Former Abbotsford School District (ASD) teacher Jim McMurtry, who was fired for challenging the narrative about unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, encouraged people to order an orange T-shirt asking about them. McMurtry had purchased one of the orange T-shirts, which can be worn to commemorate children who died in residential schools. “It cost me $42 plus my teaching career,” tweeted McMurtry on Monday. He included a photo of the T-shirt he had bought from Viralstyle, which has a slogan saying “Where are the bodies.” He had ordered a medium size and was worth $41.82. .McMurtry said in 2022 the ASD was recommending he be terminated because he spoke to students facts about historic events. READ MORE: BC teacher facing termination for telling students the truthOne student in a class he was substituting for said the priests murdered the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School by torturing them and leaving them out in the snow to die. He corrected her by saying the children “who died tragically while enrolled in residential schools did so from disease, particularly tuberculosis.” Two vice principals came up to his class and demanded he leave the school. He was put on an eight month suspension without being told why. McMurtry was terminated in 2023 for speaking to students about tuberculosis being a major cause of death at residential schools. READ MORE: BC teacher fired for telling students different side of residential schools“The authors of my firing are a small group of Woke Puritans, unthinking bureaucrats and power-hungry lagos,” he said. “I stand for freedom, children’s interests over employer’s interests, encouraging students to think for themselves, free conscience, plurality of opinion, and the open pursuit of knowledge.”.McMurtry had said people should have been able to find one missing or murdered indigenous child by now. “Pretty soon they’ll be reburying kids from cemeteries,” he said..Crown-Indigenous Relations said in May it had engaged in significant spending to try and uncover the the truth about potential unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. READ MORE: No bodies found after spending $8 million searching for bodies at Kamloops Residential SchoolDespite the allocation of $7.9 million for this purpose, no remains have been recovered and no public disclosure of how the funds were used has been made. Crown-Indigenous Relations spokesperson Carolane Gratton confirmed the allocation of $7.9 million for various endeavors, including fieldwork, records searches, and securing the grounds.
