'WE HAVE THE BONES:' Manitoba NDP minister claims bodies have been found at residential schools

Manitoba's Minister of Advanced Education and Training has garnered criticism for her comments about residential schools in the Manitoba legislature on the day before Truth and Reconciliation Day.Speaking in the legislature on the eve of Truth and Reconciliation Day, Renée Cable stated, "We have information, we have the truth, we have the bones.""It's incumbent on all of us to speak the truth with the proof that we have."The sentiment of Cable's speech was rooted in the need to spread awareness and knowledge about the residential school system and the impact it has had and continues to have on Indigenous Canadians.However, her comments about having "bones" have made some online commentators point to the fact that many claims of unmarked graves have only been proven with radar, not actual exhumations of what the radar has found."Radar is not bones. Kamloops still hasn't been dug," wrote Canadian political commentator Max Genest on Twitter in response to Cable's speech..Respondents to Genest's post echoed a similar sentiment, with people calling on Cable to retract her statement and saying that it is disingenuous to claim there are "bones" when no excavations have actually been completed.Many, including Genest, point to the claims made at the Kamloops residential school, where it was previously claimed that ground-penetrating radar had found '215 children,' a claim that was changed by Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc First Nation to '215 anomalies.'Much debate has surrounded the discovery of gravesites at residential schools, with opponents on both sides of the argument accusing the other of being misinformed.Many commentators have pointed out that it is disingenuous to claim ground anomalies as dead children and that, until an actual excavation is completed on the site, any claim of dead children cannot be backed up by hard evidence.Cable, who is Metis, has long been an advocate for indigenous rights and the promotion of the truth and reconciliation between Canada and its Indigenous peoples.

'WE HAVE THE BONES:' Manitoba NDP minister claims bodies have been found at residential schools

Related Stories

WATCH LIVE: Happy Truth & Reconciliation Day! The Kamloops child burial issue is a hoax!

Mixed reaction about potential destruction of almost 40k residential school records

RUBENSTEIN: The 100,000-page barrier to ‘Truth and Reconciliation’

WATCH: Woman pulls machete during fight on Edmonton LRT