Have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation been complicit in inventing and spreading an outrageous myth regarding the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools? Let us consider the evidence..The generously-funded National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is the successor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada. It is charged with reporting on the history, operation, and legacy of the country’s Indian Residential Schools (IRSs.).The TRC began the work of developing a Memorial Register “honour[ing] the children that never returned home from the schools.” The NCTR has continued with this work..“The memorial remembers, honours and acknowledges those children who died while attending a residential school in Canada,” or “within one year of discharge from school.”.The rationale for including students who did not actually die at the school “… rests on a common residential school practice of discharging students who were suffering from terminal illness to their homes, or to institutions such as hospitals and sanatoria.”.Conflating the phrase “children that never returned home from the schools,” with “children who died while attending a residential school” is the first clue that something is suspicious. Many students who “never returned home” may have had no home to return to. Some were orphans; some were sent to these schools to save them from dysfunctional or abusive households. This was particularly true during the last four decades the schools operated, the period during which most of its “survivors” attended. Still, this did not prevent their remains being sent to their home reserve for burial whenever this was feasible..Likewise, the phrase “children who died while attending a residential school” implicitly suggests that the school was responsible for their death, an accusation lacking any evidence..More troubling still, according to the NCTR: “Following the direction provided by 'Survivors' [i.e., any indigenous person who attended an IRS] during the community engagements held in 2018 and at the National Gathering of Elders, only the names and dates of death will be public.” This directive doesn’t pass the smell test, either..It did not prohibit the NCTR from publishing summaries for each school of the cause of death and place of burial, something it did for the IRS system as a whole. That it deliberately failed to do so at the school level has helped precipitate the trauma and rage felt by indigenous people across the land resulting in church burnings and other destructive acts since May 27, 2021..How could individual death records remotely be considered privileged, even sacrosanct, when they are available for perusal, albeit often for a fee, by any person who wants to do so?.Or has the NCTR hidden these records because it wants to keep this trauma and rage alive?.Nearly all the detailed data found here, based on the names and dates of death listed by school in the Memorial Register, were compiled and analyzed by Nina Green, an independent researcher with a keen interest in archival detective work..One of her goals was to check the accuracy of the many questions, like those already mentioned, flowing from the incomplete nature of the individual entries in the published Memorial Register..More particularly, undertaking this time-consuming task was necessary to examine the veracity of the widespread assertion that most of the children who did not return home were buried in unmarked graves near their schools, often under criminally questionable circumstances..Have the TRC and NCTR been complicit in inventing and spreading this outrageous myth by keeping records under their control hidden from the public?.At the very least, the NCTR has done nothing to repudiate this myth, a blood libel it could easily debunk if it came clean with what it knows..As for numerical data about student deaths, volume 4 of the 2015 TRC Report dealing with “missing children” states that 3,201 named and unnamed students — the named category likely overlapping in whole or in part with the unnamed one — died at their school or elsewhere. It also states that of the 1,241 named students whose place of burial was determined by whatever means the TRC employed, only 423 died at the schools while the rest died elsewhere (Table 4, p. 21.) The 423 figure represents 0.3 percent of the estimated 150,000 students who ever attended an Indian Residential School..All these numbers are a far cry from the extraordinary estimate by Murray Sinclair, the TRC’s former chief commissioner, that there “… could be in the 15-25,000 range, and maybe even more" children who died at the Indian Residential Schools..But he is free to say so because it is unclear how hard the NCTR has been looking for the fate of the “missing children” in publicly available archival sources. Instead, it blames any lack of information on the churches that ran the schools and the federal government that funded them..Still, if the NCTR has been working diligently on this issue, as it claims, no detailed findings have been released to the public since 2015 save for additions to the Memorial Register..If the Memorial Register was truly part of a “collective journey of honouring and remembering the children lost to the residential schools,” refusing to report their place of burial is no way to do so..Add to this the fact that there are no relatives frantically searching for their missing ancestors. How could that be if 15,000-25,000 “children … never returned home from the schools?”.As for Nina Green’s findings, the death records for 30 schools in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba representing 22 percent of the 139 government-supported boarding schools, show that almost all were buried on their home reserves. The NCTR surely knows this as well..Nor does it want to publicly acknowledge that many of the names in the Register are of children who were not IRS students when they died. For example, in response to a September 9, 2022 request for information by James McCrae, former Manitoba Minister of Justice and Attorney General, about one such student — the well-known Helen Betty Osborne — Jesse Boiteau, the NCTR’s Senior Archivist replied that, “Many names are added at the request of family members of children they lost, who attended residential school.”.Osborne was a student at Margaret Barbour Collegiate in The Pas, Manitoba, boarding with a non-aboriginal family when she was abducted, raped and brutally murdered on November 13, 1971. Yet her name appears on the list of children who “never returned home” from the Guy Hill Indian Residential School she had previously attended as a primary school student. To preclude any further debate, Boiteau ended his reply to McCrae by stating, “As we are continuing our efforts on residential school research and helping Survivors and their families to heal, we will not be replying to further questions on the registry.”.So much for transparency and accountability at the NCTR which, like the TRC itself, has forgotten that without truth there can never be reconciliation..As for Ms. Green, she has been relentless in sending these and other original findings to scores of established media, indigenous, and government organizations and individuals. Only a few have even acknowledgment receipt of this information and only one or two have shown any support for her findings..A final observation is probably not necessary for most readers, namely that — “… an army of consultants, lawyers and accountants who are sucking hundreds of millions of dollars out of First Nations and from federal government coffers.” The politically correct Star fails to mention this also includes hordes of indigenous leaders, activists, and academics..This is not unsubstantiated rhetoric. The 2022-23 federal budget contains a list of measures totalling $4.7 billion to “support communities as they cope with their past and build a future where Indigenous children can thrive,” including $209 million to help communities “document, locate and memorialize burial sites at former residential schools,” build a new National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and “ensure complete disclosure of federal documents related to residential schools.”.It’s often said that the only certainties are death and taxes. In this case, the certainties are death and prosperity..Hymie Rubenstein is editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology at The University of Manitoba.
Have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation been complicit in inventing and spreading an outrageous myth regarding the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools? Let us consider the evidence..The generously-funded National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) is the successor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada. It is charged with reporting on the history, operation, and legacy of the country’s Indian Residential Schools (IRSs.).The TRC began the work of developing a Memorial Register “honour[ing] the children that never returned home from the schools.” The NCTR has continued with this work..“The memorial remembers, honours and acknowledges those children who died while attending a residential school in Canada,” or “within one year of discharge from school.”.The rationale for including students who did not actually die at the school “… rests on a common residential school practice of discharging students who were suffering from terminal illness to their homes, or to institutions such as hospitals and sanatoria.”.Conflating the phrase “children that never returned home from the schools,” with “children who died while attending a residential school” is the first clue that something is suspicious. Many students who “never returned home” may have had no home to return to. Some were orphans; some were sent to these schools to save them from dysfunctional or abusive households. This was particularly true during the last four decades the schools operated, the period during which most of its “survivors” attended. Still, this did not prevent their remains being sent to their home reserve for burial whenever this was feasible..Likewise, the phrase “children who died while attending a residential school” implicitly suggests that the school was responsible for their death, an accusation lacking any evidence..More troubling still, according to the NCTR: “Following the direction provided by 'Survivors' [i.e., any indigenous person who attended an IRS] during the community engagements held in 2018 and at the National Gathering of Elders, only the names and dates of death will be public.” This directive doesn’t pass the smell test, either..It did not prohibit the NCTR from publishing summaries for each school of the cause of death and place of burial, something it did for the IRS system as a whole. That it deliberately failed to do so at the school level has helped precipitate the trauma and rage felt by indigenous people across the land resulting in church burnings and other destructive acts since May 27, 2021..How could individual death records remotely be considered privileged, even sacrosanct, when they are available for perusal, albeit often for a fee, by any person who wants to do so?.Or has the NCTR hidden these records because it wants to keep this trauma and rage alive?.Nearly all the detailed data found here, based on the names and dates of death listed by school in the Memorial Register, were compiled and analyzed by Nina Green, an independent researcher with a keen interest in archival detective work..One of her goals was to check the accuracy of the many questions, like those already mentioned, flowing from the incomplete nature of the individual entries in the published Memorial Register..More particularly, undertaking this time-consuming task was necessary to examine the veracity of the widespread assertion that most of the children who did not return home were buried in unmarked graves near their schools, often under criminally questionable circumstances..Have the TRC and NCTR been complicit in inventing and spreading this outrageous myth by keeping records under their control hidden from the public?.At the very least, the NCTR has done nothing to repudiate this myth, a blood libel it could easily debunk if it came clean with what it knows..As for numerical data about student deaths, volume 4 of the 2015 TRC Report dealing with “missing children” states that 3,201 named and unnamed students — the named category likely overlapping in whole or in part with the unnamed one — died at their school or elsewhere. It also states that of the 1,241 named students whose place of burial was determined by whatever means the TRC employed, only 423 died at the schools while the rest died elsewhere (Table 4, p. 21.) The 423 figure represents 0.3 percent of the estimated 150,000 students who ever attended an Indian Residential School..All these numbers are a far cry from the extraordinary estimate by Murray Sinclair, the TRC’s former chief commissioner, that there “… could be in the 15-25,000 range, and maybe even more" children who died at the Indian Residential Schools..But he is free to say so because it is unclear how hard the NCTR has been looking for the fate of the “missing children” in publicly available archival sources. Instead, it blames any lack of information on the churches that ran the schools and the federal government that funded them..Still, if the NCTR has been working diligently on this issue, as it claims, no detailed findings have been released to the public since 2015 save for additions to the Memorial Register..If the Memorial Register was truly part of a “collective journey of honouring and remembering the children lost to the residential schools,” refusing to report their place of burial is no way to do so..Add to this the fact that there are no relatives frantically searching for their missing ancestors. How could that be if 15,000-25,000 “children … never returned home from the schools?”.As for Nina Green’s findings, the death records for 30 schools in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba representing 22 percent of the 139 government-supported boarding schools, show that almost all were buried on their home reserves. The NCTR surely knows this as well..Nor does it want to publicly acknowledge that many of the names in the Register are of children who were not IRS students when they died. For example, in response to a September 9, 2022 request for information by James McCrae, former Manitoba Minister of Justice and Attorney General, about one such student — the well-known Helen Betty Osborne — Jesse Boiteau, the NCTR’s Senior Archivist replied that, “Many names are added at the request of family members of children they lost, who attended residential school.”.Osborne was a student at Margaret Barbour Collegiate in The Pas, Manitoba, boarding with a non-aboriginal family when she was abducted, raped and brutally murdered on November 13, 1971. Yet her name appears on the list of children who “never returned home” from the Guy Hill Indian Residential School she had previously attended as a primary school student. To preclude any further debate, Boiteau ended his reply to McCrae by stating, “As we are continuing our efforts on residential school research and helping Survivors and their families to heal, we will not be replying to further questions on the registry.”.So much for transparency and accountability at the NCTR which, like the TRC itself, has forgotten that without truth there can never be reconciliation..As for Ms. Green, she has been relentless in sending these and other original findings to scores of established media, indigenous, and government organizations and individuals. Only a few have even acknowledgment receipt of this information and only one or two have shown any support for her findings..A final observation is probably not necessary for most readers, namely that — “… an army of consultants, lawyers and accountants who are sucking hundreds of millions of dollars out of First Nations and from federal government coffers.” The politically correct Star fails to mention this also includes hordes of indigenous leaders, activists, and academics..This is not unsubstantiated rhetoric. The 2022-23 federal budget contains a list of measures totalling $4.7 billion to “support communities as they cope with their past and build a future where Indigenous children can thrive,” including $209 million to help communities “document, locate and memorialize burial sites at former residential schools,” build a new National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and “ensure complete disclosure of federal documents related to residential schools.”.It’s often said that the only certainties are death and taxes. In this case, the certainties are death and prosperity..Hymie Rubenstein is editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology at The University of Manitoba.
