FLANAGAN: Challenging the narrative of unmarked graves

The new book Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) constitutes a much-needed response to the moral panic unleashed on May 27, 2021, when the Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc announced that ground penetrating radar (GPR) had located the remains of 215 “missing children” in an apple orchard on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C..In short order, the storyline of “mass unmarked graves” and “burials of missing children” ricocheted around Canada and much of the world. It received significant coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the tone of the government response when he ordered Canadian flags to be flown at half-mast on all federal buildings to honour the “215 children whose lives were taken at the Kamloops residential school.” In this way, possible burial sites were elevated to the status of confirmed victims of foul play, making Canada sound like a charnel house of murdered children.The discovery of the so-called unmarked graves was subsequently chosen by Canadian newspaper editors as the “news story of the year.” And the World Press Photo of the Year award went to “a haunting image of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside, with a rainbow in the background, commemorating children who died at a residential school created to assimilate Indigenous children in Canada.”Over time, a persistent narrative has grown out of that initial announcement in Kamloops. It can be summarized as follows:● Most Indigenous children attended residential schools● Those who attended residential schools did not go voluntarily● Thousands of “missing children” went away to residential schools and were never heard from again● Many of these missing children were murdered by school personnel after being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and even outright torture● These bodies were buried in and around the grounds of mission churches and residential schools● Many of these bodies have been located by ground-penetrating radar, and many more will be found as government-funded research progresses● Residential schools have left generations of Indigenous people traumatized and destroyed their language and cultureThese statements have combined to create a storyline about the inherently genocidal nature of Indian Residential Schools. But regardless of how many times such claims are repeated by native leaders, political activists, academics and media commentators, the entire narrative is completely or largely false. Grave Error explains why.This book is a collection of the best essays published in response to the Kamloops mythology pushing back against this widely-accepted narrative. The authors analyze and critique the false claims of unmarked graves, missing children, forced attendance and genocidal conditions at Indian Residential Schools. The book’s title, Grave Error, summarizes the authors’ view of the Kamloops narrative. It is wrong. And not just wrong, but egregiously wrong. Among the 18 chapters is Montreal historian Jacques Rouillard’s essay “In Kamloops, Not One Body Has Been Found.” Originally published in The Dorchester Review and now closing in on 300,000 views, this piece has done more than any other single article to discredit the false narrative of unmarked graves and missing children. For the book, Rouillard has updated his original version to include other GPR claims made since Kamloops.As of early August 2023, there had been 20 announcements of soil “anomalies” discovered by GPR near residential schools across Canada, but most have not even been excavated. What, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown. Where excavations have taken place, no burials related to residential schools have been found.In short, there are no “missing children.” The fate of some children may have been forgotten with the passage of generations — forgotten by their own families, that is. But “forgotten” is not the same as “missing.” To enter residential school, an application form signed by a parent or other guardian was required. The simple truth is that many Indian parents saw the residential schools as the best option available for their children. Perhaps sensing the weakness of their evidence-free position, purveyors of the residential schools-as-genocide narrative are now doubling down, demanding that criticism of their ideology be made illegal — an argument some federal Liberal cabinet members seem to agree with.So, here we are. A narrative about genocide in residential schools has become firmly established in the public domain without the need for actual evidence or rigorous scrutiny. And anyone who questions any part of this story is labelled a “denialist” and possibly threatened with criminal prosecution. To such a world, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) offers exactly what we have been missing so far — clarity, rigor and evidence.Tom Flanagan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Calgary and co-editor, with C.P. Champion, of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) published by True North.The original, full-length version of this article recently appeared in C2C Journal.