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Indigenous

Grave Error: Correcting the False Narrative of Canada’s “Missing Children”

Published

5 months ago

22 minute read

From C2C Journal

By Tom Flanagan, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary and co-editor of Grave Error

The most dangerous myths are those everyone claims to be true. Set in motion by the evidence-free “discovery” of 215 unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, Canada’s myth of the missing children has come to dominate native discourse at home and abroad. And anyone who asks for proof of this tale of officially-sanctioned mass murder is now labelled a “denialist.” Seeking to bust this myth is the important new book Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). In an exclusive preview, co-editor Tom Flanagan explains how the “missing children” narrative first took shape and how this book sets things straight.

The new book Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) constitutes a response to the moral panic unleashed in Canada on May 27, 2021, when the Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc (aka, the Kamloops Indian Band) announced that ground-penetrating radar (GPR) had located the remains of 215 “missing children” in an apple orchard on the grounds of the local residential school.

Politicians and media seized on this initial announcement of “an unthinkable loss” with a fierce determination. The storyline of “mass unmarked graves” and “burials of missing children” quickly ricocheted around Canada and much of the world, receiving significant coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post as well as The Guardian in the UK. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the tone for the federal government’s response on May 30 when he ordered Canadian flags to be flown at half-mast on all federal buildings to honour the “215 children whose lives were taken at the Kamloops residential school.” By this act, possible burial sites were elevated to the status of confirmed victims of foul play, making Canada sound like a charnel house of murdered children.

A moral panic: Following the May 27, 2021 announcement that the remains of 215 “missing children” were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, a narrative quickly took hold at home and abroad that Canada was guilty of genocide against native children. At bottom left, the World Press Photo of the Year showing red dresses on crosses, at right The Guardian from May 28, 2021. (Sources of photos: (top left) History Reclaimed; (bottom left) Amber Bracken, retrieved from Global News; (screenshot) The Guardian)

The discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was subsequently chosen by Canadian newspaper editors as the “news story of the year.” And the World Press Photo of the Year award went to “a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside, with a rainbow in the background, commemorating children who died at a residential school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada.” It appears to have been the single most important thing to happen in Canada in 2021.

The Narrative in Full

Over time, a more fully-developed and persistent narrative has grown out of that initial announcement from Kamloops. Backed by subsequent announcements from other old burial sites, this narrative can be summarized by the following points:

  • Most Indigenous children attended residential schools
  • Those who attended residential schools did not go voluntarily but were compelled to attend by federal policy and enforcement
  • Thousands of “missing children” went away to residential schools and were never heard from again
  • These missing children are buried in unmarked graves underneath or around mission churches and schools
  • Many of these missing children were murdered by school personnel after being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, or even outright torture
  • Many human remains have already been located by ground-penetrating radar, and many more will be found as government-funded research progresses
  • Attendance at residential school traumatized Indigenous people, creating social pathologies that descend across generations
  • Residential schools destroyed Indigenous languages and culture
  • The above carnage is appropriately defined as genocide

These statements have combined to create a storyline about the inherently genocidal nature of Indian Residential Schools that has since been widely accepted and largely unchallenged. But regardless of how many times it is repeated by Indigenous leaders, political activists, academics and media commentators, the entire narrative is largely if not completely false.

It is no accident that many in this group are retired, since this gives them vital protection against attempts to silence them as ‘deniers.’ As Janis Joplin sang, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’

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Slowly at first, but now with gathering confidence, substantial pushback to this narrative has appeared, driven by a small group of professionals, including judges, lawyers, professors, journalists and researchers; most of them have considerable experience in evaluating and discussing contentious evidence. It is no accident that many in group are retired, since this gives them vital protection against attempts to silence them as “deniers.” As Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

Not just Wrong, but Egregiously Wrong

Grave Error is a collection of some of the best pushback essays published by these brave researchers in response to the Kamloops mythology. They analyze and critique the false narrative of unmarked graves, missing children, forced attendance and genocidal conditions at Indian Residential Schools. The book’s title summarizes the authors’ view of the Kamloops narrative. It is wrong. And not just wrong, but egregiously wrong. Because of this, it fully deserves our sardonic title, which normally might have more in common with a tabloid newspaper headline. Our book shows in detail just why and where the narrative is wrong.

Correcting the record: The new book Grave Error: How the Media Misled us (And the Truth About Residential Schools) pushes back against the genocide myth with the application of careful research and hard evidence.

Several of the contributing authors, as well as others who have helped research and edit these publications, had for many years been writing for major metropolitan dailies, national magazines, academic journals, university presses and commercial publishers. They quickly learned, however, that corporate, legacy or mainstream media, religious leaders and political figures have little desire to stand up to the narrative flow of a moral panic.

For this reason, they wrote about residential schools mainly in specialized journals such as The Dorchester Review in print and online; online daily media such as True North and Western Standard; and online journals such as Quillette, Unherd and History Reclaimed, whose raison d’être is to challenge conventional wisdom. C2C Journal has played a distinguished role in this intellectual resistance, publishing work by Hymie Rubenstein on the absence of evidence for unmarked graves, Greg Piasetzki on Peter Henderson Bryce’s often misunderstood critique of residential schools, and Rodney Clifton’s personal experience working in the schools.

The editors of Grave Error are C. P. Champion and myself. In addition to an introduction and conclusion, it contains 18 chapters plus a foreword by Conrad Black and cover endorsement by columnist Barbara Kay. The first contribution is “In Kamloops, Not One Body Has Been Found,” by Montreal historian Jacques Rouillard. This essay, originally posted on The Dorchester Review website, is now closing in on 300,000 views. It has done more than any other single publication to punch holes in the false narrative of unmarked graves and missing children. The author has updated his version in Grave Error to cover other false claims related to GPR since Kamloops.

Other contributors include retired professors Clifton and Ian Gentles, retired judge Brian Giesbrecht, well-known author and editor Jonathan Kay and inimitable academic provocateur Frances Widdowson, plus several others who are perhaps not so well-known but are equally immersed in the subject matter.

Their contributions to this volume confront all the main fallacies head-on. Widdowson shows how the legend of murdered children and unmarked graves was spread by defrocked United Church minister Kevin Annett before it popped up again at Kamloops. Rubenstein and collaborators examine the evidence proffered in support of unmarked graves, such as the results of GPR, and find there is nothing – repeat nothing – there. One author, who published anonymously because of his fear of retaliation, shows how the GPR results at Kamloops probably are radar reflections of buried tile that was part of the school’s sewage disposal system.

Myth busting: Among the many false narratives tackled by Grave Error are the legend of murdered children spread by defrocked United Church minister Kevin Annett (top left), the unreliability of ground-penetrating radar searches (top right) and the allegation that 150,000 Indigenous students were “forced to attend” residential schools. At bottom, native artist Kent Monkman’s historically inaccurate painting Study for the Removal of Children.

Other contributors include Kay, who explains how the media got the story so completely wrong, generating the worst fake news in Canadian history. Gentles examines health conditions in the schools and shows that children were better off there than at home on reserves. Former Manitoba judge Giesbrecht demonstrates that attendance in residential schools was not compelled in any meaningful sense of the term. My contribution criticizes the prolific but weak body of research purporting to show that attendance at residential schools created a historical trauma that is responsible for the subsequent social pathologies to which native people are subject. And Clifton shows from personal experience how benign and positive conditions in the schools could be.

In full, our book demonstrates that all the major elements of the Kamloops narrative are either false or highly exaggerated. No unmarked graves have been discovered at Kamloops or elsewhere – not one. As of early August 2023, there had been 20 announcements of soil “anomalies” discovered by GPR near residential schools across Canada; but most have not even been excavated. What, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown. Where excavations have taken place, no burials related to residential schools have been found. What artifacts have been unearthed prove nothing.

The truth is that there are no “missing children.” The fate of some children may have been forgotten with the passage of generations – forgotten by their own families, that is. But “forgotten” is not the same as “missing.” The myth of missing students arose from a failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s researchers to cross-reference the vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them. This documentation exists, but the Commissioners did not avail themselves of it.

Harper might have thought that the compensation payments and his apology would be the end of the story, but instead they became the beginning of a new chapter. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he appointed took off in its own direction.

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Media stories about Indian Residential Schools are almost always accompanied by the frightening claim that 150,000 students were “forced to attend” these schools. Such a claim is misleading at best. Children were not legally required to go to residential school unless no reserve day school was available; and even then, the law was only sporadically enforced. For students who did attend residential school, an application form signed by a parent or other guardian was required. The simple truth is that many Indian parents saw the residential schools as the best option available for their children. In some years and in various places, there were actually waiting lists to get in.

A False Narrative Takes Shape

Prior to 1990, residential schools enjoyed largely favourable coverage in the media, with many positive testimonials from students who had attended them. Indeed, alumni of the residential schools made up most of the emerging First Nations elite. That changed in October 1990 when Manitoba regional chief Phil Fontaine appeared on a popular CBC television show hosted by Barbara Frum and made claims about how he had suffered sexual abuse at a residential school. He did not give details, nor did he specify whether the alleged abusers were missionary priests, lay staff members or other students. Nonetheless, things went south quickly after Fontaine’s appearance, as claims of abuse multiplied and lawyers started to bring them to court.

Public attacks on Canada’s residential school system began in earnest on October 30, 1990 when Manitoba regional chief Phil Fontaine (left) alleged he suffered sexual abuse at a school as a child on Barbara Frum’s (right) CBC television show The Journal. (Source of screenshots: CBC)

To avoid clogging the justice system with lawsuits, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin negotiated a settlement in 2005, which was accepted shortly afterwards by the newly-elected Conservative minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Ultimately about $5 billion in compensation was paid to about 80,000 claimants, and in June 2008 in the House of Commons, Harper delivered a public apology for the existence of residential schools, which he called a “sad chapter in our history.”

Harper might have thought the compensation payments and his apology would be the end of the story, but instead they became the beginning of a new chapter. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he appointed took off in its own direction after the initial set of commissioners resigned and had to be replaced on short notice. The Commission held emotional public hearings around the country at which “survivors” were invited to tell their stories without fact-checking or cross-examination. It concluded in 2015 that the residential schools amounted to “cultural genocide.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2008 public apology for the policy of Indian residential schools was meant to conclude Canada’s “sad chapter” of residential schools. It didn’t work. (Source of photo: The Canadian Press/Tom Hanson)

Cultural genocide is not a substantive term but a metaphor, an emotive term for assimilation or integration of an ethnic minority into an encompassing society. The next step, in turned out, was to start speaking with increasing boldness of a literal, physical genocide involving real deaths. The claims about missing children, unmarked burials and even “mass graves” reinforced a literal genocide scenario. In the autumn of 2022, the House of Commons gave unanimous consent to a previously rejected motion “that what happened in residential schools was a genocide.” Of course, none of what was even claimed to have happened meets the formal, internationally recognized definition of genocide (which also explicitly rejects the idea of cultural genocide).

Perhaps sensing the weakness of their evidence-free position, purveyors of the Indian Residential Schools-as-genocide narrative have begun to double-down on their own claims, demanding that any criticism of their ideology be made illegal. First off the mark was Winnipeg NDP MP Leah Gazan, who introduced the original House of Commons resolution declaring Indian Residential Schools to be genocidal. Then federal government ministers got involved. Marc Miller, then Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, took specific offence at Rouillard’s initial, ground-breaking essay, claiming on Twitter (now X) that it is “part of a pattern of denialism and distortion” about residential schools in Canada. David Lametti, then the Minister of Justice, followed suit with a vague threat that Ottawa might consider “outlawing” residential school denialism. Denialism is generally defined as any debate that contradicts the official narrative as outlined at the beginning of this article.

Doubling down on a weak head: As the falsehoods of the missing children myth are exposed, federal Liberal ministers Marc Miller (left) and David Lametti (right) have supported the idea of “outlawing” denialism; denialism being another word for any argument that contradicts the official narrative. (Sources of photo: (left) Immigration.ca; (right) BC Gov Photos, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

So here we are. A false narrative about genocide in residential schools has become firmly established in the public domain without any requirement for actual proof or due diligence. Media and government have eagerly collaborated in perpetuating this falsehood. And anyone who questions any part of the story is labelled a “denialist,” and possibly threatened with criminal prosecution. To such a world, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) offers exactly what we have been missing so far – clarity, rigour and evidence.

Tom Flanagan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary and co-editor of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools), published by True North. 

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The Smallwood solution

Published on April 17, 2024

By

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

All Canadians deserve decent housing, and indigenous people have exactly the same legal right to house ownership, or home rental, as any other Canadian. That legal right is zero.

$875,000 for every indigenous man, woman and child living in a rural First Nations community. That is approximately what Canadian taxpayers will have to pay if a report commissioned by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is accepted. According to the report 349 billion dollars is needed to provide the housing and infrastructure required for the approximately 400,000 status Indians still living in Canada’s 635 or so First Nations communities. ($349,000,000,000 divided by 400,000 = ~$875,000).

St Theresa Point First Nation is typical of many of such communities. It is a remote First Nation community in northern Manitoba. CBC recently did a story about it. One person interviewed was Christina Wood, who lives in a deteriorating house with 23 family members. Most other people in the community live in similar squalor. Nobody in the community has purchased their own house, and all rely on the federal government to provide housing for them. Few people in the community have paid employment. Those that do have salaries that come in one way or another from the taxpayer.

But St. Theresa Point is a growing community in the sense that birth rates are high, and few people have the skills or motivation needed to be successfully employed in Winnipeg, or other job centres. Social pathologies, such as alcohol and other drug addictions are rampant in the community. Suicide rates are high.

St. Theresa Point is one of hundreds of such indigenous communities in Canada. This is not to say that all such First Nations communities are poor. In fact, some are  wealthy. Those lucky enough to be located in or near Vancouver, for example, located next to oil and gas, or on a diamond mine do very well. Some, like Chief Clarence Louis’ Osoyoos community have successfully taken advantage of geography and opportunity and created successful places where employed residents live rich lives.

Unfortunately, most are not like that. They look a lot more like St. Theresa Point. And the AFN now says that 350 billion dollars are needed to keep those communities going.

Meanwhile, all of Canada is in the grip of a serious housing crisis. There are many causes for this, including the massive increase in new immigrants, foreign students and asylum seekers, all of whom have to live somewhere. There are various proposals being considered to respond to this problem. None of those plans come anywhere near to suggesting that $875,000 of public funds should be spent on every Canadian man, woman or child who needs housing. The public treasury would not sustain such an assault.

All Canadians deserve decent housing, and indigenous people have exactly the same legal right to house ownership, or home rental, as any other Canadian. That legal right is zero. Our constitution does not give Canadians – indigenous or non-indigenous- any legal right to publicly funded home ownership, or any right to publicly funded rental property. And no treaty even mentions housing. In all cases it is assumed that Canadians – indigenous and non-indigenous – will provide for themselves. This is the brutal reality. We are on our own when it comes to housing. There are government programs that assist low income people to buy or rent homes, but they are quite limited, and depend on a person qualifying in various ways.

But indigenous people do not have any preferred right to housing. The chiefs and treaty commissioners who signed the treaties expected indigenous people to provide for their own housing in exactly the same way that all other Canadians were expected to provide for their own housing. In fact, the treaty makers, chiefs and treaty commissioners – assumed that indigenous people would support themselves just like every other Canadian. There was no such thing as welfare then.

Our leaders today face difficult decisions about how to spend limited public funds to try and help struggling Canadians find adequate housing in which to raise their families, and get to and from their places of employment. Indigenous Canadians deserve exactly as much help in this regard as everyone else. Finding sensible, affordable ways to do this is vitally important if Canada is to thrive.

And one of hundreds of these difficult and expensive housing decisions our leaders must deal with now is how to respond to this new demand for 350 billion dollars – a demand that would result in indigenous Canadians receiving hundreds of times more housing help than other Canadians.

Our leaders know that authorising massive spending like that in uneconomic communities is completely unfair to other Canadians – for one thing doing so means that there would be no money left for urban housing assistance. They also know that pouring massive amounts of money into uneconomic, dysfunctional communities like St. Theresa’s Point – the “unguarded concentration camps” Farley Mowat described long ago- only keeps generations of young indigenous people locked in hopeless dependency.

In short, they know that the 350 billion dollar demand makes no sense.

Our leaders know that, but they won’t say that. In fact it is not hard to predict how politicians will respond to the 350 billion dollar demand. None of their responses will look even remotely like what I have written above. Instead, they will say soothing things, while pushing the enormous problem down the road. Eventually, when forced by circumstances to actually make spending decisions they will provide stopgap “bandage” funding. And perhaps come up with pretend “loan guarantee” schemes – loans they know will never be repaid. Massive loan defaults in the future will be an enormous problem for our children and grandchildren. But today’s leaders will be gone by then.

So, in a decade or so communities, like St. Theresa Point, will still be there. Any new housing that has been built will already be deteriorating and inadequate. The communities will remain dependent. The young people will be trapped in hopeless dependency.

And the chiefs will be making new money demands.

At some point this country will have to confront the reality that most of Canada’s First Nations reserves, particularly the remote ones, are not sustainable. Better plans to educate and provide job skills to the younger generations in those communities, and assist them to move to job centres, will have to be found. Continuing to pretend that this massive problem will sort itself out by passing UNDRIP legislation, or pretending that those depressed communities are “nations” is only delaying the inevitable.

When Joey Smallwood told the Newfoundland fishermen, who had lived in their outports for generations, that they must move for their own good, there was much pain. But the communities could no longer support themselves, and it had to be done. Entire communities moved. It worked out.

 The northern First Nations communities are no different. The ancestors of the residents of those communities supported themselves by fishing and hunting. It was an honourable life. But it is gone. The young people there now will have to move, build new lives, and become self-supporting like their ancestors.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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Energy

Canada’s Indigenous Peoples Eye Big Energy Deals, Await Trudeau Loan Promise

Published on April 3, 2024

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From EnergyNow.ca

By Rod Nickel, Nivedita Balu, and Alistair Bell

Trudeau’s government will release its budget April 16 and has said it will include plans to guarantee loans for Indigenous communities investing in major resource projects.

Canada’s First Nations are eyeing their biggest opportunities yet to invest in multi-billion-dollar energy projects from pipelines to power lines, hinging on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeping a promise this spring to make the deals easier to finance.

Trudeau’s government will release its budget April 16 and has said it will include plans to guarantee loans for Indigenous communities investing in major resource projects.

The government, which is trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions, has not said whether oil and gas projects will be included but if they are then they would represent some of the biggest Indigenous investment opportunities, from the government-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline to TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline.

At least 38 Canadian energy projects were announced with Indigenous investment between 2022 and 2024, ranging in value from C$13 million to C$14.5 billion ($10.69 billion), according to the Fasken law firm, which has worked on some of the projects.

Enbridge is willing to sell Indigenous stakes in all types of assets, including North America’s biggest oil pipeline network, the Mainline, said executive vice-president of liquids Colin Gruending, adding that a Mainline deal would be complex because it crosses the Canada-U.S. border.

“Being open to all forms of energy, I think that’s important,” Gruending said of the federal guarantee. “If we’re going to involve more nations quicker, we need to open it up.”

The federal government will update next steps for a loan guarantee program in its budget, said Katherine Cuplinskas, spokesperson for the finance minister. She did not answer questions about the program’s dollar value or whether it would include oil and gas projects.

For energy companies, Indigenous partnerships provide capital infusions and a way to speed projects through approval from provincial governments that in some cases require First Nations equity.

A federal loan guarantee would allow First Nations to borrow at favorable rates, enabling them to profit, said Niilo Edwards, CEO of First Nations Major Projects Coalition, an Indigenous-owned organization that is advising First Nations on 17 projects worth a combined C$40 billion.

“A lot of (First Nations) are presented major investment opportunities that may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and just don’t have the capital themselves,” Edwards said.

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario offer provincial guarantees and British Columbia is developing one.

Banks already profit from advising and lending to First Nations and energy companies on deals but are eager for a federal guarantee to free up capital on a bigger scale.

“Provincial/federal loan guarantee programs with clear parameters could create a powerful force for accelerating capital into Indigenous-led projects,” said Michael Bonner, head of Canadian business banking at Bank of Montreal.

Many recent First Nations resource deals involve electricity and renewable energy.

BC Hydro is talking with an Indigenous coalition about buying 50% of its northwest transmission line expansion.

Wind and solar deals are also happening, such as Greenwood Sustainable Infrastructure’s C$200-million solar farm in Saskatchewan, announced in January, which will be at least 10% owned by Ocean Man First Nation.

Spain-based EDP Renewables, which built an Ontario wind farm in 2021 with 50.01% ownership by Piwakanagan First Nation, has multiple Canadian projects under development and is looking for more.

With First Nations knowledge and support, projects advance faster, said EDP North American CEO Sandhya Ganapathy. “Canada is super-high on our radar.”

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Nivedita Balu in Toronto Editing by Alistair Bell)

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