It’s been three years since Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir announced “
the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”
The news rocked the nation and made headlines around the world. Demonstrations erupted, and apologies were offered by the government along with hundreds of millions of dollars to investigate alleged burials of residential school children. Up to
100 churches in Canada were vandalized or burned to the ground in reaction to the news. The Canadian flag was kept at half-mast for nearly six months, and the Pope came to Canada to beg forgiveness.
A new holiday, “The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation” was created. While many are demanding reconciliation, the quest for the truth about what happened at the Kamloops residential school appears to have fallen by the wayside.
The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc band was given $7.9 million to investigate the alleged graves at the residential school site. The ground-penetrating radar survey was conducted by
Sarah Beaulieu, who said excavation would be required to confirm her findings.
Despite the passage of years and the grant of funds, no excavation has been conducted. All we have now is yet another question that must be asked: What happened to the funds if no digging took place? The band insists an investigation has been ongoing but refuses to discuss what they have done or what they have found. The language of Chief Casimir has changed, though, as she no longer refers to any graves at the site and is
calling them “anomalies.” It’s a quiet admission that no bodies have been found.
If the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc band has been conducting research, they likely have only confirmed what others had already been saying: There are no records of any missing children from the Kamloops Indian Residential School. If indeed 200 children had been murdered and surreptitiously buried in a nearby apple orchard as has been alleged, where were the families of these children? Why was nobody seeking them and why hasn’t a single missing person’s report been found?
In other sites where there had allegedly been secret burials of indigenous people identified by ground-penetrating radar, excavations were done. In Edmonton at the Camsell Hospital site over
21 spots were excavated but no human remains were found. At a former residential school site in
Manitoba, excavations were conducted and again no remains were found. Oral history coupled with ground-penetrating radar has proven to be inaccurate, to say the least.
It’s looking likely that no children are buried at the Kamloops residential school site, which should be good news. A principled person would welcome excavations to confirm that mass murder of children hadn’t been committed at the school. Unfortunately, the mystery and the mythology are more lucrative than the truth. The federal government has
committed $321 million to the investigation of residential school burials. Some people are making a very good living from this issue.
Rather than accepting the truths being revealed, activists are trying to shift the narrative. British Columbia Assembly of
First Nations Chief Terry Teegee is claiming bodies haven’t been found because they were incinerated. Indian Residential School Survivors Society director
Juliette Singh is claiming dead children were removed from school sites and “left to rot.” These inflammatory claims have no evidence behind them and shouldn’t be left unchallenged. Unfortunately, few politicians and community leaders can find the courage to critically question people who purport to speak for the indigenous community.
The residential school system caused serious harm to Canada’s indigenous people. The schools were often poorly equipped, underfunded, and doubtless attracted child abusers. Children removed from their family environments may have gotten a modern education but were often left socially harmed, as were their communities. All that said, it doesn’t mean that mass murder was committed at these schools. There certainly wasn’t genocide, as some claim.
The history of Canada’s residential schools sits like an open wound for many people. The false revelations of the mass murder of children not only prevent that wound from healing, but it opens it wider. Self-serving activists are perpetuating myths and fostering social societal divisions between Canadians.
Only the truth will lead to a resolution to the residential school issue. To reach the truth, the gatekeepers need to be pushed aside and investigations must be done. It’s absurd that people can claim a site contains the bodies of hundreds of murdered children yet refuse to allow further investigation into the issue.
Only when we have confirmed what did or didn’t happen in Canadian residential schools will we be able to close the door on that chapter of our national history. Until there are excavations at the Kamloops site, the myths will continue to be spun and national healing won’t happen.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
