Latest news with #KamloopsIndianResidentialSchool
CBC
16-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Survivors urge all political parties to support residential school burial investigations
Social Sharing WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools. As Canada's federal election heats up, residential school survivors and their advocates are urging political parties to pledge full support for investigations into unmarked burials and missing children linked to the institutions. The previous Liberal government announced several initiatives following the findings of potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021. Four years later, the programs face questions about their future. Last fall, an advisory committee working on identifying historical documents resigned, citing inadequate funding. Then in February, Canada discontinued funding for the expert committee advising Indigenous communities undertaking searches. "The government of Canada, today, in 2025, should support this," said Cadmus Delorme, who was chair of the eight-person documents committee. Delorme was also chief of Cowessess First Nation in 2021, when the community announced 751 suspected unmarked burials were located at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan. He said Canada "has a fiduciary financial responsibility in this moment," as communities still seek closure. "We have to address certain things we inherited — we can't just forget about it — and this is one of them." Meanwhile, Crown-Indigenous Relations has announced, then reversed, funding caps to the investigations themselves, and some communities continue to face delays and red tape. "This is Canada's fault. They're to blame," said Janalee Jodouin, finance and project lead for the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin Project. "They need to bring the children home, period. It's not rocket science. They need to fund it and they need to fulfil their promises." The project was started by Grassy Narrows First Nation to investigate the former McIntosh Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario. The group announced in January it located 114 unmarked burial features on the property, of which 106 were in the historical cemetery area. Frustrated with Canada's lack of ongoing financial commitment, Jodouin invited CBC Indigenous to meet with the project's elders advisory last week to hear about the impact. 'No closure' In the meeting, one survivor likened the institution to a work camp where she was made to do hard labour. Another recalled witnessing kids being beaten. Others described the Catholic-run school's devastating legacy. "I don't understand why they would try to erase the Indian again by not making this known," said Steve Lands, a former McIntosh student and project co-ordinator. "Many of us here have lost friends and family members through the abuse, the trauma, the legacy of the residential schools. This is where we need the funding not cut." "It is important that Canada knows what we have suffered, and then Canada should help us complete this project," said McIntosh survivor Geraldine Fobister. Former Grassy Narrows chief Rudy Turtle said he's concerned about the cuts and would like to hear someone explicitly say they'll fund the residential school searches. "It's part of our truth and reconciliation," he said. "It's part of our healing journey that everyone talks about and to cut it now when you're in the middle, it just makes it worse. There's going to be no closure at all." Parties respond CBC Indigenous contacted the six leading parties for their position. The incumbent Liberals said a new Liberal government would remain committed to advancing reconciliation and healing. "A Mark Carney-led Liberal government will continue this important work to support survivors and communities and move forward on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action. I would refer you to the upcoming platform for additional information," a spokesperson said. The Conservatives cited Leader Pierre Poilievre's comment at a Jan. 22, 2024 news conference. "We should provide the resources to allow for full investigation into the potential remains at residential schools," he said at the time. "Canadians deserve to know the truth and Conservatives will always stand in favour of historical accuracy." The NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green Party all pledged to support full funding for the investigations. "This work must be community-led, trauma-informed, and backed by long-term federal support," said the NDP. "It is essential to support these efforts so that light can be shed on this sad history," said the Bloc in French. The Greens said they would fully support the projects "with long-term stable funding and Indigenous-led oversight to uncover and address Canada's colonial history transparently and respectfully." The People's Party of Canada said it would not support investigations. "We believe enough money has already been wasted on this matter. No body has been found and this story has been blown out of all proportion," a spokesperson said. Laura Arndt, secretariat lead at the Survivors' Secretariat, formed in 2021 to investigate the former Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School in Brantford, Ont., wants candidates to recognize the issue goes beyond partisan politics. She said funding cuts feed residential school denialism, a phenomenon some some scholars define as the twisting of facts about a system the Truth and Reconciliation Commission described as cultural genocide. "We are talking about the truth of history in this country, and a history that can't be talked about without using the word legacy when it comes to Indigenous people," said Arndt. "So I'd like to see the parties really committing to taking forward the issues of Indian residential school survivors and having the records disclosed." Through document analysis, the secretariat has confirmed 101 known deaths at the Mohawk Institute — more than doubling the 48 listed by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation — but the group is in funding dispute with Ottawa that still may force it to shut down.
CBC
07-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Divisions over residential school facts erupt inside B.C. Conservative caucus meeting
Social Sharing A meeting of the B.C. Conservative caucus devolved into a shouting match Thursday, exposing more divisions within the Official Opposition over the history of residential schools. Things got so heated, some MLAs stormed out, several people inside the meeting told CBC News. One of the MLAs who left abruptly was Conservative attorney general critic Dallas Brodie, who made comments in a YouTube video posted earlier this week that upset some of her colleagues. In it, Brodie slammed Conservative House leader A'aliya Warbus, saying she's aligned with the NDP. Warbus, a member of the Sto:lo Nation and the MLA for Chilliwack-Cultus Lake, criticized Brodie last month over a social media post she made about the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, which First Nations leaders said amounted to residential school denialism. Brodie wrote: "The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero. Zero. No one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies or anyone else." According to Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc, preliminary findings from a 2021 ground-penetrating radar survey indicated the remains of approximately 200 people could be buried at the site. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation estimates about 4,100 children died at Canadian residential schools, based on death records, but has said the true total is likely much higher. WATCH | Brodie recieves backlash following social media post: Conservative MLA accused of questioning the deaths of children at residential schools 10 days ago Duration 2:26 A B.C. Conservative MLA is being accused of calling into question the deaths of children at residential schools following a social media post which pointed out that no burials have been uncovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. As Katie DeRosa reports, Dallas Brodie is even facing criticism within her own party. In response to Brodie's claim, Warbus said on social media: "Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation." Earlier this week, Brodie called out Warbus and some other Conservative colleagues in a YouTube video discussion hosted by Frances Widdowson, a former Mount Royal University professor who came under fire for saying that there were educational benefits to Canada's residential school system. Speaking in the video, Brodie told Widdowson that "the most vociferous hatred" she's received in response to her social media post has been from within her own party. "There's a person in our party who is Indigenous and she was super angry and went to town and joined the NDP to call me out. We've actually brought in some people who — I'm just going to say this — belong in the NDP." Warbus told reporters Thursday that Brodie is causing a distraction for the party, in the midst of a trade war, record budget deficit and the opioid crisis, which disproportionately affects Indigenous people. "It's causing division, we need to address the divisions within the caucus and get on the same page as a team. If we cannot do that then I do not know why I came here," Warbus said. After Brodie left the caucus meeting, attended by all 44 Conservative MLAs, she skipped question period. She declined to be interviewed by reporters on her way out of the caucus room. Walter Mineault, president of the Métis Nation of B.C. reached out to CBC News to express his disappointment in Brodie's video comments. Mineault said he met with Brodie last week and expressed to her the hurt and harm that were caused by her social media post last month. He said Brodie, the MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena, eventually apologized and pledged to repair the relationship. When Mineault saw the video, he said he was "appalled and devastated." Mineault's grandparents attended residential schools and his parents attended day school. "I'd like to state to Rustad and his party how hurtful these comments are to all our people," Mineault said. He called on Brodie to be removed from the Conservative caucus. Premier David Eby said B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad needs to draw the line on what's acceptable within his party. "A big tent that has space for racism is not a political tent, that's a circus tent," Eby said at an unrelated news conference. "And he's gotta kick the clown out of the tent." Rustad would not say if he will kick Brodie out of caucus. "That's something I'm not prepared to discuss at this point," he told reporters. Rustad again insisted that some divisions are inevitable within a big tent party. However, the dust up between right-leaning Conservative MLAs and more centrist ones is just the latest example of party divisions spilling out into the public eye.
New York Times
01-03-2025
- New York Times
I'm an Indigenous Filmmaker Up for an Oscar. Here's What I Hope Happens Next.
Four years ago, a ground-penetrating radar study commissioned by the Tk'emlups te Secwépemc First Nation identified evidence of about 200 child-size graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. After the discovery, I received a phone call. It was from a friend and former colleague, Emily Kassie, asking if I'd be open to co-directing a documentary about the legacy of the 139 government-funded and church-run boarding schools that operated across Canada and forcibly separated six generations of Indigenous children from their families. The idea behind the schools, in the words of one of their administrators, was to 'get rid of the Indian problem.' In 2008, the Canadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document their destructive legacy, and the commission concluded that these institutions committed a 'cultural genocide' against the country's First Peoples. The news of the grim discovery in Kamloops hit close to home for me. All my adult life, I'd heard rumors that my father was born at or near one of those residential schools and that he'd been found, just minutes after his birth, abandoned in a dumpster. Those few details were all he or I knew. The silence, shame and guilt that hid this history from broader society rippled across generations of Indigenous families like my own. Our communities continue to suffer from cycles of suicide, addiction and violence, instigated by the experience at these schools. When Emily, a filmmaker and tenacious investigative journalist who's covered human rights abuses from Afghanistan to Niger, asked me about joining her in documenting the legacy of these schools — a system that most likely nearly took my father's life and remained an unspoken horror for my family — I agonized over the decision. While I stewed, Emily forged ahead. She'd found an article in The Williams Lake Tribune about Chief Willie Sellars and the Williams Lake First Nation, whose community was about to embark on its own inquiry into a former school down the road from the Sugarcane Indian reserve. Emily wrote the chief an email and the next day he called her back. 'The creator has always had great timing,' Chief Sellars said. 'Just yesterday our council said we needed to document our search.' Two weeks later, I told her I was open to directing alongside her. That's when she let me know she'd identified a First Nation that was opening its own investigation and that the investigation was happening at St. Joseph's Mission. There was a long pause on my end of the line. 'That's crazy,' I said. I told her that St. Joseph's was the school where my family was sent and where my father was born nearby and abandoned in a dumpster. 'And that's all I've ever known,' I said. Out of 139 Indian residential schools across Canada, Emily happened to choose to focus our documentary on the one school my family was taken away to and where my father's life began. Four years later, that documentary, 'Sugarcane,' is up for an Oscar on Sunday night. The investigation at the heart of our film found evidence that babies born to Native girls, including some fathered by priests, had been adopted or even put in the incinerator at St. Joseph's Mission to be burned with the trash. 'Sugarcane' is, to our knowledge, the first work in any medium to uncover evidence of infanticide at an Indian residential or boarding school in North America. In addition, we learned this was, in part, my father's story. Born to Native parents and found by a nightwatchman after his birth, he is the only known survivor of infanticide at the school. The findings in our film raise a question: If such things were covered up at one school, what might be true at the other 138 Indian residential schools across Canada? And what remains hidden at the hundreds of Native American boarding schools that operated across the United States — where, unlike in Canada, there has been scant inquiry and even less reckoning with this history? It's an honor to be the first Indigenous filmmaker from North America to be nominated for an Academy Award. But I better not be the only one for long. Some might see this nomination as historic and proof that Hollywood has come a long way from the time when studios portrayed Indians dying at the hands of swaggering cowboys. That era of western movies coincided with the heyday of the residential schools, which were designed to kill off Indigenous cultures and which led, in some cases, to the death of children themselves. These foundational chapters in North American history — a cultural genocide that spanned over 150 years — have remained largely obscured and suppressed. Currently, right-wing parties in both Canada and the United States are trying to shroud the historical record. We must redouble our efforts to collect and preserve the memories of the elderly survivors of this system and tell their stories before they're gone and it's too late. Because it can, and is, happening again. Policies like the separation of families, many of them Indigenous, at the southern American border, along with the return of explicit calls for land grabs and ethnic cleansing, are not imported — they're homegrown. Hollywood, like so many industries, appears on the brink of cowing to revanchist attacks on pluralism and difference. For most of North American history, Indigenous peoples lived under a devastating form of authoritarianism, confined to impoverished reservations and denigrated as inferior outsiders in the only place we've ever known as home. Through the residential schools, we were even deprived of the right to raise our own children. But those schools failed. And Indigenous peoples are still here. 'Sugarcane' is a testament to the stories yet to be told — stories of a people who survived a genocide, who have urgent things to say and unique stories to tell. We maintain a way of seeing the world that is deeply familial, communal, spiritual, rooted in place and tradition, and in that sense, human and universal. And we've only begun to tell our stories.
CBC
25-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
B.C. Conservative MLA refutes charge of residential school denialism
A B.C. Conservative MLA has refused her leader's request to take down a social media post that critics say amounts to residential school denialism — a charge Official Opposition attorney general critic Dallas Brodie Dallas refutes. Brodie is facing backlash for a post on X. "The number of confirmed child burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site is zero. Zero. No one should be afraid of the truth. Not lawyers, their governing bodies or anyone else." Brodie, a lawyer, was coming to the defence of another lawyer, James Heller. Last year, Heller pushed the Law Society of B.C. to change its training material to say there were "potentially" burial sites at the former residential school in Kamloops — instead of more definitive language. Heller is suing the society for what he calls "false and defamatory" allegations of racism. Brodie says she's not denying what happened at residential schools. "The stand I'm taking is rooted in the need for truth. And I don't think standing for truth takes away anything from the severity of what happened at the residential schools," she told reporters in the legislature Monday. "I'm a lawyer. I believe in evidence, truth and pursuit of truth, and I think lawyers should be allowed to ask questions." However, Brodie's Conservative colleague, A'aliyah Warbus, a member of the Sto: lo Nation and the party's house leader, said on social media: "Inform yourself, get the latest facts, research, AND talk to survivors. Questioning the narratives of people who lived and survived these atrocities, is nothing but harmful and taking us backward in reconciliation." Conservative Leader John Rustad said he asked Brodie to take down the post. She's refused. "When the tweet was first put up, I was concerned it may be misinterpreted as opposed to being about the fact that there haven't been any graves ... or any bodies at that particular site exhumed or found, versus the whole issue of the residential schools," Rustad said. "I asked her to take ([he post] down because of that concern." Rustad says there is no denying the horrors of residential schools. "[Children] went to school. They were taken from their families, and more than 4,000 children did not return home. Those children died in residential schools." Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says Brodie's comments cause pain to residential school survivors and their families. "I find such remarks to be absolutely disgusting, repugnant and ugly," he said. B.C.'s attorney general, Niki Sharma, says during her law career, she worked with residential school survivors, who have fought hard for decades to have their truth recognized. "It's been a long and painful journey to those people," Sharma said. "I'm disappointed that her first question to me as critic would be based on a form of denialism of residential schools. Former Kamloops Indian Residential school now a national historic site 11 days ago Duration 2:52 The former Kamloops Indian Residential School, where, in 2021, Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey had found some 200 potential unmarked graves on the institution's grounds, has been designated as a national historic site. The CBC's Jennifer Norwell got an inside look at the school with the chief of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc. Sean Carleton, an Indigenous Studies professor at the University of Manitoba, said residential school denialism is not just denying that residential schools existed, but involves a "strategy to try and shake public confidence in established truth by minimizing, downplaying and twisting facts… to shake public confidence in the truth." Carleton is concerned that some politicians are using such statements as a wedge issue. "If they can delegitimize Kamloops, then they can delegitimize the entire residential school narrative," he said. In 2021, the Tk'emlúps First Nation said that ground penetrating radar provided "confirmation of the remains of 215 children" at the school site, but last year changed the wording to 215 anomalies. News stories have referred to them as"potential burial sites or potential unmarked graves." Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, chief of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, was not available for comment Monday. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has documented that at least 4,118 children died at residential schools. More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend them in Canada, the last of which closed in 1996.
CBC
12-02-2025
- General
- CBC
Former Kamloops Indian Residential School designated a national historic site
The former Kamloops Indian Residential School, where, in 2021, Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey had found some 200 potential unmarked graves on the institution's grounds, has been designated as a national historic site. The former residential school was nominated to become a national historic site by Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc, and the federal government worked with the First Nation to determine its significance, Parks Canada said in a news release Wednesday. National historic sites are appointed as places that have shaped Canada — be it good or bad — to help Canadians understand the country's past and present. "The designation symbolizes hope and the vision of our ancestors for a prosperous future for our children, and those not yet born," Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc Kúkpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. Many of the buildings at the site have been preserved and are used for education, including on Secwépemc language and culture. The Kamloops Indian Residential School was in operation from 1890 to 1969, after which the federal government took over administration from the Catholic Church to operate it as a residence for a day school, until it closed in 1978. Up to 500 students would have been registered at the school at any given time, according to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and those children would have come from First Nations communities across B.C. and beyond. It was one of many residential schools and day schools across the country; more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend church-run, government-funded residential schools between the 1870s and 1997. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation estimates about 4,100 children died at Canadian residential schools, based on death records, but has said the true total is likely much higher. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said large numbers of Indigenous children who were forcibly sent to residential schools never returned home. Several other former residential schools have also been designated as national historic sites, including the Muscowequan, Portage La Prairi, Shingwauk and Shubenacadie residential schools. In a statement, Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and minister responsible for Parks Canada — which deals with historic sites — said the designation acknowledges the harms perpetrated against those who forcibly attended the institution. "The designation of the Former Kamloops Indian Residential School as a site of national historic significance will serve as a testament and memorial to the children who were forced to live there and who died there," Guilbeault said. "The legacy of their stories will resonate throughout future generations."
