Trudeau vows help after Indigenous kids' unmarked graves found, but offers no details

[Argus]

People are so ignorant about our history. about all history, really. And so they read the breathless accounts of 'mass graves' which suggest some horrific slaughter and are appalled. But that's not what has been found here. What was found were unmarked graves. And you will find the same anywhere there were institutions like this, be they natives or not. Similar such graves have been found in the UK, Ireland, Scotland and the US, as well as Canada. Orphanages, except those in big cities, all had them, as did homes for unwed mothers, prisons and mental institutions.

People don't realize how poor Canada was when this school went into operation. If you've ever been in an old house, a hundred years old, in the winter, and thought about how drafty it was, well, that was where the better off lived. Except there was no furnace or boiler back then. Most people had very substandard housing which was cold as hell in winter, shacks and cabins with little or no insultation. And most people scrambled to get enough to eat. And if they didn't, no one cared. The very concept of government taking care of people hadn't even occurred to anyone yet. There were no social services and if you didn't have money you didn't get a doctor either.

As a result, waves of deaths swept the country every year from Tuberculosis, Scarlet Fever, Measles, and even Influenza. A third of Canadian children died before their tenth birthday. So yeah, in a very large school which operated for a very long time in a rural area you're going to find graves. Kamloops was a tiny fort and railhead back then. Even up to 1950 the population was under 2,000. So when a child died, it was buried there. The government didn't think it could afford to ship the bodies home. And likely didn't care anyway. Government rarely cared about poor people and they didn't come any poorer than natives.

I'm sure they'll wind up exhuming the bodies and they'll find all or virtually all died of various diseases. Just like the kids in orphanages etc. This is no different than you'd find at similar institutions anywhere in the world that date from that time. So no, this isn't some kind of horrible crime of mass murder, just how the world was back then. Nor was it racism, just the callousness of government. Hell, look up the Duplessis orphans some time and see how cold and callous government can be to white kids. They were wrongfully transferred to psychiatric hospitals because the feds paid more for mental patients, and then the Quebec government let the CIA do mind control experiments on many of them. And that was in the 1950s! Some of them are buried in unmarked graves too.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Argus

[Yzermandius19]

oh look

it's one of the volk now

right on cue

making many of the same excuses for these residential schools

that the Nazi holocaust deniers used for their concentration camps

quelle surprise

Edited June 2, 2021 by Yzermandius19

[Dougie93]

4 minutes ago, Yzermandius19 said:

oh look

it's one of the volk now

right on cue

making many of the same excuses for these residential schools

that the Nazi holocaust deniers used for their concentration camps

quelle surprise

the internalizing of Canada as a nation other than the agreement of 1763

as if "Canada" was a people, as if "Canada" was an ethnicity

the need to defend Canada as if it was your familial relation rather than just a legal construct

that is the Volk incarnate, Canada uber alles

 

[Argus]

44 minutes ago, Yzermandius19 said:

oh look

it's one of the volk now

right on cue

making many of the same excuses for these residential schools

that the Nazi holocaust deniers used for their concentration camps

quelle surprise

Ah, what's the matter lil snowflake? Did my introducing context disturb your weeping sense of noble humility and shame? Did the facts get in the way of your narrative about how evil and brutal white Canada was towards the poor natives? Did I introduce information which outraged your close-minded woke sensibilities? Do you need a safe space to stand in trembling anxiety lest more contradictory facts frighten you?

[Yzermandius19]

9 minutes ago, Argus said:

Ah, what's the matter lil snowflake? Did my introducing context disturb your weeping sense of noble humility and shame? Did the facts get in the way of your narrative about how evil and brutal white Canada was towards the poor natives? Did I introduce information which outraged your close-minded woke sensibilities? Do you need a safe space to stand in trembling anxiety lest more contradictory facts frighten you?

the post national state is your safe space

any historical context that disturbs your perception of the fake country

that you have built in your mind and personally identify with

results in you being revanchist against those who do so

to the point of making excuses for genocide

if it was carried out by the fake country

that you basically defend as if it was a family member

or even an extension of yourself

Edited June 2, 2021 by Yzermandius19

[Argus]

30 minutes ago, Yzermandius19 said:

the post national state is your safe space

any historical context that disturbs your perception of the fake country

that you have built in your mind and personally identify with

results in you being revanchist against those who do so

to the point of making excuses for genocide

if it was carried out by the fake country

that you basically defend as if it was a family member

or even an extension of yourself

You're not entirely sane, are you?

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, Yzermandius19 said:

if it was carried out by the fake country

notice how he invokes this fake country, it was a "poor" country

when in reality it was British Empire in 1890

the richest most powerful country on earth at the time, the global hegemon

[Dougie93]

part and parcel of the Canadian fake country is that somehow 1 July 1867 was Canada's "independence day"

it's completely ahistorical nonsense of course, that is Canadians fabricating an Americanized paradigm

all Canadian Confederation was at that point was to group the British colonies here into one big British colony

to the keep the Americans out,  in the wake of the Fenian Raids, in the face of the menacing Union Army

so in 1890 when this death camp was built, the country was Great Britain

which was in possession of 20% of the worlds economic wealth

almost twice the size of the second place economy, which was the United States of America

[Dougie93]

if a Canadian is want and/or feels the need to invoke an Americanized "Independence Day"

that would technically be the patriation of the constitution with the Royal Assent of the Canada Act

29 March 1982

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982

Edited June 2, 2021 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

as to the why the British Empire did this in 1890

as is often the case, the road to hell was paved with good intentions

this was Victorian Britain, seized with a hyper Protestant missionary impulse

the "problem" was that the Indians were "godless savages"

the "final solution" was to "civilize" them, to make them British

so to break the cycle of "savagery", the Indian children would be taken away from their parents to be indoctrinated

thus, the 1890's British Canadian concentration camps,  were in fact reeducation camps

[Dougie93]

so then the question becomes, if you think Canada is an independent sovereign country

which by law doesn't technically exist until 1982

why do you feel any responsibility for what the British Empire did in 1890 ?

if you insist that you are not British, then in fact you are not responsible for this

if you are like me, an Loyalist Orangeman of Upper Canada, British North American ?

okay, this is our fault, we did this

but if you don't actually believe you are British and think that "Canada" is a distinct nation unto itself ?

then you didn't do this, this is not something you have to take responsibility for

these children were not killed on your watch, this was Great Britain who ordered this

I will take the hit for you, I swore an oath to defend and uphold Victoria Regina Imperatrix, Pro Patria

so I did this, this was me, this is not on you, the de facto pseudo republican "Canadians"

it wasn't you, it was we, royal we

me & Lord Stanley of Preston, 16th Earl of Derby

VRI - Pro Patria

Edited June 2, 2021 by Dougie93

[OftenWrong]

26 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

then you didn't do this, this is not something you have to take responsibility for

Or maybe we do, if one could say Canada was built upon their dead bones.

[Dougie93]

3 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Or maybe we do, if one could say Canada was built upon their dead bones.

which Canada are you invoking tho ?

there is the Canada founded by the French, 22 June 1603

there is the Canada seized by the British as a war prize, 10 February 1763

there is the Canada which defined itself as "Canadian" by refusing to be overthrown by America, 13 October 1812

there is the grouping of all the British Imperial colonies here into one big colony, 1 July 1867

there is the ostensible "spiritual" founding of the "nation" at Vimy Ridge, 12 April 1917

there is the "patriation" of Canada as an Americanized pseudo republic, 29 March 1982

take your pick

[Argus]

30 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Or maybe we do, if one could say Canada was built upon their dead bones.

One could say every country on Earth was built on dead bones. The cruelty of the Roman empire was legendary,  unless you consider the Incas and Azteks. Then there was the Japanese, oh and the Chinese. The Spanish were pretty nasty people, and so were the British. The Dutch were horrible, but oh boy, look at what the Indians used to do! Not to mention the Germans and of course, the Arabs. Look up some of the cruelties and brutality the Huron and Iroquois inflicted on other tribes sometime, or take a gander at the slaughter in Africa between various tribes.

Canada was a land of choir boys by comparison.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Argus

[Dougie93]

so the Canada which can only define itself by comparing itself to other nations, is the 1917 Canada

prior to the Great War, Canadians were proudly British

after the military catastrophe from the Somme in 1916 to Passchendaele in 1917

Canadians were without an Empire for the first time, de facto at least, if not yet de jure

[Dougie93]

Canada's first ever act of independence

the first time Canada ever asserted her sovereignty from the Empire

was in September of 1922

there was a war scare, the British were on the brink of war with Turkey again

and for the first time ever, Canada said no to Britain

Canada said it was not at war just because the Empire was at war, and refused to send troops

so perhaps that was Canadian Independence Day, 15 September 1922

 

[Dougie93]

now Canada has upheld the British Imperial Indian Act to this very day

and Canada was running the British Imperial reeducation camps for Indians up until 1996

the question is, when does Canada assume responsibility from the British ?

the first time Canada ever even thought to disobey an order from Britain, was in 1922

the first time the British did not posses the Canadian constitution with the right to make law in Canada, was 1982

for the average Canadian today, how they conceive of Canada, the Canada is in command date is somewhere in there

 

[Dougie93]

now my family came here in 1757, we've been Loyalists all along

British to the bone, God save the Queen, Victoria Hanover Mother Canada,  Canadian Confederation is British

so we definitely gassed those Indians

but if you just fell off the cabbage truck, you came here from South Asia and got citizenship yesterday ?

what does this have to do with you ?

your Canada is not even a thing until 1982, and you don't really believe Elizabeth Windsor owns all the lands here

[Zeitgeist]

Not to burst your bubble of piling on against Canada and religious institutions, but infant and child mortality rates were much higher in the late 19th century and early 20th century than they are today.  Without antibiotics or the treatments of illnesses that are commonplace today, many children died, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, and many mothers died in childbirth.  You will find many more child graves in cemeteries from that era than you will find in recent graveyards.  That's not to say that many abuses didn't take place in residential schools.  However, corporal punishment that we consider abuse today was commonplace in all schools a century ago and even fifty years ago.  

Cultural genocide?  Perhaps in terms of a suppression of cultural traditions and languages, but the educators were English or French-speaking and the funding came from the taxpaying public, reflecting their values.  Was this a planned and systemic eradication of Indigenous cultures?  Well different schools had different practices.  If you immigrated to Canada and participated in publicly-funded education, that education would be in English or French and would reflect the cultural values of the dominant populations' cultures, English and French.  The Indigenous did not have an education system in the sense that we still expect today of a curriculum across subjects that every child attended daily, paid for by the larger society.  

Separating children from parents sounds terrible and it might have been very hard on very many families.  It shouldn't have been forced upon anyone.  However, living at the schools is hard to avoid if there are no local schools in remote communities.  We also still value the idea of mandatory education for children.  Not educating children is still seen widely as a form of neglect, so "forcing" children to attend school, especially in an older, harsher world where death and illness were much more commonplace, needs to be taken in context.

Put away the swastikas and hyperbolic slamming of Canada.  It's ridiculous. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Zeitgeist

[Yzermandius19]

you may value mandatory education

I do not

using that to justify and defend residential schools is what is ridiculous

not the obvious parallels between Nazi concentration camps/Soviet re-education camps and Canadian residential schools

[Dougie93]

stop pinning a swastika on the mass graves of children murdered in Canada's death camps

it's just a "cultural genocide",  volks, er I mean, folks

nothing to see here, move along, move along

Edited June 3, 2021 by Dougie93

[bush_cheney2004]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

... Not educating children is still seen widely as a form of neglect, so "forcing" children to attend school, especially in an older, harsher world where death and illness were much more commonplace, needs to be taken in context.

Put away the swastikas and hyperbolic slamming of Canada.  It's ridiculous. 

 

Then why weren't societal "norms" followed for the deaths of these children, including cause of death, certificates, return of remains to families, public reporting, etc.   If you insist that time and context must be considered, then why not these things too ?

 

Quote

...An official 1907 report into Manitoba Indian Residential Schools even included charts cataloguing pupils as either “good,” “sick” or “dead.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-graves-were-never-a-secret-why-so-many-residential-school-cemeteries-remain-unmarked

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by bush_cheney2004

[Zeitgeist]

10 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Then why weren't societal "norms" followed for the deaths of these children, including cause of death, certificates, return of remains to families, public reporting, etc.   If you insist that time and context must be considered, then why not these things too ?

 

 

I think it’s terrible treatment, but I also know that unmarked graves and lack of ceremony were not uncommon a century ago.  There should be a concerted, funded pursuit to identify each body, to determine cause of death, and to contact family members to honour family wishes.

There’s no good defence of residential schools from our current perspective.  At the time they were considered a progressive leg up to bring opportunity, and yes, assimilation to mainstream popular values.  It’s bad and too recent to simply be written off as another history of the vanquished.  Let’s just make sure that what happened is accurately characterized.

[bush_cheney2004]

9 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

I think it’s terrible treatment, but I also know that unmarked graves and lack of ceremony were not uncommon a century ago.  There should be a concerted, funded pursuit to identify each body, to determine cause of death, and to contact family members to honour family wishes.

 

The ironic part of this story is that there would be far less shock and outrage had basic standards been followed long ago, so that families would know and have closure.  The government & religious groups didn't want to spend the time or money to properly document these children's deaths or transport remains back to families.

Add to that the fact that the same government(s) and religious orders refuse to give up records for these students, because it could lead to even more liability and settlement costs.

 

Quote

There’s no good defence of residential schools from our current perspective.  At the time they were considered a progressive leg up to bring opportunity, and yes, assimilation to mainstream popular values.  It’s bad and too recent to simply be written off as another history of the vanquished.  Let’s just make sure that what happened is accurately characterized.

 

No worries...apologies cost a dime a dozen for this Liberal government, while they fight tooth and nail in settlement court.

[Zeitgeist]

13 hours ago, Yzermandius19 said:

you may value mandatory education

I do not

using that to justify and defend residential schools is what is ridiculous

not the obvious parallels between Nazi concentration camps/Soviet re-education camps and Canadian residential schools

Stop providing mandatory public education, watch illiteracy skyrocket and Canada become a country without engineers, doctors, etc.  Hitler did that in Poland.  It wasn’t popular.