MORGAN: There can be no reconciliation without truth

As Canada observed its fourth “Truth and Reconciliation Day,” the truth was often nowhere to be found. In fact, myths and fabrications were more deeply entrenched, as indigenous people were invited and encouraged to share tales of historical abuse while never being challenged on the veracity of their claims.The grandaddy of myths is the false claim of 215 children having died of abuse, being buried at the Kamloops Residential School. The hoax endures despite years having passed and not a single body having been found. Nor are there any records of children disappearing at the institution. The local indigenous band was given $8 million tax dollars to investigate the issue but they won’t tell anybody what they did with the funds or release any of the conclusions of any investigation they may have carried out.The claims of abuse are ever escalating, as it appears to be a race for people to recount historic horrors that out-shock prior ones. One of the enduring and ludicrous claims is that children in the Kamloops school were awakened in the night to go out and bury the bodies of murdered children as recently as the 1960s. If this was true, the RCMP should be exhuming the alleged gravesites and trying to find the perpetrators of these crimes. There is no investigation of course because the incident never happened. That didn’t stop the CBC though as the state broadcaster aired the claim of surreptitiously interred children just the other day without questioning it.The mythology isn’t just spread through news broadcasts. A recently produced Canadian television detective series had a scene depicting an electric chair sitting in the basement of an abandoned residential school. It was explained that the chair was used routinely by priests and nuns to torture students. The electric chair myth is an unfounded story among many that include other alleged atrocities including hanging babies from hooks and forcing children to work in crematoriums in residential schools. The stories sound outlandish because they are. These things never happened yet Canadian productions help reinforce the belief they did.The term genocide has been improperly applied in Canada for years. With no actual genocide to be found, activists have moved on to claiming “cultural genocide” had been committed. It’s an abuse of the term and it is an insult to races and cultures that experienced true genocide. Canada is an imperfect nation but it isn’t a genocidal one. But to state that truth is to invite an onslaught of abuse on social media and bring about the labels of “denier” and “racist.” The NDP is even trying to criminalize disputing allegations of Canadian genocide and their bill to do it may even pass in the House of Commons.The cycle of victimhood continues to expand as people self-identify as intergenerational victims of residential schools. One young social media influencer was applauded for his bravery when he announced on X that his grandparents, uncles and aunts all went to residential schools. While it’s not impossible, it is extremely unlikely that all his family members were residential school attendees. Only 150,000 children attended residential schools over the course of a century. In the last generation, there were very few who attended yet if you listen to the claims of some, it sounds as if every indigenous person in Canada over the age of 50 attended a residential school. Nobody ever questions the claims for fear of being labeled intolerant or insensitive. When I questioned the gentleman’s assertation, he responded with a tirade of obscenities and blocked me. That’s a typical response to questions rather than presenting evidence.He also identified himself as a “residential day school survivor.”What was a residential day school?Well, residential day schools were structures built on reserves where children would leave home in the morning, attend classes, then return home. In other words, they were simply schools. The only difference is that the ones on reserves were under federal management. Most of us did indeed survive school but don’t identify as survivors.With true residential school attendees becoming a rare commodity, race hustlers in the legal world turned their attention to regular schools and it paid off. Children who attended day schools took part in a massive class action suit which the government settled rather than fought. Over 150,000 “survivors” of these day schools qualify for payouts between $10,000 and $200,000. The wide spread of compensation was based on the alleged suffering due to attending the schools. That’s quite an incentive for claimants to make up horrific stories about their time in school and since nobody dares question their assertations, the stories get wild. And unbelievable.Ironically, there probably would have been a class action suit launched if there weren’t day schools either as children would have lost the opportunity to get an education. The provision of education is entrenched in most treaties because the bands signing them demanded it. Yes, indigenous people actually asked for the schools.The residential school system was not a success. There is no doubt there was some abuse, and that the manner of imposing the system caused terrible social damage. That doesn’t mean the system was genocidal though or that we must accept every specious claim of abuse at face value. Canada’s indigenous people are in dire socioeconomic straits. Something must change as things are only getting worse for them no matter how much money is tossed their way.Entrenching a culture of victimhood based on falsehoods isn’t helping matters. It is causing social division, has led to hundreds of churches being burned or vandalized, and is costing a fortune.We do need reconciliation and we need to put the old divisions to rest. We also need the truth first though and as long as we continue to let mythology dominate the day, healing and reconciliation will never come.