The head of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations is suggesting the bodies of residential school victims in his province may never be found — because they were incinerated.Speaking on City News in Vancouver, Regional Chief Terry Teegee said he’s not sure the exact number of victims will ever be known due to a lack of proper record keeping by school authorities and provincial governments..When asked how many potential graveyards there could be in BC, Teegee demurred.“The potential? I’m not sure,” he says. “At the same time, some of these residential schools or institutions had incinerators so there could be any potential of finding any remains.”His remarks were prefaced in the context of demanding “accurate” records from the Catholic Church and other institutions.Teegee has been an outspoken critic of what he calls ‘residential school denialism’ and actively protested the wife of former Quesnel mayor Ron Paull for distributing copies of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). .“This is not a matter of opinion or free speech. It is hateful, harmful, and cannot be tolerated by Canadian society. It is incumbent on our allies among non-indigenous Canadians to speak up when they are confronted by this poison.”BC Regional Chief Terry Teegee.Paull was eventually censured by council and barred from entering First Nations land around his community. Paull insisted he’d never even read the book in question.That didn’t stop Teegee and the BCAFN from issuing a statement at the time.“Residential schools killed thousands of indigenous children, which is a hard pill to swallow for many non-indigenous Canadians who continue to believe in national myths of fairness and justice, but the Church’s own records confirm thousands of children never went home from these so called schools. This is part of the history of this country, and denying these facts is extremely harmful to the progress we are making towards reconciliation,” he said.“This is not a matter of opinion or free speech. It is hateful, harmful, and cannot be tolerated by Canadian society. It is incumbent on our allies among non-indigenous Canadians to speak up when they are confronted by this poison.”.Since then, various First Nations groups across Canada claim to have found evidence of 1,900 unmarked graves at 16 former schools.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found evidence of 3,213 deaths of children in Residential School records, which they insist is unlikely to be a full accounting due to poor record keeping.An estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend residential schools over more than a century. More than 60 per cent of the schools were run by the Catholic Church.Pope Francis formally apologized for the church’s role in the affair in July 2022, and agreed to release those files.
The head of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations is suggesting the bodies of residential school victims in his province may never be found — because they were incinerated.Speaking on City News in Vancouver, Regional Chief Terry Teegee said he’s not sure the exact number of victims will ever be known due to a lack of proper record keeping by school authorities and provincial governments..When asked how many potential graveyards there could be in BC, Teegee demurred.“The potential? I’m not sure,” he says. “At the same time, some of these residential schools or institutions had incinerators so there could be any potential of finding any remains.”His remarks were prefaced in the context of demanding “accurate” records from the Catholic Church and other institutions.Teegee has been an outspoken critic of what he calls ‘residential school denialism’ and actively protested the wife of former Quesnel mayor Ron Paull for distributing copies of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). .“This is not a matter of opinion or free speech. It is hateful, harmful, and cannot be tolerated by Canadian society. It is incumbent on our allies among non-indigenous Canadians to speak up when they are confronted by this poison.”BC Regional Chief Terry Teegee.Paull was eventually censured by council and barred from entering First Nations land around his community. Paull insisted he’d never even read the book in question.That didn’t stop Teegee and the BCAFN from issuing a statement at the time.“Residential schools killed thousands of indigenous children, which is a hard pill to swallow for many non-indigenous Canadians who continue to believe in national myths of fairness and justice, but the Church’s own records confirm thousands of children never went home from these so called schools. This is part of the history of this country, and denying these facts is extremely harmful to the progress we are making towards reconciliation,” he said.“This is not a matter of opinion or free speech. It is hateful, harmful, and cannot be tolerated by Canadian society. It is incumbent on our allies among non-indigenous Canadians to speak up when they are confronted by this poison.”.Since then, various First Nations groups across Canada claim to have found evidence of 1,900 unmarked graves at 16 former schools.The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found evidence of 3,213 deaths of children in Residential School records, which they insist is unlikely to be a full accounting due to poor record keeping.An estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend residential schools over more than a century. More than 60 per cent of the schools were run by the Catholic Church.Pope Francis formally apologized for the church’s role in the affair in July 2022, and agreed to release those files.
