Some weeks ago History Reclaimed, like other journals and websites, learnt (or so we thought) that the Canadian government was winding down its involvement in the search for evidence of mass death visited upon native pupils in Canada’s network of Christian residential schools, some of which were founded in the nineteenth century. But sadly, we were misinformed. Professor Hymie Rubenstein, who has led in criticism of this recent, drastic episode in Canadian public life, has kindly written an update on the situation for readers of History Reclaimed. We are grateful to Professor Rubinstein for putting us right, though dismayed that this destructive and divisive episode has not come to an end.
The 2015 Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) claimed it had identified 3,201 confirmed deaths of children who attended the country’s government-supported Indian Residential Schools between 1867 and 2000, adding that the actual total was likely far higher.
Currently, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), the ad hoc successor to the TRC, has increased this number to 4,140 deaths as part of its work to create a national death register.
Meanwhile, the late Murray Sinclair, former chief commissioner of the TRC, in 2022surmised, with no supporting evidence, that the actual number of disappeared children may total 25,000, or one in six students who ever attended an IRS school.
Each of these figures is highly questionable. So is the related claim that thousands of indigenous children lie in unmarked mass or individual graves next to their schools.
Volume 4 of the Final Report – Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials – lists 423 named and 409 unnamed children who died on school property between 1867 and 2000. The rest died elsewhere, often of causes unrelated to their residential school attendance. The recognition “that the possibility exists that some of the deaths recorded in the Named Register might also be included in the Unnamed Register” is only fleetingly mentioned. This likely resulted in their being counted twice.
The TRC even admitted that “The term missing children in this context includes both those who died at school and those whose fate after enrolment was unknown, at least to their parents. This could include, for example, students who might have run away to urban centres and never contacted their home community again, students who never returned to their home communities after leaving school, students who became ill at school and were transferred to a hospital or sanatorium and died there (possibly several years later) without parents being informed, or students who were transferred to other institutions such as reformatories or foster homes and never returned home.” (italics in the original)
Why loving parents would not have searched for their “missing children” night and day until they were found suggests that these children were simply forgotten over time.
Conversely, of the additional 939 names added by the NCTR since 2015, some were submitted by family members who wanted their loved ones memorialized as having attended an IRS, regardless of whether they were ever missing.
Moreover, on March 10, 2022, in an email from Jesse Boiteau, senior NCTR archivist, one of those who have questioned the inclusion of the memorialization of individuals who either never attended a residential school or died years after their last attendance was told that:
The Memorial Register is the result of over a decade of work by countless people and honours the children lost to the residential schools. Many names are added at the request of family members of children they lost who attended residential school. It may be the wish of these families to memorialize their lost children among the names of their schoolmates. This memorial registry is one meant to help Survivors (whose friends were lost) and families (whose children were lost) honour their loss and find peace to move forward…. As we are continuing our efforts on residential school research and helping Survivors and their families to heal, we will not be replying to further questions on the registry.
The refusal of the NCTR to be accountable to the public by archiving all its documents and materials produced “in a manner that will ensure their preservation and accessibility to the public,” as legally required by Schedule N of the IRS Settlement Agreement, is disconcerting to say the least. Equally troubling is the possibility that the Centre has not carefully vetted the names in their memorial register.
The claim that these 3,201 (or 4,140) named and unnamed persons are missing children buried in unmarked graves has also been disputed in meticulous research done by many objective academics and other professionals that can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
In particular, this research has revealed that apart from known indigenous cemeteries whose simple wooden crosses would have disintegrated in a few years, no remains of missing IRS students, suspicious or otherwise, have ever been found. This work has also shown that funding agreements with Ottawa required the deaths of IRS students both on school grounds and elsewhere to be carefully recorded. These records have been carefully stored in various government and church archives.
All this is the backstory to what several observers have seen as a sign that “The ‘Mass Graves’ Hoax Is Officially Dead, And No One Will Be Held Accountable.” This is
because they believe that the government of Canada has just stopped all funding the investigation of “missing children buried in unmarked graves.”
According to popular podcaster Matt Walsh:
Canada’s government, along with the country’s state media, has been advancing an extraordinary claim as if it’s the truth. They have said again and again that unmarked mass graves have been found at Canada’s residential schools ….
In other words, for years the dominant narrative in Canada has been that Christian schools were so horrific that Indian children died all the time, or were systematically killed, and then just tossed in unmarked graves when they expired. Therefore, Canadians were told that Canada is a genocidal state, and that Christianity is a genocidal religion.
But instead of admitting they were wrong, Canada’s government is, of course, taking the dishonourable approach. They are slowly slinking away like the cowards they are.
The Canadian government is now rolling back its financial investments in this deranged and destructive lie. For all intents and purposes, the residential schools’ hoax is finally dead.
Other commentators have made similar though less inflammatory claims in History Reclaimed, Counter Signal, Canada Free Press, Daily Wire, Juno News, and National Review.
Not surprisingly, the only media house that got the story right was Canada’s government-owned public broadcaster, the CBC, which has a significant “woke” stake in keeping the “missing children buried in unmarked graves” story alive.
Contrary to the assertions of Walsh and others, although the Kamloops alleged burials and their many copycats across the land have been challenged because they lack any physical or historical evidence, the funding spigot is far from turned off, as shown on the federal government and other websites found here.
In particular, although funding for the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials has been terminated, all but one other revenue source remains intact.
The other exception is the Survivors’ Secretariat, a non-profit organization in Brantford, Ontario, leading efforts to investigate the Mohawk Institution, Canada’s oldest and longest-running residential school.
Between 2021-22 and 2023-24, the Mohawk Survivors’ Secretariat received about $10.3 million from the RSMCCSF but has revealed nothing to the public about its findings.
As for the original $321 million Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund (RSMCCSF) funding source, it was restored on August 24, 2024, “… in direct response to concerns and feedback received from Indigenous leaders and communities.”
In a recent written statement to CBC News, Pascal Laplante, a spokesperson for the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations, said responding to the TRC’s calls to action is “incredibly important.”
Laplante said communities would continue to receive funding through the massive RSMCCSF “as they pursue efforts to identify children who did not return home from residential schools.”
What all this means is that this hoax is the furthest thing from “officially dead.”
Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
