Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba.On February 12, 2025, Parks Canada announced the designation of the Kamloops, B.C. Indian Residential School as a national historic site. Surprisingly, it omitted any reference to the alleged graves containing 215 missing children in an adjoining apple orchard.“The Kamloops Indian Residential School was the largest institution in a system designed to carry out what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission described as cultural genocide,” Parks Canada said in a statement. No reason was given for omitting reference to unmarked burial sites.Now we know why, thanks to Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s leading Internet publication covering Canadian government administration.Blackrock’s has just revealed that Parks Canada began questioning the accuracy of the Kamloops Indian Reserve’s 2021 claim about these alleged graves as early as 2023.After consulting historians and archaeologists, Parks Canada managers found the claim unproven before designating the school a national historic site in February. “They are very careful about the nature of evidence and the conclusions that can and cannot be drawn at this point in time,” wrote one manager.The Kamloops Band has nearly always been far less cautious since its May 27, 2021, burial announcement of the “the stark truth of the preliminary findings [that] came to light — the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.” To date, the stark truth is that the band has not attempted to recover any skeletal or other material from the site, despite receiving $12.1 million in federal funding for fieldwork, exhumation, coroners’ analysis, and DNA testing.Internal Parks Canada records, presumably obtained by Blacklock’s through a freedom of information request, show managers were initially just as devastated as most Canadians by the claim. “Heartbreaking news,” wrote one executive. “I read a story early this morning on the Guardian website and found myself totally in shambles after reading it. This is truly staggering.”“Our thoughts and prayers are with you,” another Parks Canada manager wrote the band. “I couldn’t even begin to appreciate what you and community members are going through.”One director cancelled a staff meeting as an act of mourning. “This horrifying and tragic discovery by the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc [Kamloops band] is yet another painful reminder of the ongoing intergenerational trauma and loss experienced by First Nations communities at the hands of colonial government and organized religion,” he wrote, mimicking indigenous propaganda in the process.“Devastating,” wrote a field superintendent at Jasper National Park. “It shines a light on our individual and collective commitments to address dark and tragic histories from colonization.” Parks Canada CEO Ron Hallman issued a June 1, 2021, staff notice directing that all flags be lowered in observance of “this national tragedy.” The graves announcement was “a painful reminder that this dark and shameful time in Canada’s history resonates today and into the future,” wrote Hallman.However, records show that Parks Canada subsequently consulted historians “to help identify any gaps or errors” before designating the Kamloops Indian Residential School a historic site. The agency’s consultants questioned the accuracy of identifying 215 graves using the inconclusive technique called ground penetrating radar, which cannot detect organic material.“Authors refer to the 215 ground-penetrating radar hits that were reported in 2021 as ‘graves’ or ‘burials,’” wrote one Parks Canada consultant. “But none of these sites have been investigated further to determine that they are graves.”“Ground-penetrating radar often throws up false positives, anomalies that are not indicative of anything significant,” wrote the consultant. “I suggest that until there is further investigation of the sites at Kamloops, the report refer to them as ‘possible graves’ or ‘probable graves’ or ‘likely graves’ rather than ‘graves.’”Parks Canada subsequently rewrote an October 26, 2023, report to modify the “graves” claim to “probable unmarked graves.”Agency managers in 2024, as noted in staff emails, concluded that even “probable” was inaccurate. “On the question of ground penetrating radar, I wonder whether we should leave that,” wrote one executive. “The challenge is that ground-penetrating radar does not provide evidence of potential unmarked graves,” said the staff email. “It provides evidence of anomalies. I am quoting the archaeologists here.” “Regarding the topic of ground-penetrating radar, I’ve made a suggested revision,” wrote another manager. “It might be preferable to not use the term’ anomalies’ for now.” Staff were also advised to “stay extra quiet” on the designation of the Residential School as a national historic site.Parks Canada announced the national historic designation on February 12. It omitted all mention of any graves. The Kamloops site was the fifth former Indian Residential School to be listed as a national historic site. “The possibility of unmarked burials is not a determining factor for designation of any site,” a spokesperson told Blacklock’s at the time. Parks Canada is a notable outlier in the “missing children buried in unmarked graves” bruhaha: no other federal agency publicly expressed doubts about the Kamloops claim after then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the site in 2021 “to pay my respects to the graves,” he said. “That’s the realization that Canadians have taken on following the leadership right here in Tk’emlups, a discovery in May of 2021 of indigenous kids in the graves just up the hill,” said Trudeau. The Prime Minister ordered the lowering of the Peace Tower flag for over five months for “all the indigenous children who never made it home,” he said at the time. “I think Canadians have seen with horror those unmarked graves,” Trudeau told reporters.Blacklock’s could have also mentioned that many academics, journalists, lawyers, and other writers doubted the veracity of the Kamloops announcement soon after it was made, as shown here, here, here, here, and here.The efforts of these contrarians may have influenced the following May 18, 2024, Kamloops Band admission:“On May 27, 2021, it was with a heavy heart that Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc confirmed an unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented by the Kamloops Indian Residential School. With the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light — the confirmation of 215 anomalies were detected.” (emphasis added)The revelation that Parks Canada has not accepted as truthful and accurate the initial Kamloops Band claim does not mean the government of Canada is ready to acknowledge that it was deceiving about the claim of thousands of children buried in unmarked graves across the country. While Trudeau never backed down from his initial 2021 position, current Prime Minister Mark Carney is unlikely to distance himself from the prevailing Liberal Party view, given his repudiation of his father Robert Carney’s views of the Indian Residential School system.During a 1965 CBC Radio interview, the elder Carney spoke of a programme at an Indian day school in Fort Smith, N.W.T., where he was principal, for “culturally retarded children.”Given the assimilationist ethos of the times, he defined such a child as one “from a Native background who, for various reasons, has not been in regular attendance in school,” or a student with a non-English speaking background who is behind in their studies. Such a view, now considered retrogressive by woke-obsessed Canadians, cannot be called racist or culturally destructive because they were meant to apply equally to white immigrants from all across Europe whose cultures and languages were other than British or, in the case of Quebec, French.The elder Carney also later criticized indigenous-led studies, highlighting the adverse effects of these schools as one-sided and imbalanced, a claim increasingly supported by more open-minded Canadians as the true face of the Indian Residential Schools is slowly revealed.As for the younger Carney, he said, “I love my father, but I don’t share those views, to be absolutely clear,” while campaigning in April.Mark Carney is elbows up on indigenous grievancesIf Carney continues the Trudeau elbows up approach on the indigenous file by continue to say the country has learned of the “fundamental damage of residential schools and day schools to those who attended them [and] those who were their descendants,” all that the rest of us can do is keep showing that without verified truth-telling about the boarding schools and many other indigenous issues, there can never be honest reconciliation with our aboriginal people.Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba.
