When I was working in broadcasting years ago, we all looked up to “60 Minutes” as the pinnacle of excellence in broadcasting. Who can forget the Mike Wallace exposé on the swine flu vaccine injuries? Courageous reporting..So, I was dismayed to see Anderson Cooper’s trite coverage of the story of Canada’s unmarked residential school graves. While the story at least let some of the former school residents share their grief and their personal stories of loss and abuse, the 60 Minutes clip brought no other insights to a story that had been widely reported in virtually the same “Blame Canada” way around the world..It is odd that the 60 Minutes crew could not do a tiny bit of research. There are many excellent papers on residential schools written by Robert Carney, father of the well-known UN climate czar, Mark Carney. Robert Carney was himself a Catholic residential school administrator and later professor of history at the University of Alberta. His work provides vital context, something that we used to expect from 60 Minutes..The most glaring omission in the 60 Minutes report was the lack of mention of the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic which was the greatest killer of all Canadians and Americans up until the 1960s. After all, if you’re going to talk about graveyards, shouldn’t viewers know the typical causes of death at the time? Victims of contagious diseases were buried as soon as possible..TB was rampant in North America. The 60 Minutes crew should sit down and watch the excellent PBS documentary “The Forgotten Plague.”.In light of the many bizarre interactions taking place in society today due to the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions, and fears, imagine how it was a hundred years ago when many ordinary people thought TB was hereditary. Families often buried their loved ones in unmarked graves so as not to be associated with the disease, as it could mean being ostracized from work and society as an untouchable..Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools found about 50% of residential school deaths were due to TB. Deaths from other respiratory diseases brought that number up to 66%. These were the days when most people were undernourished, public sanitation was a novel concept, and infections, small cuts, or broken bones that we easily heal today could end your life..The 60 Minutes report did not mention some children were also sent to tuberculosis sanatoria, where they often spent many years getting well, losing all contact with their culture and family. Nor did the report mention in many cases, indigenous chiefs and parents wanted their children to have an education. The residential school system was one of the few options the federal government had to achieve its treaty obligations of providing education because it was the various nuns and priests who had already established missions across the country, or who had set out to care for TB sufferers. Thus, the religious orders had existing locations, local contacts, they sometimes spoke the aboriginal language (some even created a written alphabet and dictionaries, thus preserving the languages). Since the tribes were so varied and scattered, concentrating school children in a residential facility made logistical and economic sense, even if it was horribly painful for the children to be far from home, family, and culture..Without this context, Canada is made out to be some kind of nation of evil perpetrators. The 60 Minutes piece was shot in October. It may be a coincidence, but in terms of broadcast timing, the narrative supports the public statements by the prime minister and his coterie about the allegedly racist truck protesters in Canada..60 Minutes failed to mention that while Canada was sending indigenous children to residential schools, the US continued waging murderous and oppressive “Indian Wars” from 1622 to 1924..Guest columnist Michelle Stirling wrote and co-produced historical documentaries for CFCN/CTV in the 1980’s, with Dr. Hugh Dempsey as her research supervisor.
