Canada’s state broadcaster published a story where a woman claims her grandfather was forced to dig graves for other children at a residential school. No graves have been found to date, despite millions of federal dollars spent excavating sites where the remains allegedly would have been uncovered since the claims were made in 2021.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday issued a statement for Truth and Reconciliation Day, pledging "to locate and memorialize related unmarked burial sites, and to honour those who died."The CBC in advertising Truth and Reconciliation Day (TRD) interviewed indigenous researcher Robyn Bourgeois of Brock University, who said her whole family has suffered a generational “cycle of abuse” on account of the atrocities her grandfather suffered while at Grouard Residential School in Alberta. The article goes on to promote TRD activities and recommended reading for non-indigenous people. .NDPs want jail time for 'downplaying’ residential school system.“I think about him being that age and digging graves for other kids like him, and also wondering, okay, if this is happening to them, could this happen to me?” said Bourgeois, who is Cree and vice-provost of indigenous engagement at Brock.Bourgeois’ area of study is “intergenerational impacts of the residential school system.”She said her grandfather experienced "very punitive, very shameful, very violent" oppression and passed that behaviour on to his kids, who passed it onto her generation. "I think most of us who are the grandchildren of my grandpa don't have relationships with our parents. Our parents don't know how to be parents because my grandpa didn't know how to be a parent either,” said Bourgeois. .Feds confirm hundreds of arson attacks on churches after false residential school claims.The indigenous researcher went on to claim, “Anybody who lives in Canada today, whether you intend to or not, has benefited from colonialism.”"Canada exists and it only exists because of colonialism, because of the theft of Indigenous lands and the occupation of them, the removal of Indigenous people, whether through policy or residential schools or missing and murdered Indigenous people,” said Bourgeois. "To me, truth is about knowledge,” she said, adding that non-indigenous Canadians need to do more to seek the “truth” behind the residential schools and be better at making efforts on TRD."The burden of the day often falls on indigenous people, and ... we really need to focus on healing. This is a really hard day for us. It's important that people work in relationship with Indigenous people, but, you know, carry the weight of that.”“Once you know better, you can do better. And that's the second part ... reconciliation.”In May 2021, legacy media began reporting “mass graves” containing the remains of 215 Kamloops Indian Residential School children were “discovered,” provoking a global outcry. Weeks later more stories were published with likewise claims until it was reported there were more than 1,300 bodies found at residential school sites across Canada. None of those claims have ever been substantiated with evidence: no body has ever been excavated. .Trudeau Liberals expand $239M mass grave fund.Trudeau condemned the Catholic-run schools as being guilty of “cultural genocide” and ordered the Canadian flag me at half-mast — and it stayed that way until Rememberance Day on November 11, 2021. Trudeau famously crouched in a cemetery near a residential school holding a teddy bear in memorial for the lost children. The UN launched a human rights investigation. Dozens of churches were burned and more were vandalized, and statues of historic Canadian leaders vandalized and toppled.The CBC in 2022 reported 169 more “potential graves were found” — the graves “potentially found” were never substantiated with evidence and the claims never retracted — yet the state broadcaster linked back to this story in the Bourgeois story. .CityNews quietly backpedaling on ‘unmarked graves’ claim as zero evidence found to-date. Yet, still no evidence was found. The National Post one year late, in May 2022, published an article slamming the perpetuated hoax. “Not a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year,” read the article.“The several sites of unmarked graves that captured international headlines were either already-known cemeteries, or they remain sites of speculation even now, unverified as genuine grave sites. Not a single child among the 3,201 children on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 registry of residential school deaths was located in any of these places. In none of these places were any human remains unearthed.”.As for Trudeau’s graveyard display of emotion, “it wasn’t a just-discovered residential school burial ground,” wrote the publication. “The graveyard where Trudeau knelt was a Catholic cemetery, a community cemetery. Children and adults, Indigenous and settler, were buried there, going back generations.”Since the National Post’s 2022 article, still no evidence has come forward, even as the federal government continues to pour millions into investigations. To-date $239 million taxpayer dollars have been spent pursuing the unmarked graves claim.In May of this year, the Western Standard reported the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations confirmed it received $7.9 million more in funding to try and uncover the "heartbreaking truth" of potential unmarked graves in Kamloops. No discoveries were made with the latest installment of funds, and the department did not disclose to the public how the funds were utilized.
Canada’s state broadcaster published a story where a woman claims her grandfather was forced to dig graves for other children at a residential school. No graves have been found to date, despite millions of federal dollars spent excavating sites where the remains allegedly would have been uncovered since the claims were made in 2021.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday issued a statement for Truth and Reconciliation Day, pledging "to locate and memorialize related unmarked burial sites, and to honour those who died."The CBC in advertising Truth and Reconciliation Day (TRD) interviewed indigenous researcher Robyn Bourgeois of Brock University, who said her whole family has suffered a generational “cycle of abuse” on account of the atrocities her grandfather suffered while at Grouard Residential School in Alberta. The article goes on to promote TRD activities and recommended reading for non-indigenous people. .NDPs want jail time for 'downplaying’ residential school system.“I think about him being that age and digging graves for other kids like him, and also wondering, okay, if this is happening to them, could this happen to me?” said Bourgeois, who is Cree and vice-provost of indigenous engagement at Brock.Bourgeois’ area of study is “intergenerational impacts of the residential school system.”She said her grandfather experienced "very punitive, very shameful, very violent" oppression and passed that behaviour on to his kids, who passed it onto her generation. "I think most of us who are the grandchildren of my grandpa don't have relationships with our parents. Our parents don't know how to be parents because my grandpa didn't know how to be a parent either,” said Bourgeois. .Feds confirm hundreds of arson attacks on churches after false residential school claims.The indigenous researcher went on to claim, “Anybody who lives in Canada today, whether you intend to or not, has benefited from colonialism.”"Canada exists and it only exists because of colonialism, because of the theft of Indigenous lands and the occupation of them, the removal of Indigenous people, whether through policy or residential schools or missing and murdered Indigenous people,” said Bourgeois. "To me, truth is about knowledge,” she said, adding that non-indigenous Canadians need to do more to seek the “truth” behind the residential schools and be better at making efforts on TRD."The burden of the day often falls on indigenous people, and ... we really need to focus on healing. This is a really hard day for us. It's important that people work in relationship with Indigenous people, but, you know, carry the weight of that.”“Once you know better, you can do better. And that's the second part ... reconciliation.”In May 2021, legacy media began reporting “mass graves” containing the remains of 215 Kamloops Indian Residential School children were “discovered,” provoking a global outcry. Weeks later more stories were published with likewise claims until it was reported there were more than 1,300 bodies found at residential school sites across Canada. None of those claims have ever been substantiated with evidence: no body has ever been excavated. .Trudeau Liberals expand $239M mass grave fund.Trudeau condemned the Catholic-run schools as being guilty of “cultural genocide” and ordered the Canadian flag me at half-mast — and it stayed that way until Rememberance Day on November 11, 2021. Trudeau famously crouched in a cemetery near a residential school holding a teddy bear in memorial for the lost children. The UN launched a human rights investigation. Dozens of churches were burned and more were vandalized, and statues of historic Canadian leaders vandalized and toppled.The CBC in 2022 reported 169 more “potential graves were found” — the graves “potentially found” were never substantiated with evidence and the claims never retracted — yet the state broadcaster linked back to this story in the Bourgeois story. .CityNews quietly backpedaling on ‘unmarked graves’ claim as zero evidence found to-date. Yet, still no evidence was found. The National Post one year late, in May 2022, published an article slamming the perpetuated hoax. “Not a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year,” read the article.“The several sites of unmarked graves that captured international headlines were either already-known cemeteries, or they remain sites of speculation even now, unverified as genuine grave sites. Not a single child among the 3,201 children on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 registry of residential school deaths was located in any of these places. In none of these places were any human remains unearthed.”.As for Trudeau’s graveyard display of emotion, “it wasn’t a just-discovered residential school burial ground,” wrote the publication. “The graveyard where Trudeau knelt was a Catholic cemetery, a community cemetery. Children and adults, Indigenous and settler, were buried there, going back generations.”Since the National Post’s 2022 article, still no evidence has come forward, even as the federal government continues to pour millions into investigations. To-date $239 million taxpayer dollars have been spent pursuing the unmarked graves claim.In May of this year, the Western Standard reported the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations confirmed it received $7.9 million more in funding to try and uncover the "heartbreaking truth" of potential unmarked graves in Kamloops. No discoveries were made with the latest installment of funds, and the department did not disclose to the public how the funds were utilized.
