May 27, 2021 brought grim news to Canadians: the remains of 215 children had been discovered at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School (on Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation lands in British Columbia).  This discovery, made possible by new ground penetrating radar technology, was followed by the discovery of another 751 remains on the Marieval Indian Residential School site in Saskatchewan.

Everyone was horrified by these discoveries.  I was profoundly sad, of course, but my overriding reaction was irritation that Canadians were shocked.  I wandered around the house muttering, where has everyone been, living under a rock?

For Indigenous survivors, their families and their communities, these gruesome discoveries confirmed what they had been telling us for a century.  An entire volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report in 2016 was devoted to the disappearance of thousands of children[1], and when I visited with residential school survivors across the country 20 years ago (on assignment for the Government of Canada), I heard over and over again about the children who went missing and about the unmarked graves where many were buried.  So, this heart-wrenching discovery should not have been a surprise.  The TRC documented 4,100 missing Indigenous children, but the estimates run much higher than that.  It’s staggering, really.  But we’re just now beginning to pay attention to this shameful, criminal legacy.

Better late than never, I suppose.

I often use the hashtag, #ReconciliationIsNotJustForGovernments.  But in the wake of these chilling discoveries, I’ve changed my hashtag to #Truth&ReconciliationIsNotJustforGovernments.  Because truth comes before reconciliation.  That’s why Truth precedes Reconciliation in the name of the Commission that delivered its final report just 5 years ago.

Maybe we’re all reeling these days because we’re just beginning to confront the truth of what residential schools were about: what they did to Indigenous children, to their families, to their communities and to their nations.[2]  And the truth hurts.  But there can be no real or lasting reconciliation without it.

Let’s begin by dispensing with the falsehood that nobody knew that children were dying in, or disappearing from residential schools.  This grim reality was known by government officials as early as the 1920s.  Dr. Peter Bryce, then chief health inspector for the Department of Indian Affairs told the Government plainly and repeatedly that its policies were killing Indigenous children, and he was pushed into early retirement for his efforts.  Undeterred, Bryce then published his own pamphlet entitled, The Story of a National Crime.  That was in 1922 (yes, you read that right – 99 years ago).

What was the government’s response to Dr. Bryce’s evidence?  Then deputy minister of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, replied: “It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages.  But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is being geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem.”[3] [my emphasis]

I don’t know about you, but as a Jew, the reference to final solutions makes my blood run cold.

To be clear, by “final solution” Campbell Scott did not mean the murder of Indigenous children.  He meant their complete assimilation into non-Indigenous society, hence the official objective “to kill the Indian in the child”.  If we want to understand residential schools, we need to begin by acknowledging that while the Canadian government may not have been aiming to kill Indigenous children, it was agnostic to the fact that they were dying.  That is a key truth, and you can find it documented in the TRC Report and numerous other places as well.

Sadly, most of us didn’t learn about this shameful and despicable part of Canadian history in school.  But today, with our easy access to information, we have no more excuses for not knowing.  And yet, our attention spans are short and we are at risk of tuning out.  Many more remains have been discovered since May, but the headlines are now gone.

September 30th will mark Canada’s very first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.  That would be a great day to pay attention.  And hopefully we won’t wait for September 30^th, 2022 to pay attention once again.  If you don’t want to read Volume 4 of the TRC Commission Report, I recommend a transformative book that you can digest in a single sitting: “21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act”, by Bob Joseph. You will never think about reconciliation with Indigenous peoples the same way again.

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Here are just a few resources for how we can participate in the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and how we can continue paying attention going forward:

• Reconciliation Canada

https://reconciliationcanada.ca/how-you-can-participate-in-truth-and-reconciliation/?fbclid=IwAR1Y_lpSTXBccj0XZ8DQxuG0UHIGO_E_d5mGNGVcqxEDEIPiNqOp3OtZ_Rw

• Government of Canada

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html

• CBC

https://www.cbc.ca/life/culture/ways-to-participate-in-the-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation-1.6192414

• The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs

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[1] The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, Volume 4.

[2] Recent news is about the deaths of Indigenous children in residential schools, but let’s not forget the physical, sexual and emotional abuse perpetrated against many thousands of students, and the ongoing toll those horrors have taken.

[3] Department of Indian Affairs Superintendent D.C. Scott to B.C. Indian Agent-General Major D. McKay, DIA Archives, RG 1-Series 12 April 1910.