Graves at Residential schools

[Fancy]

More background:

Gary Williams's aunt attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia with her brother who died there, but the family was never told where he was buried.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/new- ... -1.2487015

As noted earlier there may be a good possibility of reuniting remains of those that may be buried to families left behind.

[techrtr]

If people have been looking into this since the early 2000's, what's the hold up? It's not like millions of square miles have to be scoured for graves. It's a fairly small area that could easily be sampled. As well, where's this 215 number coming from - the ground penetrating radar results? Either someone is guessing or they know a lot more than they're letting on.

Residential schools are a hot button issue at the moment. If you've been watching the news at all this is the worst atrocity that ever happened in Canadian history. Yet, there is no evidence how many bodies, if any, are buried at the Kamloops school site (unless someone already knows and is hiding the truth until the right moment).

[sherashera]

If people have been looking into this since the early 2000's, what's the hold up? It's not like millions of square miles have to be scoured for graves. It's a fairly small area that could easily be sampled. As well, where's this 215 number coming from - the ground penetrating radar results? Either someone is guessing or they know a lot more than they're letting on.

Residential schools are a hot button issue at the moment. If you've been watching the news at all this is the worst atrocity that ever happened in Canadian history. Yet, there is no evidence how many bodies, if any, are buried at the Kamloops school site (unless someone already knows and is hiding the truth until the right moment).

That's what I've been wondering as well, if it's not a new issue I'm not sure why all of the sudden it's coming out? Doesn't really seem to add up. I also wonder if the parents of these children were notified of the deaths when it happened? Especially if the deaths were due to diseases?

[Fancy]

That's what I've been wondering as well, if it's not a new issue I'm not sure why all of the sudden it's coming out? Doesn't really seem to add up. I also wonder if the parents of these children were notified of the deaths when it happened? Especially if the deaths were due to diseases?

When families aren't told where their children are buried - kinda makes you go "hmmmm" now. It's not all of a sudden but comes down to the thousands upon thousands of documents that needed to be reviewed and current technology giving them a hand. I suspect funding is a huge concern.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/aborig ... -1.1318150
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/reside ... -1.1198687
When one starts researching the news items alone keep going further and further back in time.

[Silverstarqueen]

If people have been looking into this since the early 2000's, what's the hold up? It's not like millions of square miles have to be scoured for graves. It's a fairly small area that could easily be sampled. As well, where's this 215 number coming from - the ground penetrating radar results? Either someone is guessing or they know a lot more than they're letting on.

Residential schools are a hot button issue at the moment. If you've been watching the news at all this is the worst atrocity that ever happened in Canadian history. Yet, there is no evidence how many bodies, if any, are buried at the Kamloops school site (unless someone already knows and is hiding the truth until the right moment).

That's what I've been wondering as well, if it's not a new issue I'm not sure why all of the sudden it's coming out? Doesn't really seem to add up. I also wonder if the parents of these children were notified of the deaths when it happened? Especially if the deaths were due to diseases?

The money to investigate the deaths of children in residential schools was allocated since 2015, in this case the province finally provided some funding. Of course the whole breadth of information is not being released yet, I seriously doubt that these would be reported as the remains of children and an approximate number, if they did not believe them to be the remains of children. What is not known is, who were they, what was the cause of death, was it from abuse or neglect? Why weren't the parents notified? and no there were not, because only 52 deaths had been previously disclosed as occuring at that site. The bands would not be calling for full disclosure of records, if the identity of these remains had already been disclosed to the families. Regardless of the cause of death (which is ultimately important), these burial remains are not so far on the record. There are also rumours of more burials on the Kamloops school site (as well as other schools). So this is going to take quite some time to resolve. Yes, children sometimes die of accident, abuse, disease, but their families and the authorities are notified, in which case there would be a record for these burials. In this case this was not done. So no, it is not morally acceptable (probably illegal) to take someone's child forcibly, and then bury them (for whatever reasons) without authorities and families being notified. In our nice white world, that is called kidnapping and improper disposal of remains. There are laws about that.

[Fancy]

...Why weren't the parents notified? ...

Maybe they were when the parents don't know where their child is buried - possibly in the mass grave?

[stuphoto]

Have been advised of the possibility that GPR isn't as reliable as one might think but a step in providing an area to search anyway. An explanation here:

While GPR is one of the most effective forms of non-destructive testing, it is not 100% accurate. The variables we have discussed here such as the conditions and material of the scanning area, along with the person using the equipment all affect the accuracy.

https://www.xradar.ca/blog/common-misco ... 20accuracy.

The same thing can be said for any radiology equipment and probably every other machine on earth.
One x-ray technician knows exactly how to point the camera to capture pretty much any abnormalitie in 99% of their patients, where the next one may only have a 85% chance.

Personally, I do stake my own life in the hands of it's operators every winter I work up north.
They use it to measure and monitor the ice thickness and density. Since they started this process not one truck has broken through the ice.

[techrtr]

Have been advised of the possibility that GPR isn't as reliable as one might think but a step in providing an area to search anyway. An explanation here:



https://www.xradar.ca/blog/common-misco ... 20accuracy.

The same thing can be said for any radiology equipment and probably every other machine on earth.
One x-ray technician knows exactly how to point the camera to capture pretty much any abnormalitie in 99% of their patients, where the next one may only have a 85% chance.

Personally, I do stake my own life in the hands of it's operators every winter I work up north.
They use it to measure and monitor the ice thickness and density. Since they started this process not one truck has broken through the ice.

Measuring ice thickness and density is not the same as identifying what's buried in the ground.

[W105]

That's what I've been wondering as well, if it's not a new issue I'm not sure why all of the sudden it's coming out? Doesn't really seem to add up. I also wonder if the parents of these children were notified of the deaths when it happened? Especially if the deaths were due to diseases?

The money to investigate the deaths of children in residential schools was allocated since 2015, in this case the province finally provided some funding. Of course the whole breadth of information is not being released yet, I seriously doubt that these would be reported as the remains of children and an approximate number, if they did not believe them to be the remains of children. What is not known is, who were they, what was the cause of death, was it from abuse or neglect? Why weren't the parents notified? and no there were not, because only 52 deaths had been previously disclosed as occuring at that site. The bands would not be calling for full disclosure of records, if the identity of these remains had already been disclosed to the families. Regardless of the cause of death (which is ultimately important), these burial remains are not so far on the record. There are also rumours of more burials on the Kamloops school site (as well as other schools). So this is going to take quite some time to resolve. Yes, children sometimes die of accident, abuse, disease, but their families and the authorities are notified, in which case there would be a record for these burials. In this case this was not done. So no, it is not morally acceptable (probably illegal) to take someone's child forcibly, and then bury them (for whatever reasons) without authorities and families being notified. In our nice white world, that is called kidnapping and improper disposal of remains. There are laws about that.

Silverstarqueen..I very much appreciate your comments in this thread...

[kgcayenne]

I see people are still actively gaslighting all who report these atrocities and throwing doubt around to absolve themselves from acknowledging what went on.

What happened is not the fault of those of subsequent colonial descendants, but shoving it under the rug is being complicit in it---essentially, one is part of the problem if one is failing to acknowledge and accept that these things occurred.

Acknowledging what went on IS part of progress.

This happened.
It is definitely uncomfortable to acknowledge.
It is embarrassing that this took place.
Don't embarrass your great grandchildren.
Be better now.

[Fancy]

I really don't see "gaslighting" regarding this news item and no one is sweeping it under the rug at all. Getting to the bottom of what happened means digging up the ground and investigating each and every remains that are found - that's all that really matters right now.

[kgcayenne]

I really don't see "gaslighting" regarding this news item and no one is sweeping it under the rug at all. Getting to the bottom of what happened means digging up the ground and investigating each and every remains that are found - that's all that really matters right now.

Fancy, I’m seeing deflection in this thread by certain posters. When surviving children tried to say something in the past, you better believe they were gaslit.

[Silverstarqueen]

For those of you arguing that these places were used to "educate" what have you got to say about this?

...highly unethical nutrition experiments performed on Canadian Aboriginal children at six residential schools between 1942 and 1952 (2) – our own medical atrocities. The experiments were performed by the Department of Indian Affairs of Canada under the direction of two physicians...In these experiments, parents were not informed, nor were consents obtained. Even as children died, the experiments continued. Even after the recommendations from the Nuremberg trial, these experiments continued.
In these experiments, control and treatment groups of mal-nourished children were denied adequate nutrition. In one experiment, the treatment group received supplements of riboflavin, thiamine and/or ascorbic acid supplements to determine whether these mitigated the problems – they did not. In another, children were given a flour mix containing added thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and bone meal. Rather than improving nutrition, the children became more anemic, likely contributing to more deaths and certainly impacting development. In these experiments, efforts were made to control as many factors as possible, even when they harmed the research subjects. For example, previously available dental care was denied in some settings because the researchers wanted to observe the state of dental caries and gingivitis with malnutrition.

How could we have let this happen? Why did we not know about this long before now? Why did these experiments not stop when the Nuremberg Code was put forward?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3941673/

I read about this yesterday too, and it makes me sick.
"We" didn't let it happen, but someone did, and quite a few people had to know it was going on. Whoever fed these children, or didn't feed them, knew what they were or were not getting to eat. When they died, someone knew it, and they knew why.
Just because a physician was involved doesn't make it somehow excusable. Just because similar horrific experiments were performed on other children or mental patients somewhere else, does not excuse it. Even if there were no laws specifically about this a hundred years ago, common decency would have known that "First do no harm" was seriously violated by some physicians and those who "cared" (I use the term loosely) for these children. Why didn't they tell anyone, especially the parents? Because they knew it was wrong. Even in the Catholic church, which has it's own evil ways of operating, "Thou shallt not kill" is pretty simple for a priest to understand. In the law, it's called failing to provide the necessities of life. So anyone who is calling this "educating children" please explain why the white settlers children were not "educated" this way.

[Brass Monkey]

Canada and it’s churches knew exactly what the goal of the schools were.

Any justification by today’s Canadians is rooted in their hatred for natives.

[Silverstarqueen]

Canada and it’s churches knew exactly what the goal of the schools were.

Any justification by today’s Canadians is rooted in their hatred for natives.

Not everyone in Canada knew what was going on in these schools. But I am certain that if ordinary Catholics had known what was being done to these children, they would have been outraged. Now we do know, it's only been out in the general knowledge for a relatively short period of time, but we are still hearing justification for this outrageous treatment of children. What is wrong with people? Why aren't Catholics outraged and demanding the Church atone for this? Even in catholicism they can't just confess their sins and all is forgiven. There is the very important step of atonement. Which cannot happen until the wrongdoing first admitted to, all of it, and forgiveness sought. Secretly burying children who died in their care, is not an act on the path seeking forgiveness. Really today people can do a lot, especially Catholics and christians of any churches involved. Get under those Bishops skin, and dig in until they make a public confession! and cough up the documents, all of them.