Graves at Residential schools

[stuphoto]

how can our Government continue to have an organization like the Catholic church, still have control of educational institutions for children?

You know that pretty much any government who speaks out against the church can kiss their jobs away during the next election.
I know that most religious people vote Conservative, however the 10% who vote for the best party running can sure make or break the results.

[Ken7]

Brass - The residential school system was an absolute failure in every regard and left thousands and thousands of children with everlasting memories of being neglected by foreign strangers. You justify residential schools through knowing that the reserves were not adequate in providing families what they needed. It's almost like you admit Canada is a failure but will not outright say it.

That is your view of it, that is not the view of all who attended so again, you have a very slighted view of it. Just like suggesting the burning of the Catholic Churches in this region was the decision of all.

Brass- These are not my stories. These are the stories of countless former students that recall the abuse they suffered in those residential schools. They were indeed punished for speaking their native languages. Vernon Jacks tells his story of being orally and anally assaulted for 3 years by multiple men in a residential school in BC but his recollection is too graphic to post here.

There are countless stories from those who actually took it as a positive and not like you all negative. Your people must all be subjected to the negative, I will agree there was negative things to the Residential School. Although there are many positives to it as well.

As for Sister NUN, I went to catholic school. I was disciplined by Sister NUN. Why because I needed it, so should I project my school experience as a total failure, as I was mentally abused. Oh and the strap, yes I received it also, for acting out while in class. If that the abuse your people are speaking of I can say I witnessed it too.

Brass- I am here and thousands others are not because 90% of our ancestors were eradicated by British and Canadian settlement. I don't know how 90% of a people can be starved, displaced and outright killed and it is not called genocide.

I'm really not sure just what you are speaking of. Your people back in the day lived off the land. Did they throw their hands to the air and stop hunting because white man came to the country?

Brass -That quote from Bishop Grandin IS the context, I didn't put words in his mouth, he said it and it is documented. John A. Macdonald said something similar in 1883:

Lets see in 1883, he said that. Those were his only words. Interesting, I wonder how these words were reported to have been said.

Brss - Your daily struggle is nothing compared to that of indigenous people in many communities. You wouldn't have traded your life or childhood for that of an Indian at any point in your life. You don't want government housing, you don't want to own land that the bank will not give you a mortgage on.

I can't say I would or would not. Looking at where I came from and from what I learned you grew up with, I doubt you would trade it either. I guess we both were fortunate to have parents that were schooled and had a successful life. They further instilled in me, if you are waiting for a lottery son, forget it go out there and work for your dreams. Yes, there were times where I did without I question what I wrong with Government housing I built it in Air Ronge. It was comfortable and new. The following year, it was nt so nice. Apparently if you don't have to work for it, you do not care for it is my observation.

Brass- WFN already proved that Indians are better at taking care of themselves than the government that ruined them in the first place. Once out from the Indian Act and Federal oversight WFN showed just how much of a failure the Canadian Government is.

I feel that too is a opinion or yours. I have spoken to some of your people and it is not all that. Sorry, not throwing stones at you or your people. Yes, I have spoken to others that were not fans of the schooling as well. However it is not 100% consensus of the people as you try and make us believe.

Brass- Wouldn't it be nice if they could draft their own constitution and include an amendment that ensures all members have an equal share and say in the band owned assets? Too bad the Indian Act doesn't allow that power.

That is the power of the people. It appears once again, those in the loop are fine. Those wgho disagree with the Chief and counsel it would in their best interest to move away from the reserve. That I find is sad. I have even heard on near buy Chief controls the livelihood of his people.

[ferri]

I'm unlocking this. Stay on topic and keep it civil.

[Silverstarqueen]

Cranbrook, 182 remains found.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/1 ... d=msedgntp
The argument that some or even many survivors lived to manage or do reasonably well in life, does not erase the great harm done to many others. What level of abuse, physical, psychological, sexual, is acceptable even if some survivors weren't abused or overcame the abuse and turned out alright?

[foenix]

Cranbrook, 182 remains found.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/1 ... d=msedgntp
The argument that some or even many survivors lived to manage or do reasonably well in life, does not erase the great harm done to many others. What level of abuse, physical, psychological, sexual, is acceptable even if some survivors weren't abused or overcame the abuse and turned out alright?

The answer to that apparently is..................media manipulation. We aren't told the "full truths".

[daveandanne]

This sad information will always come to light many, many Years later because of the silence and lack of information at the time because the bad guys will find out about it. Now the good guys finally find out but look at how long that took. And what are they going to do about it?.

[blueliner]

This sad information will always come to light many, many Years later because of the silence and lack of information at the time because the bad guys will find out about it. Now the good guys finally find out but look at how long that took. And what are they going to do about it?.

These grave sites have been know about for a very long time , both by FN's and government . Just seem a bit strange how all of a sudden "they" released the information .
Mark my word every Residential School will have grave sites , just like every Orphanage will have grave sites . These discovery's will continue on for a very long time .

[Thinktank]

How to kill 50,000 Indians:
1 - in 1920 Dr Duncan Campbell Scott - the top guy in government head of Department of Indian Affairs was a real sub-human . But after that *bleep* was gone, the government put other sub-human in control of the Indians.
2 - Certain Catholic priests, but not all - were sub-humans. And others kept their mouths shut - they were accomplices to the crime.
3 - Food was inadequate for people at these schools - that means the money for the food was stolen by other sub-humans in the church.
4- Tuberculosis Experiments were done on the Indians. Only a sub-human would do experiments on Indians, but then - they probably thought they were doing the right thing. It's very similar to all the people giving Indian children vaccines now - some of them are sub-humans, but others think they're doing the right thing.
5 - The top guys - head of the church and government - were sub-humans.

How to correct the problem:
Like Louis Farakhan said, about the blacks in USA who make up a disproportionate amount of USA prisons - the people who stole $hundreds of billions from the blacks - the slave trade - need to pay it all back. $Hundreds of billions. GIVE THE MONEY BACK.

Now, Clarence Louie ( you all know who he is) says Indians are "over-represented" in BC prisons. Simple solution - the government can start to pay the Indians $Hundreds of millions - maybe tens of billions of dollars - pay it all back for the damage that was done. Our white government (sub-humans in the past) can start to unload truckloads of money - to the Indians - for all the damage that was done over the years. Don't say we can't do it. We can.

this might be the best video out there. watch it.



In conclusion - people are evil. Sure, some of the white people at those schools were nice, but people are evil.
All you can do is avoid these evil people in the future. The sad part - the Indians are being screwed over as we speak - by sub-humans - over and over again.

We got some comments down below - the first thing some people want to do - is to defend the crime. That's normal. Everyone on earth who ever did something evil - in human history - would defend themselves - they would lie to say they are innocent.

Lets not jump to conclusions. The early twentieth century was rife will deadly diseases and high child mortality rates.

So it’s okay to take children away from their Families,

No, it's not okay. But also you can't really judge what happened centuries ago by looking through today's optics.

Were there abuses? ... Most likely, there were. But, we also have to look at residential schools from another perspective.... people living in Neolithic hunter-gatherer nomadic societies. Pretty much thousands of years behind. ...putting these people through schools, to catch up with the world of knowledge and to integrate them into the new world, could be also viewed as a noble effort.

A lot of things could be to blame for this back in the late 19th or early 20th century, especially in that area. We don't know any facts. But, exploiting this finding for political purposes is crass.

[Fancy]

This sad information will always come to light many, many Years later because of the silence and lack of information at the time because the bad guys will find out about it. Now the good guys finally find out but look at how long that took. And what are they going to do about it?.

The elders knew about them and are dealing with it (Cranbrook). Unfortunate that the markers would have been burned by fire and not replaced but doesn't mean anything nefarious happened.

[Ka-El]

The argument that some or even many survivors lived to manage or do reasonably well in life, does not erase the great harm done to many others. What level of abuse, physical, psychological, sexual, is acceptable even if some survivors weren't abused or overcame the abuse and turned out alright?

Oh gee, you have to put it in context. Not enough data sets. We have to know that acknowledging and speaking out against these atrocities and racism in general might do more harm than good. Better wait on it.

[foenix]

The argument that some or even many survivors lived to manage or do reasonably well in life, does not erase the great harm done to many others. What level of abuse, physical, psychological, sexual, is acceptable even if some survivors weren't abused or overcame the abuse and turned out alright?

Oh gee, you have to put it in context. Not enough data sets. We have to know that acknowledging and speaking out against these atrocities and racism in general might do more harm than good. Better wait on it.

But that's only the half truth. If we want the full truth, we have to balance the good from the bad and there is a frequent tendency to look only at the negative aspect of the residential schools. Any rational person would find obsessing over negative biases over the positive experiences of the residential school is someone that is confused. My take is that we need to look at all the situations to come up with a solution.

[The Green Barbarian]

Oh gee, you have to put it in context. Not enough data sets. We have to know that acknowledging and speaking out against these atrocities and racism in general might do more harm than good. Better wait on it.

^^^^
Wise words. Would only that the politicians, media and race-baiters out there would listen to this wisdom, instead of boldly charging ahead with unproven allegations to score points with voters. From what I saw going out on social media yesterday, there were a lot of total lies being spread about "mass graves" (not true, these people weren't just dumped in a hole, though the media hasn't been exactly doing much to dissuade this false assumption) and that all of the children (don't even know if they all are children, could be adults too) that were found were all "murdered" (totally unproven). Even using the word "atrocity" in relation to these graves is misleading, given how little is still known.

So as you said, jumping to conclusions as some of our politicians have done, has caused far more harm than good. Cooler heads need to prevail here.

[rustled]

The argument that some or even many survivors lived to manage or do reasonably well in life, does not erase the great harm done to many others. What level of abuse, physical, psychological, sexual, is acceptable even if some survivors weren't abused or overcame the abuse and turned out alright?

Oh gee, you have to put it in context. Not enough data sets. We have to know that acknowledging and speaking out against these atrocities and racism in general might do more harm than good. Better wait on it.

Although no one's asking for data sets on this, it is helpful to understand the full truth of residential schools by looking at whatever data is readily available.

What we do know is that silencing people, ignoring available data and subverting part of the truth was a huge part of the problem with the residential schools.

There's plenty of documentation to show that the people compiling data and evidence - the people calling for improvements that would have made a significant difference in the lives of many of the children who attended residential schools - were regularly shut down by those who refused to hear about the terrible conditions and the abuses happening in too many of the residential schools. Just as today some of the discussion today is being shut down by those who refuse to hear anything other than the terrible conditions and the abuses happening in too many of the residential schools.

No good ever comes from trying to make people shut up about the truth.

So the appropriate answer to Silverstarqueen's straw man, IMO, is that no one IS saying ANY level of abuse is acceptable. Those of us insisting on context are NOT saying abuse is acceptable.

Laws to force children without day schools to attend residential schools were not considered abuse at the time, nor was corporal punishment considered abuse at the time it was used in our residential schools, nor was the punishment of children who spoke their mother tongue when they were expected to speak only English (or only French) considered abuse at the time corporal punishment was used in our residential schools. No one is saying any of these things should be considered "acceptable" today - regardless of whether or not they were considered "acceptable" at the time.

Although the horror of sexual abuse of children by the adults who should have taken care of them has never been an atrocity exclusive to First Nations children, stereotyping and prejudice led to far more of it in First Nations residential schools. IMO, no right-minded adult has ever considered the sexual abuse of children acceptable.

While there's every reason to believe too many of the adults went much too far with corporal punishment even by the standards of the times in which they occurred, there's no reason to stereotype all of the staff as evil child abusers - doing so is every bit as wrong as it was to use stereotypes about First Nations to justify what the worst among the staff were doing to the children while they were doing it.

The grave sites at residential schools were not "discovered", they are not mass graves, and they are no more grisly than any other graveyard. What is being discovered is that there are likely more graves in these graveyards, and the rest of the world is discovering what was never a secret - that the graves are not properly marked and documented. The truth is terrible enough and sad enough. Referring to "the grisly discovery of mass graves" is dishonest and unhelpful.

Silencing parts of the truth is dishonest and unhelpful. Rejecting context is dishonest and unhelpful.

Replacing one narrative of half-truths with another narrative of half-truths is no substitute for honest discussion, and of course engaging in dishonest discussion does more harm than good. IMO.

[Vacancyrate]

In Clearwater it's a well known story that a white settler saved entire native villages in the area by showing them how to separate and isolate sick people. To repay him the natives allowed him to settle up the Clearwater Valley and live there, which was their hunting and fishing grounds.

Not all white people were bad back then and I wonder how many Native children actually survived because they were at a residential school and not crammed into a teepee with 20 people with the flu.

I find the way the stories are being prevented to be inflammatory. It's almost as if the news is trying to create this into an issue for the election. From 2008 to 2015 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission looked into residential schools in detail paid out millions of dollars to people and in the final report there is an entire chapter dedicated to unmarked Graves and child deaths.

This was never a surprise just rehashing Old Wounds for in my opinion political gain.

[foenix]

In Clearwater it's a well known story that a white settler saved entire native villages in the area by showing them how to separate and isolate sick people. To repay him the natives allowed him to settle up the Clearwater Valley and live there, which was their hunting and fishing grounds.

Not all white people were bad back then and I wonder how many Native children actually survived because they were at a residential school and not crammed into a teepee with 20 people with the flu.

I find the way the stories are being prevented to be inflammatory. It's almost as if the news is trying to create this into an issue for the election. From 2008 to 2015 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission looked into residential schools in detail paid out millions of dollars to people and in the final report there is an entire chapter dedicated to unmarked Graves and child deaths.

This was never a surprise just rehashing Old Wounds for in my opinion political gain.

Removed

The residential schools are Canada's shame and we as a nation own it. It's a disgrace to deflect from that by saying......yeah but there were other good Roman priests too or that the rest of Canada didn't know anything about it. Those are just excuses and rationalizations after the fact to divert away from what really happened..........cultural genocide. Residential schools were part of that systematic eradication of a culture because of greed by the new white colonists from Europe. That's the bottom line, folks.