1807 children found buried at former Canadian schools

[Resilient Acceleration]

The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as heartbreaking on Friday.

The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978, according to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, which said the remains were found with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist.

"We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify," Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. "At this time, we have more questions than answers."

Canada's residential school system, which forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, constituted "cultural genocide," a six-year investigation into the now-defunct system found in 2015.

The report documented horrific physical abuse, rape, malnutrition and other atrocities suffered by many of the 150,000 children who attended the schools, typically run by Christian churches on behalf of Ottawa from the 1840s to the 1990s.

It found more than 4,100 children died while attending residential school. The deaths of the 215 children buried in the grounds of what was once Canada's largest residential school are believed to not have been included in that figure and appear to have been undocumented until the discovery. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 021-05-28/

Well this was news, and it is certainly gruesome as hell. Based on gross calculation, the death rate of the schools (if you can call it so) is 2.7%, which is more than the COVID lethality rate in the US. And I guess you can say that the event happened quite recently, i.e. in contemporary history. Some of the "survivors" of the school are still alive.

For decades, McLeod says he and former students like him would wonder what had happened to friends and classmates.

"Sometimes people didn't come back, we were happy for them, we thought they ran away, not knowing if they did or whatever happened to them," said McLeod, who now serves as chief of British Columbia's Upper Nicola band.

"There were discussions that this may have happened, that they may have passed," he says adding, "What I realized yesterday was how strong I was, as a little boy, how strong I was to be here today, because I know that a lot of people didn't go home."

McLeod says the residential school system scarred generations in his family and the abuse he suffered at the school in Kamloops terrorized him, his family and his classmates.

"The abuse that happened to me was physical, yes, was sexual, yes, and in 1966 I was a person that didn't want to live anymore, it changed me," said McLeod, comparing the trauma he suffered to that of a prisoner of war.

He says he entered the school in 1966 along with most of his siblings.

"Seven of us went at the same time, same school that my mum and my dad went to, there wasn't an option, it was a requirement, it was the law. And I can only imagine what my mom and my dad, how they felt, when they dropped some of us there knowing what they experienced at that school," he said. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/28/worl ... index.html

I'm not too informed on the Canadian residential schooling system to have a concrete opinion, but I certainly didn't expect cases like this to emerge from places such as Canada, since this looks more like events that usually happen in the late 19th century.

UPDATEs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... gravesites

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Horrendous. Was it run by the Catholic Church by any chance?

[Nilokeras]

A sad reminder that Canada's self-image of being benevolent multicultural peacekeepers is a facade. For non-Canadians, these residential schools were boarding schools run by religious authorities and the Canadian government between the beginning of Canada and 1997 when the last of them closed that kidnapped First Nations children from their homes on reserves and elsewhere and give them an 'education' explicitly designed to strip them of any Indigenous culture and, in the words of the Victoria Times Colonist, 'prepare them for life in the white man's world'. Abuse and neglect was rampant and utterly unchecked, and children like these 215 people just simply went missing after dying from disease or worse. Survivors went back home or moved into the cities with persistent trauma from their experiences. As has been noted on Twitter and elsewhere by survivors and the families of survivors, every residential school in Canada probably has its own mass graves that are yet to be discovered.

To give you an idea of just how recent and completely swept under the rug this history is in Canada, Bishop JF O'Grady was the principal for the Kamloops Residential School for most of the last decades of its operation until it closed in 1969. One of O'Grady's proteges and a 'Frontier Apostle' was one John Furlong, who served as a missionary and PE teacher in a couple of northern communities in the 70's. He went on to head the vaunted 2010 Vancouver Olympics and wrote a glowing autobiography, which neatly omitted that part of his career. Which was probably a wise move on his part, as the part of his Wikipedia page called 'abuse allegations' demonstrates:

On September 26, 2012, The Georgia Straight published an article that reported allegations that children in the 1970s were physically and mentally abused while Furlong was a missionary and physical education teacher at Immaculata Catholic School, a residential school, in Burns Lake.[54] The article, by journalist Laura Robinson, was supported by over 45 statements, including eight affidavits.[54] Robinson's response to Furlong's defamation action included additional allegations supported by witness statements that he emotionally, physically, and sexually abused his first wife. A statement from his second wife alleged domestic violence.[55][56][46][57]

Abuse allegations against Furlong have never been heard nor accepted as evidence in court.[58][59] Three former students, who were not part of the Georgia Straight story, alleged that Furlong sexually, physically, and verbally abused them.[60][61] In 2013, these three former students filed failed civil lawsuits against Furlong, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, the Roman Catholic Prince George Diocese, and the Catholic Independent Schools Diocese of Prince George.[61][62][63]

Based on changes in information from interviews by the RCMP with one of the three accusers, a BC Supreme Court Judge incorrectly concluded that the woman had not attended the school where she had accused Furlong of abuse.[64] In fact, the woman had attended the school during Furlong's tenure according to documents presented at a later trial (Robinson v. Furlong).[65] A second woman dropped her civil case after it was deemed unfounded.[64] The third plaintiff, a man, was found to have already received $120,822 in compensation for a claim while attending a different school at the same period as his claim against Furlong.[64] In fact, this man had attended Immaculata during Furlong's tenure.[65]

...

Questions have been raised about the relationship between Furlong and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers who investigated abuse allegations against him. Some of these senior officers had worked closely with Furlong on Olympic security holding senior or oversight positions in security for the 2010 games in Vancouver.[66] These relationships were not revealed and these officers did not recuse themselves from the investigation.[67]

In a December 2016 complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, six Northern British Columbia First Nations members formally accused the federal government and RCMP of racial and ethnic discrimination in mishandling their allegations that John Furlong abused them.[68]

He's still a member in good standing of Vancouver society and regularly hobnobs with people in the BC and federal government. He's also probably one of the more well documented abusers in the residential school system - the Canadian federal government under Stephen Harper apologized for the residential school system in 2008 and launched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the history of these schools, hear testimony from survivors and release recommendations to Canadian society in order to begin the process of reconciliation. At least 3 billion dollars in compensation have been given out to survivors through this process, though very few criminal charges have been laid or investigations launched against people like Furlong. This hasn't been helped by the Canadian government's intransigence on the subject, as they've fought residential school survivors in court as recently as 2020 in trying to prevent the release or use of the databases of abuse and abusers created by the government as it would 'compromise its litigation privilege'. One judge argued too against the release of the data, saying 'just as the history of the Holocaust will not be different for not knowing which was worse, Auschwitz or Treblinka, I do not see how truth and reconciliation will be advanced by reports identifying which school was the worst of the worst or ranking schools in the order of which school had more student-on-student sexual assaults than staff sexual assaults'.

So yeah. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, the Canadian state and society is still very complicit in this genocide and its continuing minimization and papering over.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Fucking horrible.

Horrendous. Was it run by the Catholic Church by any chance?

Yeah was gona ask, it reminds me a lot of what happened in Ireland with Catholic run Mother and Baby homes where they found hundreds of dead children buried under one at Tuam.

[Engadine Mcdonalds 1997]

Absolutely deplorable what happened here, a true crime against humanity.

[Nakena]

Fucking horrible.

Horrendous. Was it run by the Catholic Church by any chance?

Yeah was gona ask, it reminds me a lot of what happened in Ireland with Catholic run Mother and Baby homes where they found hundreds of dead children buried under one at Tuam.

It does appears so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamloops_ ... ol#History

[Nilokeras]

Horrendous. Was it run by the Catholic Church by any chance?

Administered in some cases by the Catholic Church, but in a program run by the state. It was the RCMP that showed up in reserves to take the children of people who refused to enroll their children in the residential schools away by force.

[Kowani]

Identification efforts underway

An Indigenous Canadian group announced plans Saturday to identify the remains of 215 children, some as young as three, found buried at the site of a former residential school, per CBC News. [...]Tk'emlups te Secwépemc First Nation Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement announcing the discovery Thursday, "To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths."

She said in a later statement that more bodies could be uncovered at the Catholic Church-run Kamloops Indian Residential School, which closed in 1978, because not all areas of the grounds had been searched.
Assembly of First Nations regional chief Terry Teegee told the CBC that forensic experts would join the BC Coroners Service and the Royal B.C. Museum for the identification.

godfuckingdamnit

[SD_Film Artists]

That's terrible, though I'm not sure what there is to discuss here unless someone wants to shoehorn this into contemporary politics.

So yeah. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, the Canadian state and society is still very complicit in this genocide and its continuing minimization and papering over.

Right on cue

[Jarvikan]

Fucking hell…

[Nilokeras]

That's terrible, though I'm not sure what there is to discuss here unless someone wants to shoehorn this into contemporary politics.

So yeah. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, the Canadian state and society is still very complicit in this genocide and its continuing minimization and papering over.

Right on cue

I encourage you to reread that post, particularly the bits where I point out exactly why the Canadian government and society is complicit in this

[Cereskia]

Europeans are ruthless.

[Albrenia]

Europeans are ruthless.

Canadians are European now?

On topic though, holy shit this is terrible.

[Nilokeras]

And lets not forget that despite what people like SD who have bizarre axes to grind would insist this is not something that just stopped and that the Canadian government has now completed its duty by saying sorry and filling out cheques. In many ways the two-plank system of Canadian colonial governance and Indigenous genocide never disappeared, it just changed roles. The first plank was and is the dispossession of First Nations from their territories and segregation into purposefully limited reserves that are then starved of resources and attention from the federal and provincial governments. That plank creates poverty, despair and cycles of violence that allow the successor of the residential school system to kick in - the child welfare system.

In late January [2017], Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott will hold an emergency meeting of First Nations leaders, child-welfare agencies and advocacy groups to confront what she has called a “humanitarian crisis.” Indigenous children are, to put it mildly, overrepresented in Canada’s child-welfare system. In 2016, First Nations, Metis and Inuit youth made up 52 per cent of foster children younger than 14 in Canada, despite representing just eight per cent of that age group, according to Statistics Canada. That’s four points higher than in 2011, reflecting the fact that more Indigenous children have been entering foster care than leaving it. Between 1989 and 2012, Indigenous children have spent more than 66 million nights in foster care—the equivalent of 180,000 years. These national statistics, however, only account for children living in private households. If they included those who live in group homes, shelters or mental health facilities, say advocates, the total would be far higher.

The numbers vary between provinces and territories, but the imbalance applies across the country, and has reached crisis proportions in the West. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, nearly 90 per cent of children in care are Indigenous. Of the roughly 11,000 in care in Manitoba, according to a 2016-17 provincial government report, nearly 10,000 are Indigenous and nearly 6,000 of those are permanent wards. (Manitoba’s total includes children in foster homes, places of safety, group facilities, independent living and other types of care.)

The shocking numbers, and the failure to address them, has pushed this issue to the top of the agenda of Indigenous leaders and activists, who regard it as a vestige of Canada’s discredited strategy of assimilating First Nations children by removing them from their parents’ influence. While most acknowledge that Indigenous kids in many households are at risk, they’re frustrated that the default solution is still to funnel those kids into care rather than confronting the social and economic problems that devastate families.

“It’s truly looking more and more like a second generation of residential school,” Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs told APTN in November, articulating a view widely held among First Nations leaders and activists. To debate the present crisis while overlooking the past, these critics say, would be to ignore Canada’s history of abusing and literally prying Indigenous children from their parents’ arms: every federal government since 1867, they note, has carried out policies separating Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures.

The most blatant example of this echoing of residential schools is the practice of issuing 'birth alerts', common in several provinces and only recently banned in others. A birth alert is when a social worker assigned to a person in poverty or distress notifies the hospital of their concerns around that parent's suitability to have a child, and that when the person's child is born the hospital then notifies the social worker of the birth, commonly resulting in the baby being seized and taken away from their parent and put in the care of the state. This practice often occurs even if a person is not in dangerous conditions or if they've had improvements in their living conditions, and commonly results in parents permanently losing full custody of their children, if not losing them entirely.

The two feed on each other in a vicious cycle - historic and continuing deprivation create the conditions to allow the state to institute surveillance of First Nations communities and populations, and a social welfare system more interested in interventions and the use of force than providing supports swoops in and destroys lives and communities with little accountability.

[Saiwania]

Did the residential schools accomplish their intended purpose or not, in terms of converting indigenous Canadians to the national culture of modern Canada? I'd think that it can't prevent discrimination on account of their race/background, but could give an education that'd enable them to live/work in any of Canada's major cities.

[The Black Forrest]

Did the residential schools accomplish their intended purpose or not, in terms of converting indigenous Canadians to the national culture of modern Canada? I'd think that it can't prevent discrimination on account of their race/background, but could give an education that'd enable them to live/work in any of Canada's major cities.

Eh? What’s that got to do with anything?

[Kowani]

The most blatant example of this echoing of residential schools is the practice of issuing 'birth alerts', common in several provinces and only recently banned in others. A birth alert is when a social worker assigned to a person in poverty or distress notifies the hospital of their concerns around that parent's suitability to have a child, and that when the person's child is born the hospital then notifies the social worker of the birth, commonly resulting in the baby being seized and taken away from their parent and put in the care of the state. This practice often occurs even if a person is not in dangerous conditions or if they've had improvements in their living conditions, and commonly results in parents permanently losing full custody of their children, if not losing them entirely.

holy shit what the fuck is wrong with canada

[SD_Film Artists]

[double post]

[Saiwania]

Eh? What’s that got to do with anything?

I'm perhaps not convinced that the residential schools were any inherently bad thing. For me, it depends on if the objectives of the state were accomplished or not. Any unfortunate incidents that happened are akin to collateral damage from my perspective, not the fault of the schools or curriculum but rather the excesses of individuals or staff.

[SD_Film Artists]

That's terrible, though I'm not sure what there is to discuss here unless someone wants to shoehorn this into contemporary politics.



Right on cue

I encourage you to reread that post, particularly the bits where I point out exactly why the Canadian government and society is complicit in this

It looks like they're defending themselves in court. The real question is why they're against the natives in court in the first place; if the natives want the release of records for genuine historical transparency rather then ethno-state politics then I'll concede that it's still relevant and Canada shouldn't be trying to cover this up by going to court against its own people.

.The first plank was and is the dispossession of First Nations from their territories and segregation into purposefully limited reserves that are then starved of resources and attention from the federal and provincial governments.

Isn't the whole point of their little ethno-state to be special and independent from the ebil white man? Why would they want federal funds then? They can’t have their cake and eat it.

[Samudera Darussalam]

Reading that article makes me remember of Australia's Stolen Generation about children being taken by force from their parents to be educated as "White people". I mean, no offence, but even if I've read something about Canada's horrible past with its Native American population, reading that news is still shocking.

And lets not forget that despite what people like SD who have bizarre axes to grind would insist this is not something that just stopped and that the Canadian government has now completed its duty by saying sorry and filling out cheques. In many ways the two-plank system of Canadian colonial governance and Indigenous genocide never disappeared, it just changed roles. The first plank was and is the dispossession of First Nations from their territories and segregation into purposefully limited reserves that are then starved of resources and attention from the federal and provincial governments. That plank creates poverty, despair and cycles of violence that allow the successor of the residential school system to kick in - the child welfare system.

In late January [2017], Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott will hold an emergency meeting of First Nations leaders, child-welfare agencies and advocacy groups to confront what she has called a “humanitarian crisis.” Indigenous children are, to put it mildly, overrepresented in Canada’s child-welfare system. In 2016, First Nations, Metis and Inuit youth made up 52 per cent of foster children younger than 14 in Canada, despite representing just eight per cent of that age group, according to Statistics Canada. That’s four points higher than in 2011, reflecting the fact that more Indigenous children have been entering foster care than leaving it. Between 1989 and 2012, Indigenous children have spent more than 66 million nights in foster care—the equivalent of 180,000 years. These national statistics, however, only account for children living in private households. If they included those who live in group homes, shelters or mental health facilities, say advocates, the total would be far higher.

The numbers vary between provinces and territories, but the imbalance applies across the country, and has reached crisis proportions in the West. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, nearly 90 per cent of children in care are Indigenous. Of the roughly 11,000 in care in Manitoba, according to a 2016-17 provincial government report, nearly 10,000 are Indigenous and nearly 6,000 of those are permanent wards. (Manitoba’s total includes children in foster homes, places of safety, group facilities, independent living and other types of care.)

The shocking numbers, and the failure to address them, has pushed this issue to the top of the agenda of Indigenous leaders and activists, who regard it as a vestige of Canada’s discredited strategy of assimilating First Nations children by removing them from their parents’ influence. While most acknowledge that Indigenous kids in many households are at risk, they’re frustrated that the default solution is still to funnel those kids into care rather than confronting the social and economic problems that devastate families.

“It’s truly looking more and more like a second generation of residential school,” Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs told APTN in November, articulating a view widely held among First Nations leaders and activists. To debate the present crisis while overlooking the past, these critics say, would be to ignore Canada’s history of abusing and literally prying Indigenous children from their parents’ arms: every federal government since 1867, they note, has carried out policies separating Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures.

The most blatant example of this echoing of residential schools is the practice of issuing 'birth alerts', common in several provinces and only recently banned in others. A birth alert is when a social worker assigned to a person in poverty or distress notifies the hospital of their concerns around that parent's suitability to have a child, and that when the person's child is born the hospital then notifies the social worker of the birth, commonly resulting in the baby being seized and taken away from their parent and put in the care of the state. This practice often occurs even if a person is not in dangerous conditions or if they've had improvements in their living conditions, and commonly results in parents permanently losing full custody of their children, if not losing them entirely.

The two feed on each other in a vicious cycle - historic and continuing deprivation create the conditions to allow the state to institute surveillance of First Nations communities and populations, and a social welfare system more interested in interventions and the use of force than providing supports swoops in and destroys lives and communities with little accountability.

That's horrible.

[USS Monitor]

Well, this thread was depressing to read.

[Picairn]

The families of the children deserve compensation, and the perpetrators should be brought to justice.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

What was all that bullshit I was hearing recently about how Canada is so much better than America? Canada not only treated its native people poorly but continues to do so and allegedly they're much more liberal and tolerant than us and have always been.

[The Free Joy State]

Those poor children.

The survivors and families of the residential 'schools' for indigenous children, wherever they were in the world, should be compensated for the harm they suffered.