Kamloops residential school 'graves' could have been septic pipes all along

[CdnFox]

Kamloops residential school 'graves' may actually be septic pipes | National Post

Well. How about that. 

The more time passes, the more this story unravels. They now definitively ruled out a number of the grades as being from past archaeological digs, and now it turns out that these supposed graves line up with a septic system that was put in at a roundabout the same time as these children were supposedly buried. And still not a body has been found. Experts in the industry say that it is quite possible given the information that the disturbances were related to the septic system.

There is still the possibility that some or all of the remaining ones in both child graves but it's looking less and less likely and there are more and more other explanations.

I am certain without a doubt that whether these particular graves are actual graves or not, a lot of native children were buried at residential schools. They were also churches after all, and most of the children, the vast majority, died from tuberculosis and bodies cannot be moved safely (they remain contagious long after death). 

But this particular nonsense has been absolutely breathtaking. 

They demanded there were hundreds of bodies. THat is quickly turning out to be false, at this point it's questionable if there's ANY bodies. 

They demanded that all of those children were either murdered or neglected to death, there is no indication of children dying suspiciously there at all so even if there were graves they might well be natural deaths during the time of tuberculosis, which claimed tens of thousands of children across canada. 

They made a motion in pariament that anyone who dared disagree with the idea there were bodies there should be guilty of a crime. 

THe gov't and the media spent months going on about how we're all a bunch of genocidal maniacs. 

And now  ....  it all may have been over some SEWER PIPES?!?!?!

[West]

This, sadly, was used as an excuse to burn down and harass church goers. 

Now the Indians are trying to make questioning and asking for proof of heinous crimes illegal. 

[CdnFox]

And the church burnings are still going on

[CdnFox]

Five years after Kamloops, the church burnings haven't stopped | National Post

[John Stone]

................ slavery in the U.S. was greatly exaggerated as well. 😧

"They' have an axe to grind - who could blame them. 

Edited May 28 by John Stone

[paxamericana]

31 minutes ago, John Stone said:

slavery

It’s an economic system. Not a moral bludgeon.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

................ slavery in the U.S. was greatly exaggerated as well. 😧

"They' have an axe to grind - who could blame them. 

well.......................... 100 years ago, no one i would say. 

But at this point, 150 years or so past the date of the last slave, they have no axe to grind and claiming they do can get them LOTS of blame. 

that isn't to say there aren't racism vestiges that need to be addressed but slavery? Not only is there no one in living memory who ever met a slave, there's likely no one in living memory who's met someone who in their living memory did. That's way past the time they get to make a personal claim about it. 

[eyeball]

5 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Not only is there no one in living memory who ever met a slave, there's likely no one in living memory who's met someone who in their living memory did. That's way past the time they get to make a personal claim about it. 

You would not believe the kerfuffle I caused when I assigned the descendant of a family who were slaves to run a crew with a hereditary chief that descended from the family that enslaved them.

 

[CdnFox]

51 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You would not believe the kerfuffle I caused when I assigned the descendant of a family who were slaves to run a crew with a hereditary chief that descended from the family that enslaved them.

 

I believe it. It's common for the week-minded to take up causes that didn't happen to them and internalize them as if they did. My family is Irish on one side and Mennonite Ukranian on the other.  The irish were treated horribly.  The russians slaughered my family on the other side.  Guess how much time i spend being mad at russians or the english in canada? 

But there are always those who think "I was told that 200 years ago something bad happened to someone who may have been related to me so it's the same as if it happened to me yesterday

[Legato]

42 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I believe it. It's common for the week-minded to take up causes that didn't happen to them and internalize them as if they did. My family is Irish on one side and Mennonite Ukranian on the other.  The irish were treated horribly.  The russians slaughered my family on the other side.  Guess how much time i spend being mad at russians or the english in canada? 

But there are always those who think "I was told that 200 years ago something bad happened to someone who may have been related to me so it's the same as if it happened to me yesterday

My family history has been traced back to the Scandinavian region.

Now I know why people get mad when I run off with their daughters.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Legato said:

My family history has been traced back to the Scandinavian region.

Now I know why people get mad when I run off with their daughters.

[John Stone]

18 hours ago, CdnFox said:

well.......................... 100 years ago, no one i would say. 

But at this point, 150 years or so past the date of the last slave, they have no axe to grind and claiming they do can get them LOTS of blame. 

that isn't to say there aren't racism vestiges that need to be addressed but slavery? Not only is there no one in living memory who ever met a slave, there's likely no one in living memory who's met someone who in their living memory did. That's way past the time they get to make a personal claim about it. 

Well, Trump is actively attempting a fool's errand in attempting to rewrite history...... on many issues. 

Black history is an integral p/o U.S. history.

Slavery was the contentious issue leading to the Civil War. 

Suppose I should mention Jim Crow and the Civil Rights act of  1964, enacted to end systemic discrimination and segregation in the U.S. - the Civil Rights act targeted Jim Crow.  

Many U.S. citizens, still  alive, endured Jim Crow. 

The Canadian Indians were crucial to the  Canadian fur trade and essential  during the French and Indian wars during the 18th century. Suppose the Metis should be mentioned.  

However, the Canadian indigenous didn't achieve the political impact of the U.S. blacks - until recently, they were invisible to the Canadian (white) politicians. Some have argued that the U.S. blacks are akin to the white man in terms of desire, education, ambition? 

 

............... civil rights protest .......1964. 

Yeah, Trump is on a fool's errand ........... but then again, Trump only sees himself as representing a minority of Americans. 

There is NO question that the Indian Residential Schools were cultural genocide. 

Sanctioned by the Canadian Government and honed by the church. 

Forget it? 

Ah, no ............... far too political and getting more so.  

 

 

Edited Friday at 12:57 PM by John Stone

[Barquentine]

On 5/27/2026 at 2:29 PM, CdnFox said:

And still not a body has been found.

Of course the only way to know is to dig. And a lot of the holes will reveal nothing. But some will. And I agree this issue is being used for political reasons. But the bigger point is why and how those kids were there in the first place. 

I suggest the government take your kids without your informed consent, take them to a school you have no access to, tell them they can't speak English, and when they die from Covid, measles, TB or whatever, bury them in an unmarked grave and don't tell you shit about them.

It happened.

[Michael Hardner]

43 minutes ago, Barquentine said:

Of course the only way to know is to dig. And a lot of the holes will reveal nothing. But some will. And I agree this issue is being used for political reasons. But the bigger point is why and how those kids were there in the first place. 

I suggest the government take your kids without your informed consent, take them to a school you have no access to, tell them they can't speak English, and when they die from Covid, measles, TB or whatever, bury them in an unmarked grave and don't tell you shit about them.

It happened.

Indeed it did, and maybe the current question is how do we handle it as a country ?

I think that that band jumped to conclusions, from what I understand, and did their cause a disservice.  Further to that, people who jump in to defend them should, I believe, not be reluctant to agree that they were incorrect on the facts.  Because part of this is verifying the facts, and egregious mistakes have to be dealt with.

Then what ?

We can forgive mistakes, and we should.  And we should ask what these conversations are about.  Being sorry, for sure, is something we can do but we can also frame such things and we have done so.  Remembrance Day, Truth and Reconciliation Day, and unofficial public commemorations of various kinds do this - so we know how to do it.

What isn't helpful is blaming "groups" for mistakes of some members, as well as the opposite of this: pretending that an uncaring majority wasn't complicit in allowing things to happen.  And for Residential Schools, let's be honest - the "progressives" of that day made the biggest mistakes.

I would say the message is of human caring, humility and promising to do better but not blaming, chest beating and signalling virtue over opposing political teams.

Quoting @August1991 for the umpteenth time: we get along.

[Nationalist]

This horseshit again?

Canastan is a lost country. Its run by both east and west injuns and green-haired 1diots.

"ELBOWS UP"...m0rons...

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

Well, Trump is actively attempting a fool's errand in attempting to rewrite history...... on many issues. 

That's your opinion. And I'm not saying it's accurate or inaccurate, but history tends to be interpreted differently depending on the Observer.

The left for example has made many attempts to rewrite history.  The 1619 project for example. 

But that's not really relevant.  The issue at hand is whether or not people today have a right to anger and outrage on a personal level over events that happened almost 2 centuries ago. 

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

Black history is an integral p/o U.S. history.

Sure. So is white history. In fact so is european history as it lead up to the colonization and to a degree asian history as that's where the first nations people originated. 

But none of that means that someone living in america today has any right to be mad on any kind of personal level about what happened to someone 200 years ago. 

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

Slavery was the contentious issue leading to the Civil War. 

Soooort of kind of.  What lead to civil war was the question of who gets to make the laws and whether the states were run by the federal gov't.  Slavery was the largest (but not only) irritant in that process. But it would be revisionist history to say that the war was all about slavery.  

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

Suppose I should mention Jim Crow and the Civil Rights act of  1964,

Why? Neither has anything to do with slavery. 

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

The Canadian Indians were crucial to the  Canadian fur trade and essential  during the French and Indian wars during the 18th century. Suppose the Metis should be mentioned.  

uhhhhhh........why? They have absolutely nothing to do with 'slavery'.  I mean....  sure the first nations kept slaves and traded women like chattel but i feel that's moving off topic.  We were discussing slavery in the states, not among the first nations. 

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

There is NO question that the Indian Residential Schools were cultural genocide. 

Complete and 100 percent utter bullshit.  Remember  they were DEMANDED by the first nations under treaty. And initially they were the cheapest and easiest way to appease that first nations demand which the king insisted on as part of founding canada as a nation. They were also completely voluntary (until a lib gov't much later changed that).  

they were in no way shape or form cultural genocide. Again that's revisionist history let's put forward by people with an agenda and ignores the truth and well documented sources of the day.

The crown and the new country of Canada both wanted to make sure that first nations people had the skills to live in the modern age but they in no way shape or form moved to wipe out first nations themselves or their culture. Their goal, as misguided as it was, was to create people who knew how to behave in modern society but still had their own culture and nation And therefore could choose to live in whatever world they wanted

It was a fool's idea, but they had no way of knowing that at the time. It's crystal clear if you read the Hansard of the day and the comments by Johnny in their entirety that it was not their goal and first nations culture and if it was they would have had no problem doing so

And again none of this has anything to do with slavery

2 hours ago, John Stone said:

Ah, no ............... far too political and getting more so.  

Sure. A lot of people get rich selling the religion of the victim. They're not going to give that up anytime soon

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

Of course the only way to know is to dig.

Sure. Which is why I find it odd that they haven't. And yet they have proposed that anybody who speaks out against it should be treated as a criminal and that law should be passed supporting that. This is where I begin to have a problem

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

And a lot of the holes will reveal nothing. But some will.

We don't know that. As I mentioned earlier I would expect it because residential schools were also churches for the most part and with the tuberculosis crisis tens of thousands of children died across the country and it would be weird if none ever died there and were buried there. But at the end of the day it's entirely possible that no children are buried there

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

 

And I agree this issue is being used for political reasons. But the bigger point is why and how those kids were there in the first place. 

I don't really feel like that's a bigger issue. If that legitimately was the issue they would start digging, they would find remains, and we would be able to determine likely causes of death. But what we do know with certainty is that there were many many children who were reported dead at the schools and somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of all of the deaths were due to tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis was killing children all across the country and including my own family who lost children to tuberculosis in those days. And it is worse noting that first nations people for whatever reason are vastly more susceptible to tuberculosis than other races. Even today they contract tuberculosis at a rate 40 times higher than other groups

Of the remaining children who died from something other than tuberculosis, the vast majority died from influenza.

The remaining handful died from accident, other illnesses, etc. But at the time all of the deaths were recorded, it's not like children died and nobody wrote anything down.

It's a sad fact that the records regarding this as well as many other records were purged by the government to save space some time ago and it is truly unfortunate that these kids and many other people by the way were buried with simple wooden crosses that of course rotted away over time. But that doesn't indicate anything nefarious

There is really no reason or evidence whatsoever to suggest that these children came to an end that was in any way shape or form unlawful or inappropriate. If there were any such cases they were extremely rare

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

I suggest the government take your kids without your informed consent, take them to a school you have no access to, tell them they can't speak English, and when they die from Covid, measles, TB or whatever, bury them in an unmarked grave and don't tell you shit about them.

That never happened to the first nations. I understand that that's the narrative but the reality is that is absolutely not what happened

The vast majority of the time the first nations attendance at residential schools was optional. They're only a handful of decades where it wasn't the case and by the way it was the liberals that brought that in. Initially under John a attendance was completely optional

The parents absolutely had access to the schools. In addition the children were allowed and even encouraged to return home for the summers. They did not live at the school year round unless the parents wanted them to stay or they had no family.

Any of the residential schools openly encouraged local bands to visit and share with the children. In fact the residential school closest to where I live was famous for inviting the elders of neighboring bands to come regularly to talk with the kids about their culture and teach them cultural issues. By the way when I grew up and attended Elementary School First Nation studies was taught by the local first nations chief.

Further mandatory attendance at school was inflicted upon more than just the first nations. And there was huge outcry and even minor riots from other groups including my own family who found their children forced to attend schools and learning the language and history and customs of the English rather than their own schools.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the world is not the way that the first nations advocates with a political agenda today portray it

 

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

It happened.

It never did the way that you say. Sorry

[Goddess]

The idea that the residential schools were little more than gas chambers for indigenous children is false.

15 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

The parents absolutely had access to the schools. In addition the children were allowed and even encouraged to return home for the summers. They did not live at the school year round unless the parents wanted them to stay or they had no family.

June 14, 1939

"Parents of pupils in residence at the school in many cases travelled considerable distances to be present for the occasion. Following the program parents visited their children, and a number inspected the school buildings."

April 6, 1927 - Letter from Chief Jimmie Antoine to Indian Affairs

"We desire your immediate consideration towards the education for our children. . ." "Our Indian children should have at least a primary education. "

July 23, 1924 - letter to Principal of Kamloops Residential School

"I am very pleased to note the good spirit that obtains between the pupils and staff of the Kamloops Indian Residential School."

"I note also that the parents cooperate and how their good will and that the pupils both boys and girls, take an active interest in their work."

October 1921 - Indian Agents Report - Kamloops Industrial School

Number on roll = 68

Is Register properly Kept = Yes

Cleanliness of pupils = Good

Cleanliness of School = Very good

A primary reason for unique student numbers was to control funding.

Schools received funding on a per capita basis. The Indian agent was required to audit the schools for student count, to verify funding.

School population was audited, and missing children would be noticed.

It's claimed children as young as 3 were found in the burials, yet GPR cannot determine age, only excavation can.

Residential School minimum age was 7 years old, but if special circumstances were granted, younger children would still receive a registration number for accounting.

A reason given for suspected burials of children is due to the shallow depth of the GPR readings at approx 0.8 meters.

The 1926 septic lines were buried at approx 1.06m. 100 years of frost upheaval and spring freshet would easily move those lines up closer to surface.

Expert GPR Testimony from the US Dept of Justice warns that buried infrastructure like sewage pipes, can produce false positives of burials, when searching with GPR.

Link:  Detecting Buried Remains Using Ground-Penetrating Radar

Sewage work in the anomaly area didn't stop in 1926.

There is documented evidence of sewage work in the area of anomalies during;

• 1930
• 1932
• 1937
• 1938
• 1939
• 1948

Indigenous labour from the Kamloops Reserve, was employed in the same ground where children are said to be buried.

It wasn't just sewage work that would have disturbed the anomaly area.

In the pic you can view that a sewage lagoon was built after 1948.

At over 2 acres and 3 feet deep that is 1,000 truck loads of dirt moved in an around the area of anomalies reported to contain 200 children.

The Tk'emlúps Museum sits directly beside the GPR anomaly zone. A three story building requires foundation excavation, parking lot construction, utilities, and a sewage connection running through the same ground.

No remains of children reported during construction.

Other suspected burials at Residential Schools have been located using GPR In New Westminster, suspected burials were found using GPR, and in 6 days the excavation was done, and only debris of stumps, boulders, pipes, etc was found.

Activists went to The Hague to file Human Rights claims, and the International Criminal Court, after looking at the evidence, refused the case.

 

 

[Goddess]

Via Reclamare:

The story that changed the script for me was reading about this Indigenous child who died in 1935.

The indigenous parents filed a complaint, and rightly so. They were not happy with the investigation, and the Minister in Ottawa and the Indian Agent moved on that, they didn't ignore it, they didn't tell the Indians to get lost, they ordered the RCMP to investigate. The RCMP interviewed people involved, but also Indigenous students, friends of the child who died.

Everyone's story collaborated the info from the school. This doesn't make it ok. The parents were 100% justified to ask questions and receive extra effort and due diligence to uncover all possibilities.

But seeing this done in 1935, this is not what my government has told me about how Indigenous were treated. This is not what indigenous have told me either. Surely many bad things happened at Residential Schools, but I've not seen evidence in the archives that Canada were genocidal towards Indigenous.

In an 1935 context, I've seen the opposite, continually.

The first letter is from the Indian Agent to what appears the Minister of Indian Affairs in Ottawa A summary of the tragic events is provided In winter in 1935, at -36C, and three boys ran away from school, but one never made it home.

The Indian boy was a student at the Residential School, but died in an unfortunate accident outside of the school. The RCMP investigated. The Corner investigated. Time and energy was spent, in 1935. The young Indian boy's death was not ignored.

The boys were 13-15 years old. We consider that young today. But in 1935, it was working age, and they were young men The boys wan away from school on Jan 13th. A truant letter was filed on Jan 14. But one of the boys was not at home on reserve. And a search was commenced.

And its noted by the Indian agent that the Indian parents on Reserve were (obviously) upset. And they agent was empathetic and questioned the School Principal why he waited one day to call for missing children.

 

The Principal said he waited one additional day before raising the alarm because the boys were old enough to be responsible for themselves, and had no reason to believe they wouldn't make it home.

But this wasn't good enough for the Indians on Reserve, which is 100% understandable and fair. So in 1935, they hired a lawyer to demand a better investigation. And they got it In 1935, Indians were not ignored.

The RCMP conducted a full investigation, and the boys affidavits is here. They correlate the story, and say they had no idea why their friend didn't make it home, he really should have.

The Indian boys were questioned and give testimony that it was a tragic accident.

The RCMP provide a summary report of their work. They investigated various aspects and conclude it was a tragic accident.

Canada's Minister of Justice reviews the files and provides his comments of the events, and also concludes it was a tragic accident. It was his response to the request for a Judicial Inquiry into the events of a single Indian boy's death, in 1935.

The Indian parents/Reserve was rightly upset about their boy.

Corner investigated. Indian agent investigated. RCMP Investigated. Minister of Indian Affairs was involved. Minister of Justice was involved.

For an accidental death of a young Indian boy, in 1935.

Settlers did care.

 

[Goddess]

The Kamloops school was attended by Leonard Marchand, Canada's first status Indian Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister.

Marchand also attended a school reunion in the late 1970s along with hundreds of others.

None of them mentioned mass graves.

[Goddess]

32 former students of Kamloops Residential School were interviewed for "Behind Closed Doors," covering experiences from 1920 to 1960.

Not one mentioned burials or graves at the school.

Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School: Revised Edition | discoverygarden

[CdnFox]

23 minutes ago, Goddess said:

Via Reclamare:

The story that changed the script for me was reading about this Indigenous child who died in 1935.

The indigenous parents filed a complaint, and rightly so. They were not happy with the investigation, and the Minister in Ottawa and the Indian Agent moved on that, they didn't ignore it, they didn't tell the Indians to get lost, they ordered the RCMP to investigate. The RCMP interviewed people involved, but also Indigenous students, friends of the child who died.

Everyone's story collaborated the info from the school. This doesn't make it ok. The parents were 100% justified to ask questions and receive extra effort and due diligence to uncover all possibilities.

But seeing this done in 1935, this is not what my government has told me about how Indigenous were treated. This is not what indigenous have told me either. Surely many bad things happened at Residential Schools, but I've not seen evidence in the archives that Canada were genocidal towards Indigenous.

In an 1935 context, I've seen the opposite, continually.

The first letter is from the Indian Agent to what appears the Minister of Indian Affairs in Ottawa A summary of the tragic events is provided In winter in 1935, at -36C, and three boys ran away from school, but one never made it home.

The Indian boy was a student at the Residential School, but died in an unfortunate accident outside of the school. The RCMP investigated. The Corner investigated. Time and energy was spent, in 1935. The young Indian boy's death was not ignored.

The boys were 13-15 years old. We consider that young today. But in 1935, it was working age, and they were young men The boys wan away from school on Jan 13th. A truant letter was filed on Jan 14. But one of the boys was not at home on reserve. And a search was commenced.

And its noted by the Indian agent that the Indian parents on Reserve were (obviously) upset. And they agent was empathetic and questioned the School Principal why he waited one day to call for missing children.

 

The Principal said he waited one additional day before raising the alarm because the boys were old enough to be responsible for themselves, and had no reason to believe they wouldn't make it home.

But this wasn't good enough for the Indians on Reserve, which is 100% understandable and fair. So in 1935, they hired a lawyer to demand a better investigation. And they got it In 1935, Indians were not ignored.

The RCMP conducted a full investigation, and the boys affidavits is here. They correlate the story, and say they had no idea why their friend didn't make it home, he really should have.

The Indian boys were questioned and give testimony that it was a tragic accident.

The RCMP provide a summary report of their work. They investigated various aspects and conclude it was a tragic accident.

Canada's Minister of Justice reviews the files and provides his comments of the events, and also concludes it was a tragic accident. It was his response to the request for a Judicial Inquiry into the events of a single Indian boy's death, in 1935.

The Indian parents/Reserve was rightly upset about their boy.

Corner investigated. Indian agent investigated. RCMP Investigated. Minister of Indian Affairs was involved. Minister of Justice was involved.

For an accidental death of a young Indian boy, in 1935.

Settlers did care.

 

If only you had some evidence to back up your claims.... 

-Everyone on the left 

BWAAAHAHHAHAHA  

 

Joking aside I think it is important that we acknowledge that there were problems schools, abuses did happen and let's face it they happened at christian run orphanages and still happen today at regular schools. Every year there are numerous stories of inappropriate teacher student interactions and that's with today's monitoring and culture

I think it's also worth mentioning that the medical experiments involving starving or deliberately allowing children to be malnourished did indeed happen in the 40s and 50s in Saskatchewan. And they did so specifically with government approval, this wasn't hidden.

So in the approximately 100 year history of residential schools there are legitimate things that we can point to and say we're terrible.

But the vast vast majority of the statements we see today about how all of the children suffered and they were locked up and treated horribly and all gang raped systematically is just simply not true. 

[Goddess]

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

So in the approximately 100 year history of residential schools there are legitimate things that we can point to and say we're terrible.

Absolutely.  None of this denies that terrible things did happen.  Historically, it has happened in pretty much every institution that has interactions with children.  Think: "Catholic Church" scandal.  Every daycare scandal.

[Goddess]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

Tuberculosis was killing children all across the country and including my own family who lost children to tuberculosis in those days. And it is worse noting that first nations people for whatever reason are vastly more susceptible to tuberculosis than other races. Even today they contract tuberculosis at a rate 40 times higher than other groups

Nov 27, 1933 

An examination of 1,091 students at 10 Residential Schools found that 140 students had evidence of Tuberculosis symptoms.

If a child died from TB, and many did, every parent's Oral History will say the school killed their child, but that's not accurate.

Reclamare has a thread where he looks at actual death records of the students there 1935-1945.  Here:

 

 

 

This 1934 letter details Indian Affairs ensuring they had enough dairy cattle, barns, and bulls, to provide each student over 2 quarts of fresh milk every day.

[West]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Indeed it did, and maybe the current question is how do we handle it as a country ?

I think that that band jumped to conclusions, from what I understand, and did their cause a disservice.  Further to that, people who jump in to defend them should, I believe, not be reluctant to agree that they were incorrect on the facts.  Because part of this is verifying the facts, and egregious mistakes have to be dealt with.

Then what ?

We can forgive mistakes, and we should.  And we should ask what these conversations are about.  Being sorry, for sure, is something we can do but we can also frame such things and we have done so.  Remembrance Day, Truth and Reconciliation Day, and unofficial public commemorations of various kinds do this - so we know how to do it.

What isn't helpful is blaming "groups" for mistakes of some members, as well as the opposite of this: pretending that an uncaring majority wasn't complicit in allowing things to happen.  And for Residential Schools, let's be honest - the "progressives" of that day made the biggest mistakes.

I would say the message is of human caring, humility and promising to do better but not blaming, chest beating and signalling virtue over opposing political teams.

Quoting @August1991 for the umpteenth time: we get along.

Only after the church arsons and the politicians who stoked hate crimes against Christians are put in prison