Our children see these orange symbols every day, and many are taught that there are thousands of similar indigenous crime victims buried in unmarked graves across the country. They are told this is a genocide—a genocide essentially committed by their forefathers.
Since that Kamloops announcement on May 21, 2021, no evidence has been presented to prove their claim. The Stk'emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation refuse to excavate, or to release the deeply flawed radar report they claimed was evidence.
Like Kamloops, where there were stories in the community of secretly buried children, there are similar stories at Camperville of clandestine burials in the church basement. There are stories like these in indigenous communities across the country, and similar searches are taking place.
There is no credible evidence to support any of these stories about murderous priests and secret burials. Perhaps there has been such an evil priest in some country at some time in history, but there is no historical record in Canada of even one priest, or anyone, murdering or secretly burying a student, much less 215—or “tens of thousands” of them.” These stories are fiction.
This is not to suggest that indigenous families and communities who are legitimately searching for burial sites of ancestors (that were lost in time through neglect or otherwise) have fallen prey to this disinformation. It is perfectly understandable that people want to pay homage to long lost ancestors. (Those people can probably find the information they need on Ancestry.ca). However, the searching frenzy is not being driven by them, but by conspiracy theories that residential school students were killed and buried under nefarious circumstances.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media has failed to ask even the most obvious questions about claims that intelligent journalists know are not true. Accordingly, the claims are becoming more extreme by the day—baseless claims of poisoning, murder, secret burial, and genocide of indigenous children. All the while, church leaders keep their heads down and mumble apologies, most journalists choose other topics to write about, and even the Conservatives stay silent.
Canada, we have a problem: Entire indigenous communities have accepted fiction over fact. These stories about murderous priests are just the latest manifestation of a victimhood paranoia run amuck. People believe stories that are not true.
There is no easy solution here.
One would hope that at some point, sensible politicians would step forward and say the obvious: “No, priests did not murder and secretly bury indigenous children. Yes, residential schools hurt many children, but they also helped others—particularly orphans and neglected children. And some residential school graduates, like Sen. James Gladstone, the Honourable Len Marchand, Harold Cardinal, and Tomson Highway did spectacularly well. Regardless, apologies and compensation have been made, and Canada must now move on.”
One would hope that responsible journalists would now step up and start asking the questions that they should have asked when the Kamloops announcement about 215 “graves” was made more than two years ago. One would hope that our elected representatives would grow a spine and say “Enough!”
But none of that is happening. Our leadership class and mainstream journalists appear to be afraid to speak up. They seem to believe that to show solidarity with indigenous communities they must pretend to believe in things they know are not true, so they adopt the ostrich position.
And those stories are doing real harm to this country. Our children and grandchildren are being taught that they are true. Even more worrisome, an entire generation of indigenous children are growing up in the belief that their ancestors were murdered and buried in secrecy. And that their fellow Canadians were the criminals who did it to them.
How much damage this misinformation is doing is unknown. Charred churches are likely a small part of what we will see.
The AFN will elect a new national chief. Hopefully they will elect a leader who shows more responsible leadership than the last one—and with more courage than our weak elected representatives.
Because those 215 orange plastic ribbons tell a false story of anti-Catholic hatred that falsely depicts our largely honourable history.
Our children, indigenous and non-indigenous, deserve better.