How has the discovery of unmarked graves provoked discussion surrounding the maltreatment of Indigenous people in Canada?
Between 1863 and 1998, the Canadian government and churches ran residential schools - a school system for Indigenous children. Presented as educating and assimilating the students into society, the system instead separated children from their families and worked to destroy their ties to Indigenous heritage, languages and culture. The residential school system has been widely considered a form of genocide, with former students coming out about physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse they suffered at the hands of the staff.
In 1920, the Indian Act made it illegal for any Indigenous child to not attend the schools, which did not teach the same education as the public school system. The abuse, insufficient food and health care, and inadequate sanitation lead to an incredibly high death toll: a government medical inspector reported that 24% of previously healthy Indigenous children across Canada were dying in residential schools.
Some more horrific details would be the percentage of students who died shortly after returning home, having been discharged from school. At the Peigan Reserve in Alberta this percentage came to 47% of all students return home. Even more shockingly is three quarters of the children dismissed from the File Hills Boarding School in Saskatchewan died after returning home.
Until recently, however, the official death rates have been unclear due to a lack of investigation into the grounds of former residential schools. This changed on 28th May 2021, when a preliminary investigation into Kamloops Indian Residential School resulted in the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children, all believed to have been students at the residential school during its operation from 1890 to 1969.
The discovery sent shock throughout Canada and the world. The discovery confirmed the beliefs of those who opposed the governments treatment of Indigenous people. It also sparked the investigations into other similar schools.
On June 24, 751 unmarked graves were discovered near the former Marieval Indian Residential School. On June 30, a search of the former St. Eugene's Mission School grounds revealed 182 unmarked children’s graves. On July 8, similar graves possibly holding more than 160 children were discovered on the grounds of the former Kuper Island Industrial School.
With a suspected 150,000 Indigenous children sent to residential schools, the discovery of a total of 1,100 graves in only a handful of schools is testament to the maltreatment of the Indigenous population as a whole. According to Richard Sinclair of the TRC, the overall death toll is thought to be north of 15,000 students, or a 1 in 10 chance of a child dying at a residential school.
In 2008, the Canadian government under Stephen Harper officially apologised for the operation of these schools, asking 'the forgiveness of the Aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly’, and light of recent discoveries, current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to take action, pledging ‘every day to fix in the present and into the future’. Similarly, the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches issued formal apologies in the 1980s and 1990s. However, many critics have called out these apologies as all words no action: Stephanie Scott, executive director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, described Trudeau as 'willing to move on this, he's got a lot of words, but we really need to see action’.
Furthermore, the Catholic Church is yet to apologise for its crucial role in running the schools. Despite the Indian Residential School Survivors Society placing the Roman Catholic Church as responsible for operating up to 70% of residential schools, the church declined to apologise in 2017 after specifically asked to do so by Prime Minister Trudeau.
Additionally, Chief Cadmus Delorme of Cowessess First Nation explained that many of 751 graves found at Marieval Indian Residential School were likely unmarked after having their headstones criminally removed by the Catholic Church in the 1960s, saying ‘The Catholic Church representatives removed these headstones, and today they are unmarked graves … Removing headstones is a crime in this country, and we are treating this like a crime scene at the moment.’ In light of the new discoveries, Pope Francis has agreed to meet with national Indigenous leaders in December, where it is expected he may finally issue an apology on behalf of the Catholic Church.
Whilst these discoveries sent horror throughout Canada and the world, it’s dangerous to imply the historic abusive treatment of Indigenous Canadians by the government has been a previously unknown situation that is only now being discovered. The physical proof of childrens’ graves only confirmed what many had been saying for years. Chief Cadmus Delorme remarked at a press conference, ‘This is not a mass grave site, these are unmarked graves’, opposing the assumption that, since the graves are only now being investigation, they were previously hidden as opposed to systemically ignored.
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