Two recent opinion pieces, one written by Michelle Cyca, a contributing writer at The Walrus, the other by Raymond Frogner, head of archives for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, have once again damned indigenous “genocide denialism.”.The charge, which has many proponents, includes any attempt to question the assertion thousands of the 150,000 children who attended Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) during their 113-year government funded operation, 1883-1996, “went missing,” a phenomenon recognized by the House of Commons on Oct. 27, 2022 as constituting indigenous genocide. .Cyca’s central claim in her anti-denialist diatribe that the IRSs were “where thousands died due to neglect, overcrowding, and abuse” has no grounding in the historical record while Frogner falsely claims the so-called deniers “deny or question the trustworthiness of the records … and even the merit of investigating the residential school experience” when the reverse is true..Accompanying this damnation of denialism is the slogan “Bring Home Our Children,” an emotive trope employed by indigenous advocacy groups to exploit the sad, but inevitable, deaths that took place at residential schools during their operation. The successful campaign by these activists convinced Canadians something truly sinister occurred at residential schools that lead to the untimely deaths — or even murders and secret burials — of thousands of indigenous children. The key word is “sinister” — the idea the priests, nuns and teachers at the schools engaged in negligent and punitive behaviour causing the death of thousands of indigenous children..Is there any evidence supporting these sinister assertions? .No, there is not..Our claim does not deny thousands of children died while registered as students at these schools or within a year of their discharge, a tragic occurrence linked to their lack of natural immunity to several contagious European diseases. But those same diseases killed even more children on their home reserves. And like the children who passed away at home, those who died while resident at a boarding school were, as far as the records show, interred after receiving a proper Christian burial service, their graves almost always marked with wooden crosses. .More important, most children who died on school grounds were buried by their families in their home reserve cemeteries. Still, their grave sites and cemeteries were often neglected and caused the wooden crosses to deteriorate over the decades. This resulted in the burial sites of these children — wherever and however they died — being lost in time, a common occurrence as well for non-indigenous burials and cemeteries during much of Canadian history..There are hundreds of neglected, abandoned, or forgotten cemeteries across Canada..There is no denying some deceased IRS students were buried in dedicated nearby cemeteries where the school’s staff were also buried, alas without the presence of their parents. During long and harsh Canadian winters on the prairies where most of the schools were located, exacerbated by the long distance between some schools and the children’s home communities, such burials were inevitable. .But there was nothing sinister about any of those deaths or burials. Their deaths were properly documented and communicated to all relevant parties, including their parents as shown in Nina Green’s comprehensive Indian Residential Schools Records website. A visit to the site would quickly show Cyca and Frogner’s claims of horrible school conditions and a “denialist” aversion to “investigating the residential school experience” to be nonsensical. .In short, there is no credible evidence there was anything mysterious, let alone criminal, about the death and burial of even one residential school student. Stories about murderous priests and secret burials of 215 children with the forced help of six-year-olds, in the case of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, are wicked conspiracy theories that have circulated for years on Indian reserves. Likewise, claims of thousands of “missing children” are a distortion of reality designed to extract the maximum amount of sympathy and reparations from gullible governments indifferent to truth telling while consumed by virtue signalling..So, what is the truth about the residential school students who died? .The major killer of indigenous children — regardless whether they attended an Indian Residential School — was tuberculosis (TB). The tuberculosis epidemic, or “consumption” as it was then called, was similar in some ways to the sudden emergence of AIDS in the 1980s. AIDS was a frightening, deadly disease. As in the case of consumption, it was not known what caused the disease and there was no known cure. People simply lived in dread of discovering they had been infected..Tuberculosis was also similar, in some ways, to the COVID-19 epidemic the world recently went through. Although we knew almost from the start that COVID-19 was caused by a respiratory virus, it was not at all clear when the epidemic struck and what should be done about it. .But here’s the major difference: TB (consumption) caused far more deaths as a percentage of population than AIDS and COVID-19 combined. It killed people for hundreds of years, only brought under control when successful antibiotic treatment (streptomycin) was discovered in the mid-1940s. This was a groundbreaking event: in 1867, when Canadian sovereignty was born, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death from disease. But even today, in northern areas such as Nunavut where TB rates are alarmingly high, or in the developing nations, it's still infecting and killing more than a million people every year. .On Indian Reserves in the 19th and early 20th century the TB situation was even worse. In fact, some of the Prairie reserves had some of the highest TB rates ever recorded anywhere in the world. The absence of natural immunity combined with the crowded, unsanitary conditions in the shacks on the reserves, malnourishment that became endemic after the buffalo were exterminated, and the lack of understanding by reserve residents of basic health and sanitation practices, made for a toxic stew. Entire households — and even entire communities — became infected and many people died..Other diseases were also major killers. The 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic killed an astonishing number of people. Once again, indigenous people were disproportionately affected, as they had not yet acquired the same level of resistance to the disease as the general population. Even normal flu epidemics killed indigenous people in large numbers, as did scarlet fever and other diseases. But, for indigenous people, especially, TB was the main killer: the Prairie and Northern reserves — not specifically the IRSs — were TB killing fields..It was from these chronically infected communities that residential school students often came. The exact percentage of how many of those children were infected when they arrived at residential schools during different periods is unknown. But in 1907, Peter Bryce, once the chief medical officer for Indian affairs, reported of the eight schools he examined, every child he examined was infected. The fact the disease progressed in some of those children to the terminal stage is no surprise. The plain but harsh truth is those doomed children would have died in their crowded reserve homes even if no residential school had ever been built..The number of indigenous children who never went to residential school — namely up to two-thirds of aboriginal children — but died from TB, dwarfs the number who died at residential schools. Those children were buried in their home communities. Many of their burial sites have now been lost to time because their grave sites and cemeteries were not tended and have therefore reverted to their natural state. .Still, these “unknown” children are still be termed “missing children” or “children who never returned home from residential schools” because all but a few of these children who died of disease while attending residential schools were buried in their home communities, those “missing children” are indistinguishable from the “missing children” who died in their home communities..There is no denying every one of those deaths is a tragedy whether those deaths involved a residential school student, a day school student, or one of thousands of indigenous children who never attended any school at all. But there was nothing sinister, let alone genocidal, about any of these sad deaths. And the deaths of residential school students are no more, or less tragic than the deaths of any indigenous child. .So, why is $321 million being spent trying to find long-lost burial places of “missing” indigenous children who went to residential schools while no funds have been allocated to find the lost burial places of the far greater number of “missing” indigenous children who never attended any residential school? Moreover, why should we spend public money to find any burial sites that were lost through a lack of maintenance by indigenous bands? And why are stories being circulated, without a shred of credible evidence, that 215 children at Kamloops were killed and secretly buried, a claim compounded by many more unsupported stories of thousands of similar sinister deaths and secret burials across Canada?.It’s easy to explain why the Indian Industry is pushing this conspiracy theory, namely the grounds underpinning all such falsehoods: the lust for power, privilege, prestige, and prosperity..More difficult to explain is why the federal government is encouraging and supporting the false claims, with no pushback from the mainstream media. If it's because both are either dominated by true believers or those fearful of being scurrilously labelled racist deniers, our troubled country may be beyond repair. .Brian Giesbrecht is a retired Manitoba provincial court judge, senior fellow with the Frontier Center for Public Policy, and frequent commentator on public policy issues..Hymie Rubenstein is editor of both The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter and Indigenous Myths & Realities. He is also a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
Two recent opinion pieces, one written by Michelle Cyca, a contributing writer at The Walrus, the other by Raymond Frogner, head of archives for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, have once again damned indigenous “genocide denialism.”.The charge, which has many proponents, includes any attempt to question the assertion thousands of the 150,000 children who attended Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) during their 113-year government funded operation, 1883-1996, “went missing,” a phenomenon recognized by the House of Commons on Oct. 27, 2022 as constituting indigenous genocide. .Cyca’s central claim in her anti-denialist diatribe that the IRSs were “where thousands died due to neglect, overcrowding, and abuse” has no grounding in the historical record while Frogner falsely claims the so-called deniers “deny or question the trustworthiness of the records … and even the merit of investigating the residential school experience” when the reverse is true..Accompanying this damnation of denialism is the slogan “Bring Home Our Children,” an emotive trope employed by indigenous advocacy groups to exploit the sad, but inevitable, deaths that took place at residential schools during their operation. The successful campaign by these activists convinced Canadians something truly sinister occurred at residential schools that lead to the untimely deaths — or even murders and secret burials — of thousands of indigenous children. The key word is “sinister” — the idea the priests, nuns and teachers at the schools engaged in negligent and punitive behaviour causing the death of thousands of indigenous children..Is there any evidence supporting these sinister assertions? .No, there is not..Our claim does not deny thousands of children died while registered as students at these schools or within a year of their discharge, a tragic occurrence linked to their lack of natural immunity to several contagious European diseases. But those same diseases killed even more children on their home reserves. And like the children who passed away at home, those who died while resident at a boarding school were, as far as the records show, interred after receiving a proper Christian burial service, their graves almost always marked with wooden crosses. .More important, most children who died on school grounds were buried by their families in their home reserve cemeteries. Still, their grave sites and cemeteries were often neglected and caused the wooden crosses to deteriorate over the decades. This resulted in the burial sites of these children — wherever and however they died — being lost in time, a common occurrence as well for non-indigenous burials and cemeteries during much of Canadian history..There are hundreds of neglected, abandoned, or forgotten cemeteries across Canada..There is no denying some deceased IRS students were buried in dedicated nearby cemeteries where the school’s staff were also buried, alas without the presence of their parents. During long and harsh Canadian winters on the prairies where most of the schools were located, exacerbated by the long distance between some schools and the children’s home communities, such burials were inevitable. .But there was nothing sinister about any of those deaths or burials. Their deaths were properly documented and communicated to all relevant parties, including their parents as shown in Nina Green’s comprehensive Indian Residential Schools Records website. A visit to the site would quickly show Cyca and Frogner’s claims of horrible school conditions and a “denialist” aversion to “investigating the residential school experience” to be nonsensical. .In short, there is no credible evidence there was anything mysterious, let alone criminal, about the death and burial of even one residential school student. Stories about murderous priests and secret burials of 215 children with the forced help of six-year-olds, in the case of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, are wicked conspiracy theories that have circulated for years on Indian reserves. Likewise, claims of thousands of “missing children” are a distortion of reality designed to extract the maximum amount of sympathy and reparations from gullible governments indifferent to truth telling while consumed by virtue signalling..So, what is the truth about the residential school students who died? .The major killer of indigenous children — regardless whether they attended an Indian Residential School — was tuberculosis (TB). The tuberculosis epidemic, or “consumption” as it was then called, was similar in some ways to the sudden emergence of AIDS in the 1980s. AIDS was a frightening, deadly disease. As in the case of consumption, it was not known what caused the disease and there was no known cure. People simply lived in dread of discovering they had been infected..Tuberculosis was also similar, in some ways, to the COVID-19 epidemic the world recently went through. Although we knew almost from the start that COVID-19 was caused by a respiratory virus, it was not at all clear when the epidemic struck and what should be done about it. .But here’s the major difference: TB (consumption) caused far more deaths as a percentage of population than AIDS and COVID-19 combined. It killed people for hundreds of years, only brought under control when successful antibiotic treatment (streptomycin) was discovered in the mid-1940s. This was a groundbreaking event: in 1867, when Canadian sovereignty was born, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death from disease. But even today, in northern areas such as Nunavut where TB rates are alarmingly high, or in the developing nations, it's still infecting and killing more than a million people every year. .On Indian Reserves in the 19th and early 20th century the TB situation was even worse. In fact, some of the Prairie reserves had some of the highest TB rates ever recorded anywhere in the world. The absence of natural immunity combined with the crowded, unsanitary conditions in the shacks on the reserves, malnourishment that became endemic after the buffalo were exterminated, and the lack of understanding by reserve residents of basic health and sanitation practices, made for a toxic stew. Entire households — and even entire communities — became infected and many people died..Other diseases were also major killers. The 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic killed an astonishing number of people. Once again, indigenous people were disproportionately affected, as they had not yet acquired the same level of resistance to the disease as the general population. Even normal flu epidemics killed indigenous people in large numbers, as did scarlet fever and other diseases. But, for indigenous people, especially, TB was the main killer: the Prairie and Northern reserves — not specifically the IRSs — were TB killing fields..It was from these chronically infected communities that residential school students often came. The exact percentage of how many of those children were infected when they arrived at residential schools during different periods is unknown. But in 1907, Peter Bryce, once the chief medical officer for Indian affairs, reported of the eight schools he examined, every child he examined was infected. The fact the disease progressed in some of those children to the terminal stage is no surprise. The plain but harsh truth is those doomed children would have died in their crowded reserve homes even if no residential school had ever been built..The number of indigenous children who never went to residential school — namely up to two-thirds of aboriginal children — but died from TB, dwarfs the number who died at residential schools. Those children were buried in their home communities. Many of their burial sites have now been lost to time because their grave sites and cemeteries were not tended and have therefore reverted to their natural state. .Still, these “unknown” children are still be termed “missing children” or “children who never returned home from residential schools” because all but a few of these children who died of disease while attending residential schools were buried in their home communities, those “missing children” are indistinguishable from the “missing children” who died in their home communities..There is no denying every one of those deaths is a tragedy whether those deaths involved a residential school student, a day school student, or one of thousands of indigenous children who never attended any school at all. But there was nothing sinister, let alone genocidal, about any of these sad deaths. And the deaths of residential school students are no more, or less tragic than the deaths of any indigenous child. .So, why is $321 million being spent trying to find long-lost burial places of “missing” indigenous children who went to residential schools while no funds have been allocated to find the lost burial places of the far greater number of “missing” indigenous children who never attended any residential school? Moreover, why should we spend public money to find any burial sites that were lost through a lack of maintenance by indigenous bands? And why are stories being circulated, without a shred of credible evidence, that 215 children at Kamloops were killed and secretly buried, a claim compounded by many more unsupported stories of thousands of similar sinister deaths and secret burials across Canada?.It’s easy to explain why the Indian Industry is pushing this conspiracy theory, namely the grounds underpinning all such falsehoods: the lust for power, privilege, prestige, and prosperity..More difficult to explain is why the federal government is encouraging and supporting the false claims, with no pushback from the mainstream media. If it's because both are either dominated by true believers or those fearful of being scurrilously labelled racist deniers, our troubled country may be beyond repair. .Brian Giesbrecht is a retired Manitoba provincial court judge, senior fellow with the Frontier Center for Public Policy, and frequent commentator on public policy issues..Hymie Rubenstein is editor of both The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter and Indigenous Myths & Realities. He is also a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
