Parks Canada has quietly removed all reference to “genocide” from its latest historic site designation for an Indian Residential School. The agency, which as recently as February 12 described the schools as “cultural genocide,” made no comment on the change.According to Blacklock's Reporter, a notice for tomorrow’s plaque unveiling at the former Portage la Prairie Residential School in Manitoba, the sixth such school recognized as a historic site, acknowledged past assimilationist policies but did not call them genocidal. The notice described the 1915 building as part of a system in which government and certain churches worked to assimilate Indigenous children and suppress Indigenous histories. It said the site now serves as a place of commemoration and public education.The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission first labelled the system “cultural genocide,” language then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accepted at the time. Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose father was principal of an Indian day school in 1965, has not repeated the term since taking office March 14.Carney has also not commented on allegations of hidden graves at residential schools, claims that emerged after the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation in 2021 announced it had found the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Residential School. Internal Parks Canada memos released July 3 showed managers were skeptical, noting ground-penetrating radar can produce false positives and recommending the sites be described as “possible” or “probable” graves until confirmed.No remains have been recovered, though the First Nation received $12.1 million in federal spending for fieldwork including exhumation, coroners’ analysis and DNA testing.
