Over the years, aboriginal peoples have complained about abuse – sexual, physical and mental, as well as negligence, prevalent in the Indian residential schools. Their stories included shocking tales of children being murdered at these schools and their bodies stealthily buried on the school property. These allegations were based on the individual’s supposed experience at the schools and based on aboriginal “knowing” of events. There was no actual evidence to corroborate these allegations.
RCMP’s 1995 – 2003 Investigation
Despite the lack of corroborating evidence, the RCMP in British Columbia was concerned that these allegations were a mere tip of the iceberg as to what had occurred/was occurring in British Columbia’s residential schools. Rather than consider the complaints on a piecemeal basis, the RCMP decided to tackle the problem head-on by forming a province-wide taskforce to investigate the 15 residential schools in the province. The taskforce was formed in June 1995, and its investigation lasted over eight gruelling years, completing its final report in 2003. Curiously, the report was never released to the public until 22 years later on August 26, 2025. The report was uncovered by a request made under the Access to Information Act by the organization, Investigative Journalism Foundation. The Foundation is a nonprofit organization focused on public interest journalism which researches data related to government spending. According to the 2003 RCMP Report, 100 allegations of abuse stretching from 1930 to 1995 in the 15 residential schools in British Columbia led to a total of 14 individuals being charged with criminal offenses.
In total, there were 139 residential schools operating in Canada between the years 1883 to 1997. During these 114 years of operation, fewer than 50 people were convicted of sex crimes against the150,000 children who attended these schools during this period. The crimes against these children were despicable. There is no excusing the behaviour of those who were entrusted with the care and safety of any child, no matter the child’s race or circumstances. This is true no matter where a child finds him/herself, whether in a residential school, private school or public school. Unfortunately, such offenses still occur today in both public and private schools and even within families. Significantly, the RCMP report indicated that these convictions were against staff (some of whom were aboriginal), senior boys and a few religious operators and other officials of the schools. It is clear from the RCMP report that widespread allegations of sexual abuse in the residential schools were exaggerated.
Despite this fact, the federal government in 2007, under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, awarded the over 31,000 surviving aboriginal children of the residential schools the sum of $3.2 billion. This amounted to approximately $111,265 for each of the former students. The government at that time believed that this generous grant would be sufficient to satisfy the concerns of the aboriginal elites who presumed to speak on behalf of aboriginal people. The government, however, was mistaken. Instead, this grant set the stage for continuous demands by the aboriginal grievance lobby for more government money.
Children’s Bodies in Forgotten Graves
On May 27, 2021, Chief Rosanne Casimir, of the aboriginal band Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7, located near Kamloops, British Columbia, claimed that the human remains of 215 children had been “found” on the property of the Kamloops Residential School. She provided no evidence for this shocking claim except a ground penetrating radar finding which indicated that some disturbances had been detected in these grounds. These disturbances, however, could have been rocks, large roots, or remnants of a sewer system that had been installed on the grounds in 1924. To date, no human remains have ever been found on the grounds alleged to have contained human burials at the Kamloops Residential School.
Casimir’s allegations, however, ricocheted around the world as well as in Canada with glaring headlines, giving Canada an international black eye. In the wake of Casimir’s allegation, other aboriginal bands soon claimed that there were bodies buried at their residential schools. Although there was no actual evidence to substantiate any of these allegations, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the legacy media jumped on these shocking claims as though they were established fact, thereby defaming the Catholic, Anglican and United churches which had operated these residential schools on behalf of the federal Department of Indian Affairs.
Trudeau Attacks Christianity
Simply put, Justin Trudeau launched an unprecedented attack against the Christian churches which operated these schools, although they were funded and controlled by the federal Department of Indian Affairs. It was convenient for Trudeau to do so as this deflected from the many failures of his government as well as that of past governments, to properly deal with aboriginal matters, which has led to abysmal social and economic problems for aboriginal communities. Further, this attack on the churches removed the focus from Trudeau’s failure to implement the 94 Calls to Action proposed in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report.
Members of Trudeau’s cabinet also joined in on the attack on the churches. For example, Trudeau’s Minister of Northern Affairs, Dan Vandal, outrageously stated:
Religious leaders who operated the residential school system in Canada should be accountable for any crimes committed … of course they need to be charged … we need to do all things necessary to achieve justice … to bring charges forward.
The legacy media, a paid mouthpiece for the Liberal government posing as journalism, joined in the fray, loudly criticizing the churches even without making any effort to determine the accuracy of the allegations. An exception to this was National Post columnist, Terry Glavin, who did responsibly assess the actual situation. As a result of these concerted attacks, however, over 100 churches were either vandalized or burned down across the country. Trudeau’s response to this development was troubling by any standard, stating that it was “understandable” under the circumstances.
The reason for this unparalleled attack on Christianity in Canada by the government and the paid sycophantic media was that Christianity – especially the Catholic Church – is an obstacle to imposing their progressive, woke agenda in Canada. Blaming the churches reduced the public’s respect for the Christian religion and undermined both the churches’ and individual Christians’ effectiveness in the formation of public policy. Moreover, by bringing Christianity into disrepute, it would compromise Christianity’s ability to be an effective moral counterweight to the government’s increasingly secular agenda.
Trudeau’s Shameful Show
Trudeau continued his policy of blaming the churches for their alleged abuses of aboriginal children. To emphasize this, Trudeau was photographed kneeling at the side of a presumed residential school cemetery, piteously clutching a teddy bear to his chest, indicating his own and the government’s sorrow over this tragedy. The fact that the cemetery used for the photograph was not on a residential school property at all, but was a public community cemetery, was ignored. It was the visual image that mattered. Trudeau also ordered all flags on federal buildings in Canada, and Canadian embassies abroad, to fly at half-mast to commemorate the supposed deaths of these aboriginal children.
In 2021, Trudeau’s government created a new statutory holiday for federal workers, “National Day for Truth and Reconciliation”, in response to the spurious claims of mass graves at former residential schools. Trudeau next set aside $320 million to cover the cost of the excavation of the Kamloops residential school property and any other residential school property, to search for the remains of children. Once this grant expired, further funding programs to locate these elusive graves kept popping up. Despite all the funding, to date, no such graves have ever been found.
These grants were mutually beneficial for both Trudeau who gained political support and cooperation from aboriginal elites, and the aboriginal elites who had a continuous source of funding, for which they were not held accountable. What is known, however, is that this money has not reached the residents of the reserves as they continue to live in abject poverty, in decrepit housing, with unpaved roads and many reserves not even having a community centre for the residents for social and recreational purposes. On the other hand, Chiefs and Band Councillors, in many cases receive lavish salaries, drive the latest model trucks, and live in comfortable housing.
The Importance of the 2003 RCMP Report
The RCMP taskforce report languished for 22 years undisclosed to the public. If it had been disclosed in a timely and transparent manner, the claim of the hidden graves in Kamloops, made in May 2021, might have been met with considerable scepticism. Indeed, it might not even have been made in the first place. The existence of the report, however, does explain why the RCMP were not called in to investigate the alleged burial of children in Kamloops. They had already investigated it and found no evidence.
The Drama in the House of Commons on Residential Schools
The narrative of the supposed hidden graves on residential school properties led to a motion in the House of Commons on October 28, 2022, by NDP MP Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre) that stated: “the government must recognize what happened in Canada’s Indian residential schools as genocide.” This motion was unanimously passed by all MPs, including those in the opposition Conservative party.
In the last Parliament, which was prorogued by Trudeau in January 2025, MP Leah Gazan had introduced Bill C-413 “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (promotion of hatred against Indigenous peoples)”. This proposed legislation included a prison sentence of up to two years for anyone found guilty of hate speech by “wilfully promoting hatred against Indigenous (sic) people by promoting, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada”. This Bill received first reading prior to Parliament being prorogued. It can, however, be reinstated in the new Parliament which commenced on September 15, 2025.
Canadians have not Been Fooled
Despite the corruption, manipulation, outright lies, and the colossal abuse of taxpayers’ money put forward by the Trudeau government and the legacy media, it appears that the Canadian public has not been taken in by it. An Angus Reid poll published on August 14, 2025, indicates that 63% of Canadians demanded proof of “unmarked graves” before believing the mainstream media account that thousands of aboriginal children were secretly murdered and buried at residential schools. Further, the poll indicated that the majority of Canadians (61%) opposed legislation to criminalize questioning the claims surrounding residential schools and the alleged unmarked graves.
The Established Facts About Residential Schools
The facts about residential schools can be found in the report of Dr. Scott Hamilton, Anthropology Department, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, who was retained by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to address the question of the deaths of children in residential schools. According to Dr. Hamilton, communicable diseases were a primary cause of poor health and death for many aboriginal people during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Tuberculosis, for which there was no cure, was rampant during this period. It affected aboriginals more than other Canadians. Some children had likely contracted the disease prior to attending the school, but others were infected within the crowded, and poorly constructed residential schools, built by the Department of Indian Affairs, not by the churches. Drugs to cure Tuberculosis were not discovered until the 1950s, at which time the death rate of the children significantly decreased at residential schools. Death certificates of the children who did die at the schools, either by accident or by disease, reveal that they were buried either on hospital grounds or on their home reserves.
Summary
Residential schools did not exist in a vacuum. The fact is that the government-run system was established pursuant to treaty obligations and only when asked for by the local tribal authority. Some children did tragically die at residential schools. Evidence revealed that many of the children passed away as a result of unsanitary conditions due to underfunding by the federal government, not due to any fault of the churches. The churches had merely been carrying out their traditional missionary work of helping individuals – in this case, students – to acquire a more fulfilling and secure future in a changing world, while at the same time saving souls. The Christian churches in Canada have been grievously defamed by Trudeau and his supporters in the media.
The policy of the Liberal government to accuse the Christian churches of murdering and burying the bodies of aboriginal children was, and remains, unconscionable and indefensible.