. Courtesy of some among the First Nations populations whose contempt and hatred for the Roman Catholic hierarchy, its churches and its history of Catholic orders operating the infamous residential schools across the nation where mandated by law passed in the 19th Century, First Nations children attended residential schools. 

The residential school system set out by agreement of the federal government that it would be of great benefit both to the First Nations and to the country to prepare aboriginal youth to take their place in the greater Canadian society with all the benefits accruing to both, by tutoring First Nations children in the values of European culture and the social weal. To accomplish this, the children were forbidden to speak their native language, informed that their inherited culture and status with it was inferior to that of other Canadians.

At the residential schools children complained of insufficient food and food of inferior quality; many were always hungry. Childhood diseases sweeping through Canada took their toll of the general population of the young, but did so with a fury among aboriginal children whose living conditions were sub-optimal, and whose access to medical care was less than ideal. A greater number of First Nations children died of consumption than those among the general population. And it was the recent 'discovery' of unmarked graves at a number of residential school sites that shocked the nation and ached the hearts of First Nations.

About 30 minutes outside Edmonton, in Morinville, Alta., residents watched in the early morning hours as a century-old Roman Catholic church’s steeple and roof collapsed, surrounded by flames. The Star

 

Soon after the revelations of a series of such discoveries, churches began burning. Mostly located on reserves themselves, they represented the religious devotion of the tribes themselves. Leaving them bereft of their source of comfort at a time when comfort was badly needed. The irony being that since the Roman Catholic Church's various arms operated most of the residential schools in the country, and to them fell the ignominy of blame for the revelations of violent punishment meted out to children, including beatings and rape, they nonetheless serve as founts of faith to those in emotional need on reserves.

Some of these churches are landmarks, beloved and valued. Some of them are over a century old. Some were disused, but most maintained their function and were important to the lives of First Nations people. The reserve bands who now face the loss of their dedicated churches are in shock at the attacks on "landmarks and historical gathering places". On June 21 -- National Indigenous Peoples Day == an RCMP detachment was notified that St.Gregory's Church about 100 kilometres south of Kelowna, B.C. where the first unmarked graves on property of a former residential school were discovered, was on fire.

Two hours earlier further north the Penticton RCMP detachment's patrol officer saw fire rising from the Sacred Heart Church on the Penticton Indian Band reserve. By the time the patrolling officer pulled up the wood church was engulfed in flames. Another two churches were burned the following weekend. Those church torchings are taking place all over the country now, one after another. Police are looking for witnesses, for clues, for identities of the malefactors. 

"They are not justified, of course, but these kinds of acts occur when some individuals feel like traditional modes of protests and activism have fallen on deaf ears", explained Amarnath Amarasingam, a specialist in violent extremism and sociology of religion at the school of religion in the department of political studies, Queen's University. "To burn things down is not our way. Our way is to build relationships and come together", stated the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde.

A fire destroyed the century-old Catholic church in Morinville about 30 kilometres north of Edmonton Wednesday, June 30, 2021. (David Bajer/CBC)

In Defence of China

"Canadians are saying to Chinese friends that we don't want them to make the same mistakes. We do so not because we have a superior moral position, not because we have the answers to the problems they are trying to solve and not because we want to embarrass China. We do it because of the pain we feel over what happened in our own country and for what we can learn from each other in not making such mistakes again."

"[Canadians wouldn't tolerate mass arrests, forcing people to attend schools, sterilizing women or relocating villages], except that we did all of those things, and we did them throughout our short history as a country, most appallingly to Indigenous peoples, but also to recent immigrants and minority groups who were deemed undesirable, untrustworthy or just un-Canadian."

"On a different question about the degree of democracy, respondents in China expressed greater satisfaction with the status quo in their country than did respondents in Canada or the United States."

"The management of relations with other countries, especially great powers, is exceedingly complex and does not lend itself to one-off pronouncements that are based on the desire to perform without the responsibility to manage."

"The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms or, indeed, our interpretation of freedoms based on the Charter is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese on how they should govern themselves."

Senator Yuen Pau Woo, Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Independent B.C. Sen. Yuen Pau Woo has criticized Canada for condemning China's treatment of its Uyghur minority. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

 

Beijing is not shy about telling other countries not to interfere in China's internal relations in seeking out harmony between its peoples. Tibetans, Chinese Christians, the Falon Gong movement, Turkic minorities, the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province all face oppressive situations of illegitimacy in the treatment meted out to them by the Chinese Communist Party which wants all of its citizens to be uniformly loyal, speaking the same language, thinking the same thoughts, venerating the CCP and President Xi, never venturing into opposition territory.

All of China's actions against its minority groups are fairly well known to the international community, most of whom feel that whatever China does is China's business, but for many Western democracies which decry China's oppressive autocracy. Rumours of body organs taken from prisoners for transplant in transplant tourism in China have not gained it much admiration abroad. Similarly charges that a million Uyghurs have been imprisoned, used as slave labour, brainwashed to deny their culture, traditions, religion and language have brought universal censure to China.

Beijing has an immense propaganda machine, has invested vast sums in establishing its Confucius centres in foreign academic institutions in the interests of serving as a link to greater friendship between countries through familiarity with Chinese history, culture and traditions to support an aura of relaxed trust between the West and China. It has also infiltrated other countries through its United Front Work Department which calls upon its former citizens living abroad to remind them that they have an obligation to their mother country to come to its defence. 

Chinese expatriates the world over have entered governments and business and academia at every level, gaining trust and respect for their intelligence and skills and experience, while some among them at the same time nudge their adopted countries toward closer ties with China. China's influence and control has grown through its generous funding of developing nations' infrastructure in its Belt and Road initiative, through loans and technical assistance, in the process indebting countries to a benefactor and placing them in financial difficulties to repay the loans.

People wearing masks are seen during a rally in Hong Kong in 2019 showing support for Uyghurs and their fight for human rights. (Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press)

 

The Parliament of Canada, like many of its collegial-nation countries has seen fit to charge Beijing with cultural genocide aimed at its Uyghur and Tibetan population, which enrages President Xi Jinping. And Canadian-Chinese Senator Woo has cleverly and persuasively taken up a gentle verbal cudgel of admonishing Canada for its arrogance in charging Beijing with cultural genocide when Canada itself has perpetrated a very similar program dating from the 19th century targeting its Indigenous First Nations population.

The issue of the residential school system where it became law for Indian, Metis and Inuit children to attend these residential schools operated on behalf of the government of Canada by religious communities, and where First Nations children were scooped into the residential schools away from their families and tribes to be indoctrinated into the superior culture of European settlers laid waste to the culture of First Nations. Their children forbidden to speak their native languages, given new names, unable to see their parents, fed inappropriate food, harshly punished and given inadequate medical care.

Other appointed senators in the Red Chamber of 'sober second thought' in Parliament took umbrage at Senator Woo's first speech after being appointed to the Senate by the current Prime Minister in 2016, as a China apologist when he argued against a motion for the government of Canada to urge China to reduce tension in the South China Sea, his first message being to "deliver a message not on behalf of Canadians, but on behalf of Beijing". Senator Woo has also said that Canada "should give up on the idea that it is part of Canada's mission to change China".

As for Senator Woo's contention that Chinese are more satisfied with their government than are Canadians with theirs and Americans with their own, he might be reminded that Beijing closely tracks each and every Chinese citizen, knows the most intimate things about them; tunes in to their behaviour and their expressed opinions. Chinese simply do not express criticism of their government for legitimate fear of punishment in retribution. Canadians and Americans have the guaranteed freedom to do so if they wish.

In this 2018 file photo, a guard tower and barbed wire fence surround a detention facility in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. (Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

 

It is really difficult to be too harsh over Senator Woo's position. An intelligent man, well spoken and making comparisons between the two countries on a superficial level, bypassing the aggressive stance China has taken toward its neighbours' claims to disputed border territories, from India to the Philippines, Japan to Korea and Vietnam, the world's trading colossus has revealed its agenda as a bully. One that does not hesitate to use the most underhanded methods of spying on other countries to snatch trade, military and government secrets for its own use.

Its transgressions are legion, from cyber espionage to infiltration of other nations while warning the international community that China itself will brook no interference in its internal affairs, much less its external affairs, threatening other nations that spurn offers to link their communication systems to China's, a country that seeks to dominate every sphere of human endeavour, from amassing rare earth minerals to investing in other countries' national enterprises, the better to rise to the top.