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If Canada cares, we’ll lower our flags. We’ll have a national week of mourning. We’ll stop fighting Residential School Survivors in court. We’ll act on Truth & Reconciliation. If Canada cares, we’ll accept this genocide isn’t just our past, but our present too. #215children (FB POST)
On Friday, the 28th of May of this year, the word started to spread that in Kamloops, British Columbia the remains of 215 children who had died at the former Kamloops Residential School on the land of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, British Columbia, had been discovered. In 1996 it had been one of the last to be closed. Think about that. That’s 215 little children who died alone and afraid. That’s at least two hundred families or more who saw their children taken off to residential school never to see them again and never to know what happened to them. And so, the colonial beat goes on. One more time we are reminded of the colonial horror the government of Canada unleashed against Indigenous people. For far too long First Nations people have carried the full burden of this horrific history while the Canadian establishment and most of its citizenry continue to use every method possible to obfuscate, delay or deny recognition of the colonial horror that was perpetrated by the Canadian state and thus, in the name of the Canadian people. However, try as they do, authorities are unable to stop the continual emergence of its existence. Yet, we still act as if that so-called apology uttered by the insipid Harper was in some way sufficient. Who knows how many of these genocidal sites are out there awaiting “discovery”? It is long past time that the federal government created a strategy for going over every one of these grave areas with a fine-tooth comb. It will not bring closure (one of the emptiest words in the English language) but at least some families might finally learn something of what happened to their beloved relatives. More and better reparations, of course, must also be on the table. But the most important thing is perhaps the reckoning that must take place. There appears to be a large and, I hope growing, anger and pain among all people about the way Indigenous people have been treated in this country. The discovery of the 215 may have broken through our smug Canadian apathy to our colonial history. One important issue to be addressed, is whom and/or what is to be held accountable?
Reckoning: The Churches?
While government is being targeted, more and more we see the churches singled out for criticism and demands for restitution. Letters to the editor and the newspaper punditry class – see Heather Malick (2021) and Shree Paradkar (2021) Toronto Star Editorial (2021) for example. At one point not so long ago, I would have been less keen to talk about the Churches, not because they were not involved but because of a concern that the focus on them might deflect attention from the primary mover and perpetrator of the crimes, the Canadian Government. My views have changed.
I think it is clear that the public is focusing more and more on the well-known depredations of the churches, particularly the RCC, in relation to the residential schools. In one sense, well and good, they have it coming to them. Their priests, nuns (RCC, ran most of the hell holes, something like 60%) and ministers, and lay teachers have been guilty of child abuse. While most of the protestant denominations have co-operated the RCC refuses to even assist in the identification of how many children were buried where and when. None of the places were genuine schools. Rather they were places where children were to be deprived of their language, and culture and to become useful labourers for settler farms and other enterprises. Now that the awfulness has been exposed there are some bishops that are going out of their way to play the maggot like that bishop of Ottawa-Gatineau who seemed to be unaware that there was ever an issue with residential schools and the crimesii and death experienced by their young, defenceless inmates. Or there are others like the archbishop of the Toronto diocese who blathers on about the various Catholic dioceses forming “independent churches”. So, in theory, the pope is unable to apologize for the crimes of the members of RC institutions. This is obviously bureaucratic jiggery pokery and dishonesty. Thus, not unreasonably the RC Church is in the gun sites of an enraged public. They will reap what they have sewed. Certainly then, there is a legal and moral imperative, to pry more money and information from the clerical gangs.iii
Reckoning: The Canadian State.
My concern, similar to that of Jody Wilson-Raybould (2021), is that as the Churches begin, we hope, to get their comeuppance, the increasing concentration on the religious criminals is becoming the primary focus and that this will soften the pressure on the Federal government. Just this afternoon I heard a man on a call-in show, commenting on the recent toppling of the statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto. He opined that Ryerson, like John A. MacDonald, had never actually abused (laid hands) on any Indigenous child, implying that it was the religious people in the institutions that had committed the atrocities. But let us be crystal clear on this, it was the Federal Government, with Founding Father John A. MacDonald as PM, which passed the first Indian Act. It is that gang that conceived of the very real genocide on the Canadian plains (Daschck 2013) as well as the residential school policy. Like the clearance policies, the purpose was to get rid of the Indigenous populations who were seen as standing in the way of “civilization”. Government, the entity we elect, funded these excrescences and “regulated” them. It was government which, seeing that the jig was up, and that Indigenous people, though severely injured would not surrender and would never shuffle off the Canadian landscape, switched gears and unleashed provincial child welfare systems on Indigenous communities giving rise to the vile “60’s Scoop”. The Federal government has fought every treaty in court and to say it has dragged its feet on critical issues like water purity, soil clean up, appropriate funding for Indigenous education and health care, is to be kind. And the issue of colonialist racism in health care (remember the tragic and tortured death of the Cree mother, Joyce Echaquan in Northern Quebec) is well known. And the list goes on. Government, at all levels is, I believe the body that is central in this disgusting mess.
A Tag Team
Let us indeed, get after the good holy hypocrites. But please, please, let us not in our zeal, lose our focus on the fact that the churches and the governments in Canada (the provinces have a role to play here because it is they which grant dioceses their tax-free status and the fiction that somehow each one is an entity separate from the “ONE TRUE CHURCH” that we Catholics were always taught was indivisible) formed a kind of abhorrent, villainous tag team. The horrors of the residential school system could not have been perpetrated without the cooperative action of the Church and State.
Reckoning: Citizens
The genocide of Indigenous people is the founding shame of this country. Until we fess up to this history and deal with it honestly, as our Indigenous brothers and sisters want us to, we will be nothing as a country. Those calls by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for information on who had died and where they were buried, first saw the light of day in 2015. It is now 2021. That we are still finding the sites only bit by painful bit, should tell us all we need to know about how seriously the Canadian state is taking the principle of truth and reconciliation.
As noted, the churches, particularly the RCC, are hugely culpable not just for their historical part in the genocide but in their continued mealy mouthed “regrets” and stonewalling on offering up the information the various dioceses and organizations possess.
At the same time, we citizens cannot lose focus on the Federal, and to a lesser but important extent, Provincial governments. They were the originators of the genocidal policies and they have the legislative and fiscal power to assure the genuinely anti-colonial moves that must be made. Having said that, we know, or should know, that governments will only act when forced to by an enraged and active citizenry.
We are seeing more and more voices being raised by Indigenous people about the systematic injustices they have endured at the hands of the Canadian state. The “215” and what their discoveries signify are the leading issues at the moment and they bring as much, or more, pain as anger. And the 215 are hardly the only ones that are causing those voices to be raised. But it is important, particularly for us, the European diaspora, colonial beneficiariesiv, to understand that Indigenous people have a long history of resistance to the colonial oppression. Being defeated by a far more powerful force should not be confused with being asleep or quiescent. Things appear to be different now. There is not equality in power but certainly things are more equal. And a growing percentage of all citizens of Canada are becoming aware of the vile effects of our own inaction and are not so keen to remain complicit in the colonial criminal enterprises. I am somewhat hopeful. As Daniel Moynihan said of an admittedly different situation, “We are going to have to work our way through these situations. It doesn’t follow that we will, but I don’t know that we won’t.” So, in a spirit of some hope, I ask, when are we, outraged, European diaspora, colonial beneficiaries going to face up to our reality and join with our Indigenous brothers and sisters to take on the real issues? Are we angry enough, and do we possess the honesty and moral courage to join together, under Indigenous leadership, to take on the hard work of making our governments do the right thing?
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References
Baker, R. (2021), “Wilson-Raybould has a message for Ottawa: Stop off-loading responsibility for reconciliation”. The National Observer. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/06/11/news/wilson-raybould-has-message-ottawa-stop-loading-responsibility. June 11.
Bergen, J.M. (2021). “The theological reason why the Catholic Church is reticent to apologize for residential schools.” THE GLOBE AND MAIL. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-theological-reason-why-the-catholic-church-is-reticent-to/. A15. June 8.
Daschck, J. (2013). Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. University of Regina Press.
First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. (2016). “Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce: A Story of Courage.” https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/dr._peter_henderson_bryce_information_sheet.pdf. July. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). “Missing Children and Burial Information, 71-76”.
Maclens. (2021). “One priest's message to the church: 'Shut your mouth and just listen'.” Macleans. https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/one-priests-message-to-the-church-shut-your-mouth-and-just-listen/. June 8.
Mallick, H. (2021), “Grab the guilty souls who ran residential schools before they die and find out what they did”. The Star, June 21.
Paradkar, S. (2021). “Kamloops residential school discovery challenges the myth of The Good Canadian — again”. The Toronto Star. June 2.
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i I need to be quite clear here that this issue is intensely personal to my family and I. Our son is Indigenous, Anishnawbe, adopted when he was three months old. He and his wife have two beautiful little kids, our grandchildren. He has another child living on a local reserve in BC who is twenty years old. She is a very aware young woman and can speak eloquently of the pain she, and so many others are enduring because of the revelations. But we think particularly of these two little kids and what it would have been like for them to be torn away from their parents. They are being taught their culture but they are also being taught the cruel history that this country has visited upon them. My wife and I spent a lot of the weekend talking about this with Indigenous friends and of course our son. What has been so hard for many, including us, is how predictable this is and how anyone who is Indigenous, or those with close ties to Indigenous people, is going to keep getting slapped in the face with the downright callous cruelty of Colonial Canada. But indeed, the struggle has always existed and it is intensifying. As our son wisely said to us last night, “We have to take it in then we let it out.” ii In fairness, there are a few, like the Bishop of Vancouver, Archbishop Michael Miller who released a statement shortly after the Kamloops discovery stating that “the Church was unquestionably wrong in implementing a government colonialist policy.” (Bergen, 2021) A few priests have spoken out eloquently. (Macleans. (2021). iii We need to keep in mind of course that this represents years of complex litigation and, as it goes along its torturous path, there are diminishing returns. iv A term coined by a man named David Gamble
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