A Conflicted Canada Day

Today is Canada Day. It's a solemn occasion this year, as not too long ago, the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found beneath Kamloops Indian Residential School in  Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, BC.

If you're not familiar with the Canadian Residential School system, it was an early attempt to indoctrinate Indigenous youth into Canadian culture. Attendance was mandatory, with children being taken from their families around the age of four. They were prohibited from using their own languages, or following their own spiritual beliefs and cultural traditions. Rates of physical and sexual violence were high. Living conditions were poor, which contributed to a high mortality rate compared to schools attended by white children 

They were funded and facilitated by churches, with the Catholic Church running more than half of them. The last residential school was closed in 1996, so survivors of this system live with us today.

Mainstream elementary and secondary education in Canada has not always covered our history in relation with our Indigenous people, at least not in depth. To give credit to my own public school, I remember being taught about this, and even having a field trip to a longhouse and meeting with an Indigenous elder. But getting this early education was pretty hit-or-miss with people around my age, and uncommon for people a bit older than me. People a bit younger than me seem better educated on the topic.

So now that light has been shone on the situation for some years, the discovery of the 215 children beneath the school is grim but not surprising. It did result in a call to further investigate the former residential schools for more exact numbers on the missing children. While there was a documentation system, it appears that many of the children's deaths went unreported.

Since then, they've conducted several more investigations, finding 182 unmarked graves near former St Eugene's Residential School, BC, and 751 more at Marieval Residential School, Saskatchewan. Previous to the more recent investigations, they had found 104 potential graves at Brandon Indian Residential School, Manitoba. Further investigations are underway. 

Our Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report estimated the total number of deaths of Indigenous youth through the Residential School System to be about 3,200, but with these recent undocumented results, the real number is potentially much higher.

Many of the churches that ran residential schools, including the United, Presbyterian, and Anglican Churches have issued official apologies. The Catholic Church has also apologized a number of times in the past, however, following the discovery of the unmarked graves, a call has been made for another apology by Pope Francis, which has not yet been met. He made a public statement expressing his sorrow over the discoveries but did not apologize directly. This statement has largely been considered unsatisfactory.

Recently, five churches, four Catholic and one Anglican have been burned down, and other religious sites have been defaced with red hand prints and the phrase "We were children". They haven't found anyone involved in these actions.

A further event involving race and religion occurred in London, Ontario, in which a young man ran his car into a family of five, killing four of them. The victims were all Muslim, and the attack was unprovoked. Investigations determined it was a hate crime.

So with all this going on, there has been a call to cancel Canada Day. We're still having it as a Provincial holiday, but many people are explicitly opting out of celebrations, and others are choosing to celebrate Indigenous culture instead.