Four years ago today — May 27, 2021 — the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc [Kamloops] Indian Band of British Columbia issued a press statement of seismic implications, literally and figuratively. The Band claimed that a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of the area surrounding the city’s former Indian Residential School had located the “remains of 215 children who were students” of the school. Despite making explosive assertions about “missing children” and “undocumented deaths,” the Band was still careful to add that, “At this time, we have more questions than answers.”Such a note of caution didn’t stop the media, politicians and nearly everyone else from acting as if they had more answers than questions.The Kamloops discovery became Canada’s George Floyd moment. Almost instantly there were angry vigils, public displays of grief and shame, solidarity speeches and promises to revolutionize society as we know it. Flags on government buildings were lowered to half-mast for almost six months beginning on Canada Day, turning what was once a day of national celebration into one of national mourning and recrimination. Meanwhile, statues of Canadian heroes were defaced, destroyed or removed, along with more demands to rename streets and public schools.There were calls for yet another apology by the Roman Catholic Church. Some Catholics even claimed to have lost their faith over the announcement. Dozens of churches of many denominations were vandalized and burnt, both on and off indigenous reserves..Still, on this fourth anniversary of a day that will forever live in Canadian infamy, regardless of the eventual outcome, there are now even more questions than answers.The Kamloops Band has refused to release the GPR survey results as promised. It has declined requests from outsiders and Band families to excavate even a single grave. Refusing to do so has not prevented the Band from being granted $12.1 million in federal funding to help recover the remains of all the IRS children claimed to be missing. But according to newly revealed documents, it seems these funds were allocated for consultants, publicists, and other administrative costs.Details about the spending remain censored, although what records there are reveal little evidence of direct fieldwork to locate graves..Meanwhile, scores of published articles by prominent researchers have carefully debunked the assertions made not only by the Kamloops leadership but by indigenous leaders and activists (see here, here, here, here, and here.) Still, falsehoods continue to be preferred, accepted and peddled by indigenous leaders and advisors, provincial and federal government officials, the mainstream media — particularly the government-owned — and by a large segment of the Canadian citizenry.The most notable publication addressing the Kamloops and associated claims is a December 2023 volume edited by Tom Flanagan and Chris Champion. Available exclusively on Amazon, where it continues to be a best-seller, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools,) the collection of articles is largely a response to the deeply flawed and biased six-volume 2015 Truth the Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final report, a study that gained an unexpected new lease of life following the May 27, 2021 announcement by the Kamloops Indian Band..Many of the essays in Grave Error also challenge the Kamloops claims. Taken together, the 18 articles reveal that the TRC final report is dominated by totally false or grossly exaggerated assertions, including that: Thousands of “missing children” were sent to residential schools and never heard from again.These missing children are buried in unmarked graves underneath or around mission churches and IRS schools.Many of these missing children were murdered by school personnel after being subjected to physical and sexual abuse, including outright torture.This carnage is appropriately defined as genocide.Many human remains have already been located by ground-penetrating radar, and many more will be found as government-funded research progresses.Most Indian children attended residential schools.Those who attended residential schools did not go voluntarily but were compelled to attend by federal policy and enforcement.Attendance at residential schools has traumatized indigenous people, creating social pathologies that descend across generations.Residential schools destroyed indigenous languages and cultureThe federal Liberal government, together with dozens of regional and national indigenous associations, has invested far too much time, public money and political capital promoting a false or distorted narrative about the IRSs to backtrack any time soon. In the long run, however, the “missing children buried in unmarked graves” canard, like so many other historical hoaxes, will suffer a painful death.Still, it is unlikely that exposing this “big lie” will impoverish members of the powerful and lucrative Indian Industry — the army of chiefs, lobbyists, consultants, lawyers, grievance councillors, and accountants who are sucking hundreds of millions of dollars out of Indian Bands from Canadian taxpayers.Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
