Aboriginal families living on reserves are in despair. This is occurring despite billions of dollars spent to compensate them for their alleged horrendous treatment by white colonial British and Canadian governments. This funding is largely based on myths and deliberate lies for the political and financial benefit of the Aboriginal Grievance Industry. There is no accountability for this payout. The grievance industry is comprised of Aboriginal elites, lawyers, accountants, consultants, anthropologists, linguists, politicians, bureaucrats, and non-curious media that never question or investigate the claims made by the industry. Unfortunately, the money rarely reaches ordinary Aboriginal people living on the reserves.
They continue to live in abject poverty, in crowded housing badly in need of repairs, drinking water advisories, joblessness, and with a lack of hope. All this leads to pervasive alcohol and drug abuse.
There will never be a resolution to the complex problems facing many Aboriginal Canadians or reconciliation until the true historical facts, both negative and positive, have been established. Unfortunately, today, a counter-historical narrative is being pushed by progressive elites that serves a political agenda and not objective historical truth. Few, if any, positive facts are disclosed. Instead, only negative facts and innuendoes are voiced about the treatment of Aboriginals under the British and later Canadian governments.
Some of the unheard positive aspects of the treatment of Aboriginals include the following:
- The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established the framework for relations between Aboriginal people and the British government. The proclamation was a framework governed by negotiations and treaties, rather than military fiat, as occurred in the U.S.
- Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, who has been wickedly maligned by the woke cancel culture, showed immense compassion for the Aboriginal people by spending large sums of money for food for those who were starving due to the disappearance of their main source of food, the buffalo. In fact, Macdonald’s government spent more on Indian affairs than almost any other government department at that time. Macdonald also wished to extend voting rights, not only to women, but also to the Aboriginal people, decades before this right was finally granted. When Macdonald introduced a bill to this effect, he stated that the Aboriginal people were just as fit and intelligent and had as much interest in the prosperity of the country as others. Further, he said that to deny the right to vote to the Aboriginal people was an injustice. When the vote for status Indians in Eastern Canada finally passed, Macdonald called it “the greatest triumph of my life”. Voting rights for Aboriginal people, however, were subsequently withdrawn by later governments.
- Sir John A. Macdonald also established the Northwest Mounted Police (precursor to the RCMP) to assist in a peaceful settlement of Western Canada. This stands in sharp contrast to the American experience of direct military conflict with the Plains Indians in the west, especially the Sioux and Cheyenne. In June 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and 274 troopers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment were massacred at Little Big Horn, Montana by the Sioux and Cheyenne, who fled to Canada to escape the wrath of the US army. They were met at the Canadian border by a single Northwest Mounted Policeman, James Walsh, who consented to their entering Canada on the condition they obey the Queen’s laws. They did so, settling in the Cypress hills area of Saskatchewan. They lived there peaceably for four years and attempted to remain permanently in Canada by requesting the federal government in Ottawa grant them land for a reserve. However, the federal government did not wish to assume responsibility for the American Indians and denied their request. As a result, they had to return to the U.S. by 1881.
- The Canadian Northwest Mounted Police treated whites and Aboriginals equally and fairly. They vigorously attempted to prevent bootleggers from selling liquor to the Aboriginals since it was so harmful to them.
- What are now called “Residential Schools” were established because it was requested by tribal leaders for schools to be included in the treaties to provide Aboriginal children reading and writing skills to assist them to change from their declining fishing and hunting livelihood to an agricultural economy. Approximately 150,000 Aboriginal children attended residential schools, while the remaining children attended day schools on their reserves, living at home with their families. Children in the residential schools received medical and dental care, eyeglasses, warm clothing, and other necessities.
Despite the government’s genuine attempt to fulfill treaty obligations and to help Aboriginals adapt to a changing world, the grievance industry continues to insist that their treatment was a “genocide.”
White Paper on Indian Policy – 1969
In 1969, in response to the greater poverty, higher infant mortality rates than non-Aboriginal Canadians, lower life expectancy and levels of education of Aboriginals, Jean Chrétien, then Minister of Indian Affairs in Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet, introduced a White Paper entitled, Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy. Based upon the basic democratic principle that equality means “the same law for everybody,” the brief 24 page White Paper Statement offered a controversial alternative to the then current “special status” of Indians which separated them from the majority of society. That is, they lived without the same rights and opportunities as their fellow Canadians. To rectify this, the Statement proposed the termination of special rights and status by repealing the Indian Act, passed in 1876. This Act dealt with Aboriginal matters such as the definition of an Aboriginal and the administration and boundaries of reserves. Although the Indian Act has been amended many times, its basic concepts have remained the same. In its place, the White Paper provided that transitional legislation together with supportive services would be provided to assist Indians to assimilate into Canadian society. Although the Policy Statement specifically stated that Indian culture and identity should be preserved and that “there must be positive recognition by everyone of the unique contribution of Indian culture to Canadian society”, the White Paper and Chrétien were accused of creating “cultural genocide.”
In short, Aboriginal elites, including chiefs and band councils, rejected the proposed change in policy because they believed it would result in their ceasing to have control, influence and funding with respect to Indian Policy. Given the backlash the While Paper received, by 1970 the paper was shelved, soon to be forgotten by Trudeau, but not by the Aboriginal Grievance Industry.
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples – 1996
With the failure of the 1969 Policy Statement, the next government attempt to deal with Aboriginal policy was the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which produced a voluminous 4,000-page, 5 volume Report, setting out an ambitious 20-year agenda for implementing its 440 recommendations. Somewhat ironically, the massive document was as radical as the previous 1969 White Paper. The Royal Commission Report was quietly shelved, except for the occasional virtue signaling. Despite the lack of progress on its recommendations, the 1996 Report was evidence of the power and influence of the Aboriginal Grievance Industry and its political allies.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to determine whether Aboriginal children had been abused and neglected in residential schools, many apparently dying due to inhumane treatment. The Commission recorded the stories of only some former residents of the schools as the undeniable truth about these schools. The TRC concluded that Aboriginal children died by neglect and abuse and were buried in unmarked graves on residential school property. The Commission relied solely on the anecdotal stories of recent students and did not consider other evidence provided to them. The latter included the written chronicles of three different orders of nuns who had come to residential schools from Quebec to devote their lives to the teaching and care of the children. This information is explored by Tina Green in her article, “‘Our Dear Children’: Sisters’ Chronicles of Indian Residential School” published in the Dorchester Review:
The chronicles which were provided to the Commission, but were ignored, detailed the daily life and activities of the children attending the schools. The Oblate priests who operated the schools also provided their accounts of the daily life in the schools, which they were required to send to the head of their Order on a regular basis over the years. This documentation was ignored. Also ignored were the students’ accounts of their school activities, published in their yearbooks: hockey and baseball games, skating and sleigh parties, school choirs, and bands. The yearbooks also included accounts of students going to Montreal in 1967 to attend Expo and a trip to Mexico to compete in a dance competition. Instead, the Commission relied solely on oral accounts from relatively recent students whose “reminiscences” seemed to become more fanciful with their telling of them. For example, one story was that of a six-year-old child who was forced to dig unmarked graves at night to bury “missing” children who were supposedly murdered in the school. The Commission also failed to examine the death certificates available from the Provincial Departments of Vital Statistics, of children who had died while resident at the schools. These death certificates indicate that these children died by accidents and disease and were buried on hospital property or at their home reserves. This is not to say that the children were entirely happy in the residential schools, since they were living away from their families. Further, odious individuals who prey on children have always existed in both public and elite private schools. Consequently, it is likely that some residential schools did not escape such disgusting actions, which may have been carried out not only by the staff (some of whom were also Aboriginal), but also by older bullying students.
Residential schools were no different from other boarding schools in this regard. It is certain, however, that although incidents of abuse may likely have occurred, they were not pervasive as claimed by the Commission. Further, all schools in Canada at that time prescribed corporal punishment for errant students. This practice only fell into disuse in recent generations, but was also certain to have taken place in residential schools.
Simply put, the residential schools and the reserve schools were not perfect, but they served a useful purpose as evidenced by students who became physicians, lawyers, teachers, authors, politicians, and professional musicians, artists, and actors.
The Mass Graves Fallacy
On May 27, 2021, Canada made the international spotlight when Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc band in Kamloops, BC issued a press release stating that the remains of 215 children had been “found” buried on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. However, no such “remains”, “bodies”, “graves”, or “mass graves” had been found there. Not one. Because of Casimir’s claim, $8 million was given to the band by the federal government. No one knows what became of the money. What is known, however, is that, to date, not one body or mass grave has been excavated or confirmed.
Despite that, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government continues to support the outrageous claims of abuse in residential schools. As recently as June 17, 2024, Trudeau spoke at an Aboriginal event and repeated the lie that “unmarked graves have been found”. There is simply no possibility that Trudeau did not know at that date that he was spreading misinformation. Trudeau continues to do so because it places the blame for the disastrous Aboriginal problems on the churches rather than on the government, which established and controlled the schools. By doing so, he seems to be pandering to those for whom Christianity, and especially the Roman Catholic Church are repugnant, because of their resistance to woke policies, such as transgenderism, abortion, and euthanasia. Trudeau’s incendiary comments have led to the vandalism and burning of over 100 churches in Canada. Trudeau described these crimes as “understandable”.
Report by Kimberly Murray, October 2024
The most recent example of the position that Aboriginals are victims of an immoral colonial past was made public in October 2024 in the “Final Report” by Kimberly Murray, the “Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools”. The report is a massive 1,710-page, three volume document. There is also a 285-page “Executive Summary”. Both the Summary and the “Final Report” contain distortions, half-truths, and political bias/assumptions that do nothing to further the cause of “truth” but everything to do with the embodiment and continued entrenchment of the grievance industry.
The purpose of this report seems to be to support the continuation of the grievance industry and to lobby for a future billion-dollar payout to the Aboriginal community. The report is sure to become the basis for further court challenges. It is a blueprint to restructure Canada so as to share national sovereignty with the Aboriginal elite who would retain their power and influence over government policies.
Established in June of 2022, in the wake of the “discoveries” of unmarked graves and burial sites at Kamloops, BC and other sites, the most damning aspect of the Independent Special Interlocutor project is that it is based upon a lie, since not one body or mass grave has been excavated and confirmed. It has been three and a half years since the May 2021 claim by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir, that “the remains of 215 children” had been “found”. Yet, no bodies have been found.
The “Final Report” also relies heavily on the multi-volume Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) 2015 Final Report and readily accepts everything in that highly questionable document.
Censorship is Not the Answer
There are many problematic aspects to Murray’s “Final Report”. However, the most problematic is a recommendation (which Murray calls “Sacred Obligation”) for more bureaucracy, together with censorship and the criminalization of speech. Specifically, in the “Obligations”, (Recommendations) 35 to 37, under the heading, “Fighting Denialism and Rewriting Canada’s History”, is the following:
- The federal government amend the Criminal Code, making it an offence to willfully promote hatred against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian Residential School System by misrepresenting facts relating to it.
This recommendation coincides nicely with NDP Leah Gazan’s (Winnipeg Centre) private member’s bill, Bill C–413, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (promotion of hatred against Indigenous peoples). As its name suggests, the bill amends the Criminal Code to create a new offence of willfully promoting hatred against Aboriginal peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada through statements communicated other than in private conversation.
Neither the “Final Report” nor Bill C–413 are concerned about identifying what “denying, downplaying or justifying” means – and of course, that is not the point of such legislative schemes which aim at chilling free speech and making the process of being charged the punishment, regardless of one’s legal vindication after a lengthy and costly legal ordeal.
The residential school issue has nothing to do with the truth, let alone reconciliation, and everything to do with the rewriting of Canadian history, in order to exert political power and control. Isn’t this exactly what the grievance industry accuses “white settlers” of having done?