CALGARY — A Manitoba First Nations leader has said that indigenous communities should not have to exhume suspected residential school burial sites because those who died there “send us messages” confirming their presence.Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) Grand Chief Garrison Settee made the comments last week when the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) voted to pass an emergency resolution that called on Canada to criminalize "residential school denialism.”The resolution calls for the federal government to either amend Bill C-9 or introduce new stand-alone legislation making the public condoning, denial, justification or minimization of the harms caused by Canada's residential school system a form of hate speech against First Nations..During a press conference, Settee — who represents 26 First Nations in northern Manitoba — addressed calls for alleged mass graves at sites such as the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site to be exhumed, saying indigenous communities should not be expected to provide physical evidence to validate their claims or experiences.“I don't think we should have to prove to anybody what happened to these people because they are there, and they send us messages telling us they're there,” Settee said, adding he and another chief had visited one site and they could “feel the power, the energy.”“For somebody that's not from our communities, that doesn't understand our culture, you cannot understand what that means. But we do," he said. Settee added that exhuming graves simply to establish proof would violate indigenous cultural beliefs.“We just don't go into any cemetery and start digging up graves just to prove that someone died,” he said.“It is disrespectful to our culture.”.Settee’s comments prompted widespread criticism online, with Shane Wenzel, CEO of Shane Homes, calling the remarks "beyond ridiculous" and saying that accepting them at face value “makes Canada look foolish on the world stage.”One BC Leader Dallas Brodie took to X asking if BC Premier David Eby now believes that a First Nations chief can speak to the dead.."Does David Eby now believe as well that FN chiefs can speak to the dead?" Brodie wrote."Do you accept as valid evidence that dead people can speak to us from the ground?"Other social media users criticized both Settee's remarks and the AFN's call to criminalize "residential school denialism", arguing that allegations of genocide require strict legal standards rather than religious or spiritual testimony.“This rhetoric is no longer valid and is out of control,” one X user said of the AFN.“They have disgraced themselves because of greed.”.BC NDP Attorney General says her government is in favour of criminalizing 'residential school denialism'.According to federal government estimates, approximately 150,000 indigenous children attended church-run, government-funded residential schools between the 1800s and the late 1990s, with more than 4,000 students' deaths reported.However, the debate over residential schools has become more controversial in recent years.In 2021, it was announced that ground-penetrating radar had identified what were believed to be 215 graves at the Kamloops site, after which Ottawa provided $12.1 million to the local Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation for further investigation, including archaeological work, potential exhumation, forensic analysis and DNA testing.Since then, no exhumations have occurred and no bodies have been found at the site.
