(The following is an edited extract from the report, "Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust - The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada - A Summary of an Ongoing, Independent Inquiry into Canadian Native 'Residential Schools' and their Legacy", by Rev. Kevin D. Annett, MA, MDiv. The report is published by The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, a public investigative body continuing the work of previous Tribunals into native residential schools: The Justice in the Valley Coalition's Inquiry into Crimes Against Aboriginal People, convened in Port Alberni, British Columbia, on December 9, 1994, and The International Human Rights Association of American Minorities Tribunal into Canadian Residential Schools, held in Vancouver, BC, from June 12-14, 1998. Editor.)
FOREWORDThe Holocaust is continuingPART ONE: Summary of Evidence of Intentional Genocide in Canadian Residential SchoolsArticle II: The intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial or religious group; namely, non-Christian aboriginal peoples in CanadaArticle II (a): Killing members of the group intended to be destroyed Exposure to Diseases HomicidesArticle II (b): Causing serious bodily or mental harm
FOREWORD
Jasper Joseph is a sixty-four-year-old native man from Port Hardy, British Columbia. His eyes still fill with tears when he remembers his cousins who were killed with lethal injections by staff at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital in 1944.
I was just eight, and they'd shipped us down from the Anglican residential school in Alert Bay to the Nanaimo Indian Hospital, the one run by the United Church. They kept me isolated in a tiny room there for more than three years, like I was a lab rat, feeding me these pills, giving me shots that made me sick. Two of my cousins made a big fuss, screaming and fighting back all the time, so the nurses gave them shots, and they both died right away. It was done to silence them. (November 10, 2000)
Unlike post-war Germans, Canadians have yet to acknowledge, let alone repent from, the genocide that we inflicted on millions of conquered people: the aboriginal men, women and children who were deliberately exterminated by our racially supremacist churches and state.
As early as November 1907, the Canadian press was acknowledging that the death rate within Indian residential schools exceeded 50% (see Appendix, Key Newspaper Articles). And yet the reality of such a massacre has been wiped clean from the public record and consciousness in Canada over the past decades. Small wonder; for that hidden history reveals a system whose aim was to destroy most native people by disease, relocation and outright murder, while "assimilating" a minority of collaborators who were trained to serve the genocidal system.
This history of purposeful genocide implicates every level of government in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), every mainstream church, large corporations and local police, doctors and judges. The web of complicity in this killing machine was, and remains, so vast that its concealment has required an equally elaborate campaign of cover-up that has been engineered at the highest levels of power in our country; a cover-up that is continuing, especially now that eyewitnesses to murders and atrocities at the church-run native residential "schools" have come forward for the first time.
For it was the residential "schools" that constituted the death camps of the Canadian Holocaust, and within their walls nearly one-half of all aboriginal children sent there by law died, or disappeared, according to the government's own statistics.
These 50,000 victims have vanished, as have their corpses - "like they never existed", according to one survivor. But they did exist. They were innocent children, and they were killed by beatings and torture and after being deliberately exposed to tuberculosis and other diseases by paid employees of the churches and government, according to a "Final Solution" master plan devised by the Department of Indian Affairs and the Catholic and Protestant churches.
With such official consent for manslaughter emanating from Ottawa, the churches responsible for annihilating natives on the ground felt emboldened and protected enough to declare full-scale war on non-Christian native peoples through the 20th century.
The casualties of that war were not only the 50,000 dead children of the residential schools, but the survivors, whose social condition today has been described by United Nations human rights groups as that of "a colonized people barely on the edge of survival, with all the trappings of a third-world society". (November 12, 1999)
The Holocaust is continuing
This report is the child of a six-year independent investigation into the hidden history of genocide against aboriginal peoples in Canada. It summarises the testimonies, documents and other evidence proving that Canadian churches, corporations and the government are guilty of intentional genocide, in violation of the United Nations Convention on Genocide, which Canada ratified in 1952 and under which it is bound by international law.
The report is a collaborative effort of nearly 30 people. And yet some of its authors must remain anonymous, particularly its aboriginal contributors, whose lives have been threatened and who have been assaulted, denied jobs and evicted from their homes on Indian reserves because of their involvement in this investigation.
As a former minister in one of the guilty institutions named in our inquiry - the United Church of Canada - I have been fired, blacklisted, threatened and publicly maligned by its officers for my attempts to uncover the story of the deaths of children at that church's Alberni residential school.
Many people have made sacrifices to produce this report, so that the world can learn of the Canadian Holocaust, and to ensure that those responsible for it are brought to justice before the International Criminal Court.
Beginning among native and low-income activists in Port Alberni, British Columbia, in the fall of 1994, this inquiry into crimes against humanity has continued in the face of death threats, assaults and the resources of church and state in Canada.
It is within the power of the reader to honour our sacrifice by sharing this story with others and refusing to participate in the institutions which deliberately killed many thousands of children.
This history of official endorsement of, and collusion in, a century or more of crimes against Canada's first peoples must not discourage us from uncovering the truth and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
It is for this reason that we invite you to remember not only the 50,000 children who died in the residential school death camps, but the silent victims today who suffer in our midst for bread and justice.
(Rev.) Kevin D. AnnettSecretaryThe Truth Commission into Genocide in CanadaVancouver, British Columbia, February 1, 2001
PART ONE: Summary of Evidence of Intentional Genocide in Canadian Residential Schools
Article II: The intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnic, racial or religious group; namely, non-Christian aboriginal peoples in Canada
The foundational purpose behind the more than one hundred Indian residential schools established in Canada by government legislation and administered by Protestant and Catholic churches was the deliberate and persistent eradication of aboriginal people and their culture, and the conversion of any surviving native people to Christianity.
This intent was enunciated in the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 in Upper Canada, and earlier, church-inspired legislation, which defined aboriginal culture as inferior, stripped native people of citizenship and subordinated them in a separate legal category from non-Indians. This Act served as the basis for the federal Indian Act of 1874, which recapitulated the legal and moral inferiority of aboriginals and established the residential school system. The legal definition of an Indian as "an uncivilized person, destitute of the knowledge of God and of any fixed and clear belief in religion" (Revised Statutes of British Columbia, 1960) was established by these Acts and continues to the present day.
Then, as now, aboriginals were considered legal and practical non-entities in their own land and, hence, inherently expendable.
This genocidal intent was restated time and again in government legislation, church statements and the correspondence and records of missionaries, Indian agents and residential school officials (see Documentation section). Indeed, it was the very raison d'être of the state-sanctioned Christian invasion of traditional native territories and of the residential school system itself, which was established at the height of European expansionism in the 1880s and persisted until 1984.
By definition, this aim was genocidal, for it planned and carried out the destruction of a religious and ethnic group: all those aboriginal people who would not convert to Christianity and be culturally extinguished. Non-Christian natives were the declared target of the residential schools, which practised wholesale ethnic cleansing under the guise of education.
As well, such "pagans" were the subject of government-funded sterilisation programs administered at church-run hospitals and tuberculosis sanatoriums on Canada's west coast (see Article IId).
According to an eyewitness, Ethel Wilson of Bella Bella, BC, a United Church missionary doctor, George Darby, deliberately sterilised non-Christian Indians between 1928 and 1962 at the R. W. Large Memorial Hospital in Bella Bella. Ms Wilson, who is now deceased, stated in 1998:Doctor Darby told me in 1952 that Indian Affairs in Ottawa was paying him for every Indian he sterilised, especially if they weren't church-goers. Hundreds of our women were sterilised by Doctor Darby, just for not going to church. (Testimony of Ethel Wilson to International Human Rights Association of American Minorities [IHRAAM] Tribunal, Vancouver, BC, June 13, 1998)
According to Christy White, a resident of Bella Bella, records of these government-funded sterilisations at the R. W. Large Hospital were deliberately destroyed in 1995, soon after a much-publicised police investigation was to open into residential school atrocities in British Columbia. Ms White stated in 1998:I worked at the Bella Bella hospital, and I know that Barb Brown, one of the administrators there, dumped sterilisation records at sea on two occasions. Some of the records were found washed up on the beach south of town. That was just after the cops opened their investigation into the schools, in the spring of 1995. They were covering their tracks. We all knew Ottawa was funding sterilisations, but we were told to keep quiet about it. (Testimony of Christy White to Kevin Annett, August 12, 1998)
Legislation permitting the sterilisation of any residential school inmate was passed in BC in 1933 and in Alberta in 1928 (see "Sterilization Victims Urged to Come Forward" by Sabrina Whyatt, Windspeaker, August 1998). The Sexual Sterilization Act of BC allowed a school principal to permit the sterilisation of any native person under his charge. As their legal guardian, the principal could thus have any native child sterilised. Frequently, these sterilisations occurred to whole groups of native children when they reached puberty, in institutions like the Provincial Training School in Red Deer, Alberta, and the Ponoka Mental Hospital. (Former nurse Pat Taylor to Kevin Annett, January 13, 2000)
Of equal historical significance is the fact that the Canadian federal government passed legislation in 1920, making it mandatory for all native children in British Columbia - the west coast of which was the least Christianised area among aboriginals in Canada - to attend residential schools, despite the fact that the same government had already acknowledged that the death rate due to communicable diseases was much higher in these schools and that, while there, the native children's "constitution is so weakened that they have no vitality to withstand disease". (A. W. Neill, West Coast Indian Agent, to Secretary of Indian Affairs, April 25, 1910)
That is, the Canadian government legally compelled the attendance of the most "pagan" and least assimilated of the native peoples in residential schools at precisely the time when the death rate in these schools had reached their pinnacle - about 40%, according to Indian Affairs officers like Dr Peter Bryce. This fact alone suggests a genocidal intent towards non-Christian aboriginals.
Article II (a): Killing members of the group intended to be destroyed
That aboriginal people were deliberately killed in the residential schools is confirmed by eyewitness testimonies, government records and statements of Indian agents and tribal elders. It is also strongly suggested by the bare fact that the mortality level in residential schools averaged 40%, with the deaths of more than 50,000 native children across Canada (see Bibliography, inc. the report of Dr Peter Bryce to Department of Indian Affairs Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott, April 1909).
The fact, as well, that this death rate stayed constant across the years, and within the schools and facilities of every denomination which ran them - Roman Catholic, United, Presbyterian or Anglican - suggests that common conditions and policies were behind these deaths. For every second child to die in the residential school system eliminates the possibility that these deaths were merely accidental or the actions of a few depraved individuals acting alone without protection.
Yet not only was this system inherently murderous, but it operated under the legal and structural conditions which encouraged, aided and abetted murder and which were designed to conceal these crimes.
The residential schools were structured like concentration camps, on a hierarchical military basis under the absolute control of a principal appointed jointly by church and state, and who was usually a clergyman. This principal was even given legal guardianship rights over all students during the early 1930s by the federal government, at least in west coast residential schools. This action by the government was highly unusual, considering that native people were by law the legal wards of the state, and had been so since the commencement of the Indian Act. And yet such absolute power of the school principal over the lives of aboriginal students was a requirement of any system whose killing of aboriginals had to be disguised and later denied.
The residential schools were constructed behind this deception in such a way that the deaths and atrocities that constitute genocide could be hidden and eventually explained. In the Canadian context, this meant a policy of gradual but deliberate extermination under a protective legal umbrella, administered by "legitimate and trusted" institutions: the mainline churches.
It should be clarified from the outset that the decisions concerning the residential schools, including those which caused the deaths of children and resulting cover-ups, were officially sanctioned by every level of the churches that ran them and the government which created them. Only such sanction could have allowed the deaths to continue as they did - and the perpetrators to feel protected enough to operate with impunity for many years within the system, which they universally did.
Exposure to Diseases
In 1909, Dr Peter Bryce of the Ontario Health Department was hired by the Indian Affairs Department in Ottawa to tour the Indian residential schools in western Canada and British Columbia and report on the health conditions there. Bryce's report so scandalised the government and the churches that it was officially buried and only surfaced in 1922 when Bryce - who was forced out of the civil service for the honesty of his report - wrote a book about it, entitled The Story of a National Crime (Ottawa, 1922).
In his report, Dr Bryce claimed that Indian children were being systematically and deliberately killed in the residential schools. He cited an average mortality rate of between 35% and 60%, and alleged that staff and church officials were regularly withholding or falsifying records and other evidence of children's deaths.
Further, Dr Bryce claimed that a primary means of killing native children was to deliberately expose them to communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and then deny them any medical care or treatment - a practice actually referred to by top Anglican Church leaders in the Globe and Mail on May 29, 1953.
In March 1998, two native eyewitnesses who attended west coast residential schools, William and Mabel Sport of Nanaimo, BC, confirmed Dr Bryce's allegation. Both of them claim to have been deliberately exposed to tuberculosis by staff at both a Catholic and a United Church residential school during the 1940s.
I was forced to sleep in the same bed with kids who were dying of tuberculosis. That was at the Catholic Christie residential school around 1942. They were trying to kill us off, and it nearly worked. They did the same thing at Protestant Indian schools, three kids to a bed, healthy ones with the dying. (Testimony of Mabel Sport to IHRAAM officers, Port Alberni, BC, March 31, 1998)
Reverend Pitts, the Alberni school principal, he forced me and eight other boys to eat this special food out of a different sort of can. It tasted really strange. And then all of us came down with tuberculosis. I was the only one to survive, 'cause my Dad broke into the school one night and got me out of there. All of the rest died from tuberculosis and they were never treated. Just left there to die. And their families were all told they had died of pneumonia. The plan was to kill us off in secret, you know. We all just began dying after eating that food. Two of my best friends were in that group that was poisoned. We were never allowed to speak of it or go into the basement, where other murders happened. It was a death sentence to be sent to the Alberni school. (Testimony of William Sport to IHRAAM officers, Port Alberni, BC, March 31, 1998)
Homicides
More overt killings of children were a common occurrence in residential schools, according to eyewitnesses. The latter have described children being beaten and starved to death, thrown from windows, strangled and being kicked or thrown down stairs to their deaths. Such killings occurred in at least eight residential schools in British Columbia alone, run by all three mainline denominations.
Bill Seward of Nanaimo, BC, age 78, states:
My sister Maggie was thrown from a three-storey window by a nun at the Kuper Island school, and she died. Everything was swept under the rug. No investigation was ever done. We couldn't hire a lawyer at the time, being Indians. So nothing was ever done. (Testimony of Bill Seward, Duncan, BC, August 13, 1998)
Diane Harris, Community Health Worker for the Chemainus Band Council on Vancouver Island, confirms accounts of the murders.
We always hear stories of all the kids who were killed at Kuper Island. A graveyard for the babies of the priests and girls was right south of the school until it was dug up by the priests when the school closed in 1973. The nuns would abort babies and sometimes end up killing the mothers. There were a lot of disappearances. My mother, who is 83 now, saw a priest drag a girl down a flight of stairs by her hair and the girl died as a result. Girls were raped and killed, and buried under the floorboards. We asked the local RCMP to exhume that place and search for remains but they've always refused, as recently as 1996. Corporal Sampson even threatened us. That kind of cover-up is the norm. Children were put together with kids sick with TB in the infirmary. That was standard procedure. We've documented thirty-five outright murders in a seven-year period. (Testimony of Diane Harris to the IHRAAM Tribunal, June 13, 1998)
Evidence exists that active collusion from police, hospital officials, coroners, Indian Agents and even native leaders helped to conceal such murders. Local hospitals, particularly tuberculosis sanatoriums connected to the United and Roman Catholic churches, served as "dumping grounds" for children's bodies and routinely provided false death certificates for murdered students.
In the case of the United Church's Alberni residential school, students who discovered dead bodies of other children faced serious retribution. One such witness, Harry Wilson of Bella Bella, BC, claims that he was expelled from the school, then hospitalised and drugged against his will, after finding the body of a dead girl in May 1967.
Sadly, the two-tiered system of collaborators and victims created among native students at the schools continues to the present, as some of the state-funded band council officials - themselves former collaborators - appear to have an interest in helping to suppress evidence and silence witnesses who would incriminate not only the murderers but themselves as agents of the white administration.
A majority of the witnesses who have shared their story with the authors and at public tribunals on the west coast have described either seeing a murder or discovering a body at the residential school he or she attended. The body count, even according to the government's own figures, was enormously high. Where, then, are all these bodies? The deaths of thousands of students are not recorded in any of the school records, Indian Affairs files or other documentation submitted thus far in court cases or academic publications on the residential schools. Some 50,000 corpses have literally and officially gone missing.
The residential school system had to hide not only the evidence of murder but the bodies as well. The presence of secret gravesites of children killed at Catholic and Protestant schools in Sardis, Port Alberni, Kuper Island and Alert Bay has been attested to by numerous witnesses. These secret burial yards also contained the aborted foetuses and even small babies who were the offspring of priests and staff at the schools, according to the same witnesses. One of them, Ethel Wilson of Bella Bella, claims to have seen "rows and rows of tiny skeletons" in the foundations of the former Anglican residential school of St Michael's in Alert Bay when a new school was built there in the 1960s.There were several rows of them, all lined up neatly like it was a big cemetery. The skeletons had been found within one of the old walls of St Mike's school. None of them could have been very old, from their size. Now why would so many kids have been buried like that inside a wall, unless someone was trying to hide something? (Testimony of Ethel Wilson to Kevin Annett, Vancouver, BC, August 8, 1998)
Arnold Sylvester, who, like Dennis Charlie, attended Kuper Island school between 1939 and 1945, corroborates this account.
The priests dug up the secret gravesite in a real hurry around 1972 when the school closed. No one was allowed to watch them dig up those remains. I think it's because that was a specially secret graveyard where the bodies of the pregnant girls were buried. Some of the girls who got pregnant from the priests were actually killed because they threatened to talk. They were sometimes shipped out and sometimes just disappeared. We weren't allowed to talk about this. (Testimony of Arnold Sylvester to Kevin Annett, Duncan, BC, August 13, 1998)
Local hospitals were also used as a dumping ground for children's bodies, as in the case of the Edmonds boy and his "processing" at St Paul's Hospital after his murder at the Catholic school in North Vancouver. Certain hospitals, however, seem to have been particularly favourite spots for storing corpses.
The Nanaimo Tuberculosis Hospital (called The Indian Hospital) was one such facility. Under the guise of tuberculosis treatment, generations of native children and adults were subjected to medical experiments and sexual sterilisations at the Nanaimo Hospital, according to women who experienced these tortures (see Article IId). But the facility was also a cold storage area for native corpses.
The West Coast General Hospital in Port Alberni not only stored children's bodies from the local United Church residential school; it was also the place where abortions were performed on native girls who were made pregnant at the school by staff and clergy, and where newborn babies were disposed of and possibly killed, according to witnesses like Amy Tallio, who attended the Alberni school during the early 1950s.
Irene Starr of the Hesquait Nation, who attended the Alberni school between 1952 and 1961, confirms this.
Many girls got pregnant at the Alberni school. The fathers were the staff, teachers, the ones who raped them. We never knew what happened to the babies, but they were always disappearing. The pregnant girls were taken to the Alberni hospital and then came back without their babies. Always. The staff killed those babies to cover their tracks. They were paid by the church and government to be rapists and murderers. (Testimony of Irene Starr to Kevin Annett, Vancouver, BC, August 23, 1998)
Article II (b): Causing serious bodily or mental harm
Early in the residential schools era, the Indian Affairs Superintendent, Duncan Campbell Scott, outlined the purpose of the schools thus: "to kill the Indian within the Indian".
Clearly, the genocidal assault on aboriginals was not only physical but spiritual: European culture wished to own the minds and the souls of the native nations, to turn the Indians it hadn't killed into third-class replicas of white people.
Expressing the "virtues" of genocide, Alfred Caldwell, principal of the United Church school in Ahousat on Vancouver Island's west coast, wrote in 1938:
The problem with the Indians is one of morality and religion. They lack the basic fundamentals of civilised thought and spirit, which explains their child-like nature and behaviour. At our school we strive to turn them into mature Christians who will learn how to behave in the world and surrender their barbaric way of life and their treaty rights which keep them trapped on their land and in a primitive existence. Only then will the Indian problem in our country be solved. (Rev. A. E. Caldwell to Indian Agent P. D. Ashbridge, Ahousat, BC, Nov 12, 1938)
The fact that this same principal is named by eyewitnesses as the murderer of at least two children - one of them in the same month that he wrote this letter - is no accident, for cultural genocide spills effortlessly over into killing, as the Nazis proved so visibly to the world.
Nevertheless, Caldwell's letter illuminates two vital points for the purpose of this discussion of mental and bodily harm inflicted on native students: (a) the residential schools were a vast project in mind control, and (b) the underlying aim of this "re-programming" of native children was to force aboriginals off their ancestral lands in order to allow whites access to them.
To quote Alberni survivor Harriett Nahanee:
They were always pitting us against each other, getting us to fight and molest one another. It was all designed to split us up and brainwash us so that we would forget that we were Keepers of the Land. The Creator gave our people the job of protecting the land, the fish, the forests. That was our purpose for being alive. But the whites wanted it all, and the residential schools were the way they got it. And it worked. We've forgotten our sacred task, and now the whites have most of the land and have taken all the fish and the trees. Most of us are in poverty, addictions, family violence. And it all started in the schools, where we were brainwashed to hate our own culture and to hate ourselves so that we would lose everything. That's why I say that the genocide is still going on. (Testimony of Harriett Nahanee to Kevin Annett, North Vancouver, BC, December 11, 1995)
It was only after the assumption of guardianship powers by the west coast school principals, between 1933 and 1941, that the first evidence of organised pedophile networks in those residential schools emerges. For such a regime was legally and morally free to do whatever it wanted to its captive native students.
The residential schools became a safe haven - one survivor calls it a "free fire zone" - for pedophiles, murderers and brutal doctors needing live test subjects for drug testing or genetic and cancer research.
Particular schools, such as the Catholic one at Kuper Island and the United Church's Alberni school, became special centres where extermination techniques were practised with impunity on native children from all over the province, alongside the usual routine of beatings, rapes and farming out of children to influential pedophiles.
Much of the overt mental and bodily harm done to native students was designed to break down traditional tribal loyalties along kinship lines by pitting children against each other and cutting them off from their natural bonds. Boys and girls were strictly segregated in separate dormitories and could never meet.
One survivor describes never seeing her little brother for years, even though he was in the same building at the Alert Bay Anglican school. And when children at the schools broke into each other's dormitories and older boys and girls were caught exchanging intimacies, the most severe punishments were universally applied. According to a female survivor who attended the Alberni school in 1959:
They used the gauntlet on a boy and girl who were caught together kissing. The two of them had to crawl naked down a line of other students, and we beat them with sticks and whips provided by the principal. The girl was beaten so badly she died from kidney failure. That gave us all a good lesson: if you tried having normal feelings for someone, you'd get killed for it. So we quickly learned never to love or trust anyone, just do what we were told to do. (Testimony of anonymous woman from the Pacheedat Nation, Port Renfrew, BC, October 12, 1996)
According to Harriett Nahanee:
The residential schools created two kinds of Indians: slaves and sell-outs. And the sellouts are still in charge. The rest of us do what we're told. The band council chiefs have been telling everyone on our reserve not to talk to the Tribunal and have been threatening to cut our benefits if we do. (Harriett Nahanee to Kevin Annett, June 12, 1998)
The nature of that system of torture was not haphazard. For example, the regular use of electric shocks on children who spoke their language or were "disobedient" was a widespread phenomenon in residential schools of every denomination across Canada. This was not a random but an institutionalised device.
Specially constructed torture chambers with permanent electric chairs, often operated by medical personnel, existed at the Alberni and Kuper Island schools in British Columbia, at the Spanish Catholic school in Ontario, and in isolated hospital facilities run by the churches and Department of Indian Affairs in northern Quebec, Vancouver Island and rural Alberta, according to eyewitnesses.
Mary Anne Nakogee-Davis of Thunder Bay, Ontario, was tortured in an electric chair by nuns at the Catholic Spanish residential school in 1963 when she was eight years old. She states:
The nuns used it as a weapon. It was done on me on more than one occasion. They would strap your arms to the metal arm rests, and it would jolt you and go through your system. I don't know what I did that was bad enough to have that done to me. (From The London Free Press, London, Ontario, October 22, 1996)
Such torture also occurred at facilities operated by the churches with Department of Indian Affairs money, similar to the sterilisation programs identified at the W. R. Large Memorial Hospital in Bella Bella and the Nanaimo Indian Hospital.
Frank Martin, a Carrier native from northern BC, describes his forcible confinement and use in experiments at the Brannen Lake Reform School near Nanaimo in 1963 and 1964:
I was kidnapped from my village when I was nine and sent off to the Brannen Lake school in Nanaimo. A local doctor gave me a shot and I woke up in a small cell, maybe ten feet by twelve. I was kept in there like an animal for fourteen months. They brought me out every morning and gave me electric shocks to my head until I passed out. Then in the afternoon I'd go for these X-rays and they'd expose me to them for minutes on end. They never told me why they were doing it. But I got lung cancer when I was eighteen and I've never smoked. (Videotaped testimony of Frank Martin to Eva Lyman and Kevin Annett, Vancouver, July 16, 1998)
Such quack experimentation combined with brutal sadism characterised these publicly funded facilities, especially the notorious Nanaimo Indian Hospital. David Martin of Powell River, BC, was taken to this hospital in 1958 at the age of five and used in experiments attested to by Joan Morris, Harry Wilson and other witnesses quoted in this report. According to David:
I was told I had tuberculosis, but I was completely healthy; no symptoms of TB at all. So they sent me to Nanaimo Indian Hospital and strapped me down in a bed there for more than six months. The doctors gave me shots every day that made me feel really sick, and made my skin all red and itchy. I heard the screams of other Indian kids who were locked away in isolation rooms. We were never allowed in there to see them. Nobody ever told me what they were doing to all of us in there. (David Martin to Kevin Annett, Vancouver, November 12, 2000)
A recurring and regular torture at the residential schools themselves was operating on children's teeth without using any form of anaesthesia or painkiller. Two separate victims of this torture at the Alberni school describe being subjected to it by different dentists, decades apart. Harriett Nahanee was brutalised in that manner in 1946, while Dennis Tallio was "worked on by a sick old guy who never gave me painkillers" at the same school in 1965.
Dr Josef Mengele is reputed by survivors of his experiments to have worked out of Cornell University in New York, Bristol Labs in Syracuse, New York, and Upjohn Corporation and Bayer laboratories in Ontario. Mengele and his Canadian researchers, like the notorious Montreal psychiatrist Ewen Cameron, used prisoners, mental patients and native children from reserves and residential schools in their efforts to erase and reshape human memory and personality, using drugs, electric shocks and trauma-inducing methods identical to those employed for years in the residential schools.
Former employees of the federal government have confirmed that the use of "inmates" of residential schools was authorised for government-run medical experiments through a joint agreement with the churches which ran the schools.
According to a former Indian Affairs official:
A sort of gentlemen's agreement was in place for many years: the churches provided the kids from their residential schools to us, and we got the Mounties to deliver them to whoever needed a fresh batch of test subjects: usually doctors, sometimes Department of Defense people. The Catholics did it big time in Quebec when they transferred kids wholesale from orphanages into mental asylums. It was for the same purpose: experimentation. There was lots of grant money in those days to be had from the military and intelligence sectors: all you had to do was provide the bodies. The church officials were more than happy to comply. It wasn't just the residential school principals who were getting kickbacks from this: everyone was profiting. That's why it's gone on for so long. It implicates a hell of a lot of top people. (From the Closed Files of the IHRAAM Tribunal, containing the statements of confidential sources, June 12-14, 1998)
Such experiments and the sheer brutality of the harm regularly inflicted on children in the schools attest to the institutional view of aboriginals as "expendable" and "diseased" beings. Scores of survivors of 10 different residential schools in BC and Ontario have described under oath the following tortures inflicted on them and other children as young as five years old between the years 1922 and 1984:
tightening fish twine and wire around boys' penises;
sticking needles into their hands, cheeks, tongues, ears and penises;
holding them over open graves and threatening to bury them alive;
forcing them to eat maggot-filled and regurgitated food;
telling them their parents were dead and that they were about to be killed;
stripping them naked in front of the assembled school and verbally and sexually degrading them;
forcing them to stand upright for more than 12 hours at a time until they collapsed;
immersing them in ice water;
forcing them to sleep outside in winter;
ripping the hair from their heads;
repeatedly smashing their heads against concrete or wooden surfaces;
daily beating without warning, using whips, sticks, horse harnesses, studded metal straps, pool cues and iron pipes;
extracting gold teeth from their mouths without painkillers;
confining them in unventilated closets without food or water for days;
regularly applying electric shocks to their heads, genitals and limbs.
Perhaps the clearest summary of the nature and purpose of such sadism are the words of Bill Seward of Nanaimo, a survivor of the Kuper Island school:
The church people were worshipping the devil, not us. They wanted the gold, the coal, the land we occupied. So they terrorised us into giving it to them. How does a man who was raped every day when he was seven make anything out of his life? The residential schools were set up to destroy our lives, and they succeeded. The whites were terrorists, pure and simple. (Testimony of Bill Seward to Kevin Annett and IHRAAM observers, Duncan, BC, August 13, 1998)
Editor's Note:
To obtain a copy of "Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust", contact The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, c/- 6679 Grant Street, Burnaby, BC V5B 2K9, Canada, telephone +1 (604) 293 1972, email kevinannett@yahoo.ca or kevin_annett@hotmail.com, or visit the website: http://annett55.freewebsites.com. See review, NEXUS 9/01.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mass Graves of Residential Schools Children Identified
Press Statement: April 10, 2008
Mass Graves of Residential School Children Identified – Independent Inquiry Launched
We are gathered today to publicly disclose the location of twenty eight mass graves of children who died in Indian Residential Schools across Canada , and to announce the formation of an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of children in these schools.
We estimate that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children buried in these grave sites alone.
The Catholic, Anglican and United Church , and the government of Canada, operated the schools and hospitals where these mass graves are located. We therefore hold these institutions and their officers legally responsible and liable for the deaths of these children.
We have no confidence that the very institutions of church and state that are responsible for these deaths can conduct any kind of impartial or real inquiry into them. Accordingly, as of April 15, 2008, we are establishing an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of Indian residential school children across Canada .
This inquiry shall be known as The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), and is established under the authority of the following hereditary chiefs, who shall serve as presiding judges of the Tribunal:
Hereditary Chief Kiapilano of the Squamish Nation
Chief Louis Daniels (Whispers Wind), Anishinabe Nation Chief Svnoyi Wohali (Night Eagle), Cherokee Nation
Lillian Shirt, Clan Mother, Cree Nation
Elder Ernie Sandy, Anishinabe (Ojibway) Nation
Hereditary Chief Steve Sampson, Chemainus NationAmbassador Chief Red Jacket of Turtle Island
Today, we are releasing to this Tribunal and to the people of the world the enclosed information on the location of mass graves connected to Indian residential schools and hospitals in order to prevent the destruction of this crucial evidence by the Canadian government, the RCMP and the Anglican, Catholic and United Church of Canada.
We call upon indigenous people on the land where these graves are located to monitor and protect these sites vigilantly, and prevent their destruction by occupational forces such as the RCMP and other government agencies.
Our Tribunal will commence on April 15 by gathering all of the evidence, including forensic remains, that is necessary to charge and indict those responsible for the deaths of the children buried therein.
Once these persons have been identified and detained, they will be tried and sentenced in indigenous courts of justice established by our Tribunal and under the authority of hereditary chiefs.
As a first step in this process, the IHRTGC will present this list of mass graves along with a statement to the United Nations in New York City on April 19, 2008. The IHRTGC will be asking the United Nations to declare these mass graves to be protected heritage sites, and will invite international human rights observers to monitor and assist its work.
Issued by the Elders and Judges of the IHRTGC
Interim Spokesperson: Eagle Strong Voice
Email: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca pager: 1-888-265-1007
IHRTGC Sponsors include The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, the Defensoria Indigenia of Guatemala, Canadians for the Separation of Church and State, and a confederation of indigenous elders across Canada and Turtle Island.
...................................................................................................
Mass Graves at former Indian Residential Schools and Hospitals across Canada
A. British Columbia
1. Port Alberni: Presbyterian-United Church school (1895-1973), now occupied by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council (NTC) office, Kitskuksis Road . Grave site is a series of sinkhole rows in hills 100 metres due west of the NTC building, in thick foliage, past an unused water pipeline. Children also interred at Tseshaht reserve cemetery, and in wooded gully east of Catholic cemetery on River Road .
2. Alert Bay : St. Michael’s Anglican school (1878-1975), situated on Cormorant Island offshore from Port McNeill. Presently building is used by Namgis First Nation. Site is an overgrown field adjacent to the building, and also under the foundations of the present new building, constructed during the 1960’s. Skeletons seen “between the walls”.
3. Kuper Island: Catholic school (1890-1975), offshore from Chemainus. Land occupied by Penelakut Band. Former building is destroyed except for a staircase. Two grave sites: one immediately south of the former building, in a field containing a conventional cemetery; another at the west shoreline in a lagoon near the main dock.
4. Nanaimo Indian Hospital: Indian Affairs and United Church experimental facility (1942-1970) on Department of National Defense land. Buildings now destroyed. Grave sites are immediately east of former buildings on Fifth avenue , adjacent to and south of Malaspina College .
5. Mission: St. Mary’s Catholic school (1861-1984), adjacent to and north of Lougheed Highway and Fraser River Heritage Park . Original school buildings are destroyed, but many foundations are visible on the grounds of the Park.
In this area there are two grave sites: a) immediately adjacent to former girls’ dormitory and present cemetery for priests, and a larger mass grave in an artificial earthen mound, north of the cemetery among overgrown foliage and blackberry bushes, and b) east of the old school grounds, on the hilly slopes next to the field leading to the newer school building which is presently used by the Sto:lo First Nation. Hill site is 150 metres west of building.
6. North Vancouver: Squamish (1898-1959) and Sechelt (1912-1975) Catholic schools, buildings destroyed. Graves of children who died in these schools interred in the Squamish Band Cemetery , North Vancouver .
7. Sardis: Coqualeetza Methodist-United Church school (1889-1940), then experimental hospital run by federal government (1940-1969). Native burial site next to Sto:lo reserve and Little Mountain school, also possibly adjacent to former school-hospital building.
8. Cranbrook: St. Eugene Catholic school (1898-1970), recently converted into a tourist “resort” with federal funding, resulting in the covering-over of a mass burial site by a golf course in front of the building. Numerous grave sites are around and under this golf course.
9. Williams Lake : Catholic school (1890-1981), buildings destroyed but foundations intact, five miles south of city. Grave sites reported north of school grounds and under foundations of tunnel-like structure.
10. Meares Island (Tofino): Kakawis-Christie Catholic school (1898-1974). Buildings incorporated into Kakawis Healing Centre. Body storage room reported in basement, adjacent to burial grounds south of school.
11. Kamloops : Catholic school (1890-1978). Buildings intact. Mass grave south of school, adjacent to and amidst orchard. Numerous burials witnessed there.
12. Lytton: St. George’s Anglican school (1901-1979). Graves of students flogged to death, and others, reported under floorboards and next to playground.
13. Fraser Lake : Lejac Catholic school (1910-1976), buildings destroyed. Graves reported under old foundations and between the walls.
Alberta:
1. Edmonton : United Church school (1919-1960), presently site of the Poundmaker Lodge in St. Albert . Graves of children reported south of former school site, under thick hedge that runs north-south, adjacent to memorial marker.
2. Edmonton : Charles Camsell Hospital (1945-1967), building intact, experimental hospital run by Indian Affairs and United Church . Mass graves of children from hospital reported south of building, near staff garden.
3. Saddle Lake : Bluequills Catholic school (1898-1970), building intact, skeletons and skulls observed in basement furnace. Mass grave reported adjacent to school.
4. Hobbema: Ermineskin Catholic school (1916-1973), five intact skeletons observed in school furnace. Graves under former building foundations.
Manitoba:
1. Brandon : Methodist-United Church school (1895-1972). Building intact. Burials reported west of school building.
2. Portage La Prairie: Presbyterian-United Church school (1895-1950). Children buried at nearby Hillside Cemetery .
3. Norway House: Methodist-United Church school (1900-1974). “Very old” grave site next to former school building, demolished by United Church in 2004.
Ontario:
1. Thunder Bay : Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital , still in operation. Experimental centre. Women and children reported buried adjacent to hospital grounds.
2. Sioux Lookout: Pelican Lake Catholic school (1911-1973). Burials of children in mound near to school.
3. Kenora: Cecilia Jeffrey school, Presbyterian-United Church (1900-1966). Large burial mound east of former school.
4. Fort Albany : St. Anne’s Catholic school (1936-1964). Children killed in electric chair buried next to school.
5. Spanish: Catholic school (1883-1965). Numerous graves.
6. Brantford : Mohawk Institute, Anglican church (1850-1969), building intact. Series of graves in orchard behind school building, under rows of trees.
7. Sault Ste. Marie: Shingwauk Anglican school (1873-1969), some intact buildings. Several graves of children reported on grounds of old school.
Quebec:
1. Montreal : Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University , still in operation since opening in 1940. MKULTRA experimental centre. Mass grave of children killed there north of building, on southern slopes of Mount Royal behind stone wall.
Sources:
- Eyewitness accounts from survivors of these institutions, catalogued in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2nd ed., 2005) by Kevin Annett. Other accounts are from local residents. See www.hiddenfromhistory.org .
- Documents and other material from the Department of Indian Affairs RG 10 microfilm series on Indian Residential Schools in Koerner Library, University of B.C.
- Survey data and physical evidence obtained from grave sites in Port Alberni , Mission , and other locations.
This is a partial list and does not include all of the grave sites connected to Indian residential Schools and hospitals across Canada. In many cases, children who were dying of diseases were sent home to die by school and church officials, and the remains of other children who died at the school were incinerated in the residential school furnaces.
This information is submitted by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) to the world media, the United Nations, and to the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC). The IHRTGC will commence its investigations on April 15, 2008 on Squamish Nation territory.
For more information on the independent inquiry into genocide in Canada being conducted by the IHRTGC, write to: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca
10 April, 2008
Squamish Nation Territory (“ Vancouver , Canada ”)
Mass Graves of Residential School Children Identified – Independent Inquiry Launched
We are gathered today to publicly disclose the location of twenty eight mass graves of children who died in Indian Residential Schools across Canada , and to announce the formation of an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of children in these schools.
We estimate that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children buried in these grave sites alone.
The Catholic, Anglican and United Church , and the government of Canada, operated the schools and hospitals where these mass graves are located. We therefore hold these institutions and their officers legally responsible and liable for the deaths of these children.
We have no confidence that the very institutions of church and state that are responsible for these deaths can conduct any kind of impartial or real inquiry into them. Accordingly, as of April 15, 2008, we are establishing an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of Indian residential school children across Canada .
This inquiry shall be known as The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), and is established under the authority of the following hereditary chiefs, who shall serve as presiding judges of the Tribunal:
Hereditary Chief Kiapilano of the Squamish Nation
Chief Louis Daniels (Whispers Wind), Anishinabe Nation Chief Svnoyi Wohali (Night Eagle), Cherokee Nation
Lillian Shirt, Clan Mother, Cree Nation
Elder Ernie Sandy, Anishinabe (Ojibway) Nation
Hereditary Chief Steve Sampson, Chemainus NationAmbassador Chief Red Jacket of Turtle Island
Today, we are releasing to this Tribunal and to the people of the world the enclosed information on the location of mass graves connected to Indian residential schools and hospitals in order to prevent the destruction of this crucial evidence by the Canadian government, the RCMP and the Anglican, Catholic and United Church of Canada.
We call upon indigenous people on the land where these graves are located to monitor and protect these sites vigilantly, and prevent their destruction by occupational forces such as the RCMP and other government agencies.
Our Tribunal will commence on April 15 by gathering all of the evidence, including forensic remains, that is necessary to charge and indict those responsible for the deaths of the children buried therein.
Once these persons have been identified and detained, they will be tried and sentenced in indigenous courts of justice established by our Tribunal and under the authority of hereditary chiefs.
As a first step in this process, the IHRTGC will present this list of mass graves along with a statement to the United Nations in New York City on April 19, 2008. The IHRTGC will be asking the United Nations to declare these mass graves to be protected heritage sites, and will invite international human rights observers to monitor and assist its work.
Issued by the Elders and Judges of the IHRTGC
Interim Spokesperson: Eagle Strong Voice
Email: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca pager: 1-888-265-1007
IHRTGC Sponsors include The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, the Defensoria Indigenia of Guatemala, Canadians for the Separation of Church and State, and a confederation of indigenous elders across Canada and Turtle Island.
...................................................................................................
Mass Graves at former Indian Residential Schools and Hospitals across Canada
A. British Columbia
1. Port Alberni: Presbyterian-United Church school (1895-1973), now occupied by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council (NTC) office, Kitskuksis Road . Grave site is a series of sinkhole rows in hills 100 metres due west of the NTC building, in thick foliage, past an unused water pipeline. Children also interred at Tseshaht reserve cemetery, and in wooded gully east of Catholic cemetery on River Road .
2. Alert Bay : St. Michael’s Anglican school (1878-1975), situated on Cormorant Island offshore from Port McNeill. Presently building is used by Namgis First Nation. Site is an overgrown field adjacent to the building, and also under the foundations of the present new building, constructed during the 1960’s. Skeletons seen “between the walls”.
3. Kuper Island: Catholic school (1890-1975), offshore from Chemainus. Land occupied by Penelakut Band. Former building is destroyed except for a staircase. Two grave sites: one immediately south of the former building, in a field containing a conventional cemetery; another at the west shoreline in a lagoon near the main dock.
4. Nanaimo Indian Hospital: Indian Affairs and United Church experimental facility (1942-1970) on Department of National Defense land. Buildings now destroyed. Grave sites are immediately east of former buildings on Fifth avenue , adjacent to and south of Malaspina College .
5. Mission: St. Mary’s Catholic school (1861-1984), adjacent to and north of Lougheed Highway and Fraser River Heritage Park . Original school buildings are destroyed, but many foundations are visible on the grounds of the Park.
In this area there are two grave sites: a) immediately adjacent to former girls’ dormitory and present cemetery for priests, and a larger mass grave in an artificial earthen mound, north of the cemetery among overgrown foliage and blackberry bushes, and b) east of the old school grounds, on the hilly slopes next to the field leading to the newer school building which is presently used by the Sto:lo First Nation. Hill site is 150 metres west of building.
6. North Vancouver: Squamish (1898-1959) and Sechelt (1912-1975) Catholic schools, buildings destroyed. Graves of children who died in these schools interred in the Squamish Band Cemetery , North Vancouver .
7. Sardis: Coqualeetza Methodist-United Church school (1889-1940), then experimental hospital run by federal government (1940-1969). Native burial site next to Sto:lo reserve and Little Mountain school, also possibly adjacent to former school-hospital building.
8. Cranbrook: St. Eugene Catholic school (1898-1970), recently converted into a tourist “resort” with federal funding, resulting in the covering-over of a mass burial site by a golf course in front of the building. Numerous grave sites are around and under this golf course.
9. Williams Lake : Catholic school (1890-1981), buildings destroyed but foundations intact, five miles south of city. Grave sites reported north of school grounds and under foundations of tunnel-like structure.
10. Meares Island (Tofino): Kakawis-Christie Catholic school (1898-1974). Buildings incorporated into Kakawis Healing Centre. Body storage room reported in basement, adjacent to burial grounds south of school.
11. Kamloops : Catholic school (1890-1978). Buildings intact. Mass grave south of school, adjacent to and amidst orchard. Numerous burials witnessed there.
12. Lytton: St. George’s Anglican school (1901-1979). Graves of students flogged to death, and others, reported under floorboards and next to playground.
13. Fraser Lake : Lejac Catholic school (1910-1976), buildings destroyed. Graves reported under old foundations and between the walls.
Alberta:
1. Edmonton : United Church school (1919-1960), presently site of the Poundmaker Lodge in St. Albert . Graves of children reported south of former school site, under thick hedge that runs north-south, adjacent to memorial marker.
2. Edmonton : Charles Camsell Hospital (1945-1967), building intact, experimental hospital run by Indian Affairs and United Church . Mass graves of children from hospital reported south of building, near staff garden.
3. Saddle Lake : Bluequills Catholic school (1898-1970), building intact, skeletons and skulls observed in basement furnace. Mass grave reported adjacent to school.
4. Hobbema: Ermineskin Catholic school (1916-1973), five intact skeletons observed in school furnace. Graves under former building foundations.
Manitoba:
1. Brandon : Methodist-United Church school (1895-1972). Building intact. Burials reported west of school building.
2. Portage La Prairie: Presbyterian-United Church school (1895-1950). Children buried at nearby Hillside Cemetery .
3. Norway House: Methodist-United Church school (1900-1974). “Very old” grave site next to former school building, demolished by United Church in 2004.
Ontario:
1. Thunder Bay : Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital , still in operation. Experimental centre. Women and children reported buried adjacent to hospital grounds.
2. Sioux Lookout: Pelican Lake Catholic school (1911-1973). Burials of children in mound near to school.
3. Kenora: Cecilia Jeffrey school, Presbyterian-United Church (1900-1966). Large burial mound east of former school.
4. Fort Albany : St. Anne’s Catholic school (1936-1964). Children killed in electric chair buried next to school.
5. Spanish: Catholic school (1883-1965). Numerous graves.
6. Brantford : Mohawk Institute, Anglican church (1850-1969), building intact. Series of graves in orchard behind school building, under rows of trees.
7. Sault Ste. Marie: Shingwauk Anglican school (1873-1969), some intact buildings. Several graves of children reported on grounds of old school.
Quebec:
1. Montreal : Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University , still in operation since opening in 1940. MKULTRA experimental centre. Mass grave of children killed there north of building, on southern slopes of Mount Royal behind stone wall.
Sources:
- Eyewitness accounts from survivors of these institutions, catalogued in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2nd ed., 2005) by Kevin Annett. Other accounts are from local residents. See www.hiddenfromhistory.org .
- Documents and other material from the Department of Indian Affairs RG 10 microfilm series on Indian Residential Schools in Koerner Library, University of B.C.
- Survey data and physical evidence obtained from grave sites in Port Alberni , Mission , and other locations.
This is a partial list and does not include all of the grave sites connected to Indian residential Schools and hospitals across Canada. In many cases, children who were dying of diseases were sent home to die by school and church officials, and the remains of other children who died at the school were incinerated in the residential school furnaces.
This information is submitted by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) to the world media, the United Nations, and to the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC). The IHRTGC will commence its investigations on April 15, 2008 on Squamish Nation territory.
For more information on the independent inquiry into genocide in Canada being conducted by the IHRTGC, write to: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca
10 April, 2008
Squamish Nation Territory (“ Vancouver , Canada ”)
What has Caused the "Apology"
Canada and its Genocide:What has Caused the "Apology" and "Truth and Reconciliation Commission": A Chronology of Key Recent Events
Preamble: The true history of what has brought about the official acknowledgment of genocide and deaths in Canadian Indian residential schools during 2007 and 2008 is being lost and rewritten by a current campaign of misinformation by the government, churches and media of Canada. This campaign is portraying the government's "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" as the architect and cause of this change, when the TRC itself is the product of the grassroots work of Kevin Annett and his circle of residential school survivors, whose constant public action, advocacy and research since 1996 has forced the government to finally act.Here is a brief summary of the key, recent events that have brought about this change:October 1, 2006: The first documentary film on genocide in Indian residential schools, UNREPENTANT, is released globally by Rev. Kevin Annett. The film is based on twelve years' research by Annett and his book, Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2001, 2005). The same month, the first media reporting of massive deaths in residential schools is made in The Epoch Times, based on an interview with Kevin Annett.January 1, 2007: After interviews arranged by Kevin Annett in British Columbia, the Globe and Mail newspaper publishes first-hand accounts of murders and mass graves at Indian residential schools for the first time.February-March: Kevin Annett conducts two major speaking tours and screenings of his film UNREPENTANT in nine Canadian cities, including to politicians in Ottawa and in dozens of aboriginal communities. Members of Parliament refuse Annett's request to endorse a Parliamentary motion to investigate the missing residential school children.April 15: Kevin Annett's group, The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD), holds rallies in seven Canadian cities at its Third Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day, demanding that the Catholic, Anglican and United churches disclose the burial sites of children who died in their residential schools, and surrender those responsible.April 16: Aboriginal Member of Parliament Gary Merasty, having seen UNREPENTANT and been notified of the FRD protests, asks federal Minister of Indian Affairs (MIA) Jim Prentice to investigate the deaths in residential schools and "begin a process of repatriating their remains".April 20: Prentice addresses the issue in the Canadian Parliament and publicly pledges himself to inquire into the deaths, a first by a Canadian politician. April 24: After interviewing Kevin Annett, The Globe and Mail runs an article entitled "Natives died in droves as Ottawa ignored warnings", which confirms Annett's claims of a fifty percent death rate in residential schools.The same day, MIA Prentice declares that his department will begin a search for death records and graves at Indian residential schools.April 25: The Ottawa Sun newspaper reports that government agents systematically destroyed residential school records on orders from the MIA all during the 1950's and '60's.May 11 and 18: FRD members in Vancouver, led by Kevin Annett, occupy church and government offices, demanding the return of the remains of children who died in the schools. The actions are widely reported in the media.June 1: Prentice announces the formation of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (TRC) as part of a "settlement" with residential school survivors. The major media in Canada begin covering the issue of deaths in residential schools for the first time, primarily by interviewing Kevin Annett and eyewitnesses known to him.August: Jim Prentice is removed as Minister of Indian Affairs and is replaced by close friend of Prime Minister Harper, Chuck Strahl. The same month, Member of Parliament Gary Merasty, who demanded action by the government, steps down from politics. October 4: TRC head Bob Watts announces that the choice of TRC Commissioners is being delayed until 2008. A panel of "advisors" to choose the TRC Commissioners includes officials of the same churches that will be investigated by the TRC.November: Kevin Annett conducts a third speaking tour to eastern Canada and discloses more evidence of mass graves to the media and politicians.January 13, 2008: Members of Kevin Annett's FRD network stage high-profile demonstrations at Catholic, Anglican and United churches in Vancouver. A Letter of Demand is issued to church officials giving them thirty days to disclose the mass grave burial sites of residential school children. The event is widely covered in the media.January 27 - March 23: Similar protests and church occupations are staged by FRD groups organized by Kevin Annett in Toronto and Montreal as well as Vancouver, again to widespread media coverage. Letters of Demand are issued to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Pope and the Queen of England by the FRD and residential school survivors. Squamish Chief Kiapilano, part of the FRD, orders these churches off his land in Vancouver.February 4: TRC head Bob Watts declares that "criminal acts" including homicide definitely occured in Indian Residential Schools, but that a criminal investigation will not be conducted by the TRC. In response, Kevin Annett and the FRD announce they will seek international court action to force such an investigation.March 1: The TRC announces the choice of its three Commissioners and the formation of a "Missing Childrens' Group" to search for burial sites and death records.April 10: Kevin Annett releases to the media a list of twenty eight mass grave sites at former Indian residential schools across Canada. The list is reprinted in the media and sent to the government and the TRC; but neither the TRC nor the police contact Annett in response.April 15: Annett and ten indigenous elders and hereditary chiefs announce the formation of an independent International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC) at a Vancouver press conference. The founding elders represent the Squamish, Cree, Metis, Anishinabe, Mohawk and Six Nations people.The IHRTGC declares itself to be an alternative to the government's TRC, which has no power to subpoena, compel disclosure by the churches, or allow the naming of names of mentioning of wrongdoing in its forums. "The TRC is not an independent body but a creation of the government and churches of Canada, who are guilty of genocide" states the IHRTGC founding declaration.May 1: Five local IHRTGC groups are operating across Canada, documenting murders and grave sites at former residential schools and conducting preliminary forensic investigations with eyewitnesses.June 9: Kevin Annett is interviewed in a major article in the Globe and Mail, and is referred to by media commentators as "the government's opposition ... on the residential schools".June 11: Prime Minister Stephen Harper issues an "apology" to residential school survivors in the Canadian Parliament. No plan of action to bring about full disclosure and accountability around the residential schools accompanies the "apology". June 15: Annett is interviewed on the national CBC and calls for a rejection of the apology and the TRC, calling instead for support for the independent IHRTGC.June 22: Harper's "apology" is publicly rejected by groups of residential schools survivors at rallies organized by Annett's FRD in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto.August 2-September 14: Kevin Annett conducts a European speaking tour and screening of his film UNREPENTANT, and establishes overseas support for the IHRTGC, including among members of the European Parliament. In London, Annett calls for a boycott of Canada, its churches, and the 2010 Olympics.October 20: TRC head Judge Harry LaForme resigns in protest over the TRC's operation. The government uses his resignation as an excuse to halt and "re-evaluate" the TRC and its Missing Childrens' Group.October 27: The Globe and Mail runs a front page story on grave sites at Indian residential schools, not mentioning any of the sites named by Kevin Annett and the FRD on April 10.Early November: Kevin Annett conducts another speaking tour in eastern Canada and the USA. UNREPENTANT is screened in six European cities. The independent IHRTGC releases a new list of mass graves totalling thirty three in number, along with affidavits and survey evidence of the sites. The government and TRC do not respond, but new groups of clan mothers and elders join the IHRTGC and begin conducting local investigations.Source: The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Sun, The Epoch Times, 24 Hours News, CBC and CTV radio and TV, Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared media archives, Rev. Kevin Annett, The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC).Monitor ongoing events on Kevin Annett's website:http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
Preamble: The true history of what has brought about the official acknowledgment of genocide and deaths in Canadian Indian residential schools during 2007 and 2008 is being lost and rewritten by a current campaign of misinformation by the government, churches and media of Canada. This campaign is portraying the government's "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" as the architect and cause of this change, when the TRC itself is the product of the grassroots work of Kevin Annett and his circle of residential school survivors, whose constant public action, advocacy and research since 1996 has forced the government to finally act.Here is a brief summary of the key, recent events that have brought about this change:October 1, 2006: The first documentary film on genocide in Indian residential schools, UNREPENTANT, is released globally by Rev. Kevin Annett. The film is based on twelve years' research by Annett and his book, Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2001, 2005). The same month, the first media reporting of massive deaths in residential schools is made in The Epoch Times, based on an interview with Kevin Annett.January 1, 2007: After interviews arranged by Kevin Annett in British Columbia, the Globe and Mail newspaper publishes first-hand accounts of murders and mass graves at Indian residential schools for the first time.February-March: Kevin Annett conducts two major speaking tours and screenings of his film UNREPENTANT in nine Canadian cities, including to politicians in Ottawa and in dozens of aboriginal communities. Members of Parliament refuse Annett's request to endorse a Parliamentary motion to investigate the missing residential school children.April 15: Kevin Annett's group, The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD), holds rallies in seven Canadian cities at its Third Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day, demanding that the Catholic, Anglican and United churches disclose the burial sites of children who died in their residential schools, and surrender those responsible.April 16: Aboriginal Member of Parliament Gary Merasty, having seen UNREPENTANT and been notified of the FRD protests, asks federal Minister of Indian Affairs (MIA) Jim Prentice to investigate the deaths in residential schools and "begin a process of repatriating their remains".April 20: Prentice addresses the issue in the Canadian Parliament and publicly pledges himself to inquire into the deaths, a first by a Canadian politician. April 24: After interviewing Kevin Annett, The Globe and Mail runs an article entitled "Natives died in droves as Ottawa ignored warnings", which confirms Annett's claims of a fifty percent death rate in residential schools.The same day, MIA Prentice declares that his department will begin a search for death records and graves at Indian residential schools.April 25: The Ottawa Sun newspaper reports that government agents systematically destroyed residential school records on orders from the MIA all during the 1950's and '60's.May 11 and 18: FRD members in Vancouver, led by Kevin Annett, occupy church and government offices, demanding the return of the remains of children who died in the schools. The actions are widely reported in the media.June 1: Prentice announces the formation of a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (TRC) as part of a "settlement" with residential school survivors. The major media in Canada begin covering the issue of deaths in residential schools for the first time, primarily by interviewing Kevin Annett and eyewitnesses known to him.August: Jim Prentice is removed as Minister of Indian Affairs and is replaced by close friend of Prime Minister Harper, Chuck Strahl. The same month, Member of Parliament Gary Merasty, who demanded action by the government, steps down from politics. October 4: TRC head Bob Watts announces that the choice of TRC Commissioners is being delayed until 2008. A panel of "advisors" to choose the TRC Commissioners includes officials of the same churches that will be investigated by the TRC.November: Kevin Annett conducts a third speaking tour to eastern Canada and discloses more evidence of mass graves to the media and politicians.January 13, 2008: Members of Kevin Annett's FRD network stage high-profile demonstrations at Catholic, Anglican and United churches in Vancouver. A Letter of Demand is issued to church officials giving them thirty days to disclose the mass grave burial sites of residential school children. The event is widely covered in the media.January 27 - March 23: Similar protests and church occupations are staged by FRD groups organized by Kevin Annett in Toronto and Montreal as well as Vancouver, again to widespread media coverage. Letters of Demand are issued to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Pope and the Queen of England by the FRD and residential school survivors. Squamish Chief Kiapilano, part of the FRD, orders these churches off his land in Vancouver.February 4: TRC head Bob Watts declares that "criminal acts" including homicide definitely occured in Indian Residential Schools, but that a criminal investigation will not be conducted by the TRC. In response, Kevin Annett and the FRD announce they will seek international court action to force such an investigation.March 1: The TRC announces the choice of its three Commissioners and the formation of a "Missing Childrens' Group" to search for burial sites and death records.April 10: Kevin Annett releases to the media a list of twenty eight mass grave sites at former Indian residential schools across Canada. The list is reprinted in the media and sent to the government and the TRC; but neither the TRC nor the police contact Annett in response.April 15: Annett and ten indigenous elders and hereditary chiefs announce the formation of an independent International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC) at a Vancouver press conference. The founding elders represent the Squamish, Cree, Metis, Anishinabe, Mohawk and Six Nations people.The IHRTGC declares itself to be an alternative to the government's TRC, which has no power to subpoena, compel disclosure by the churches, or allow the naming of names of mentioning of wrongdoing in its forums. "The TRC is not an independent body but a creation of the government and churches of Canada, who are guilty of genocide" states the IHRTGC founding declaration.May 1: Five local IHRTGC groups are operating across Canada, documenting murders and grave sites at former residential schools and conducting preliminary forensic investigations with eyewitnesses.June 9: Kevin Annett is interviewed in a major article in the Globe and Mail, and is referred to by media commentators as "the government's opposition ... on the residential schools".June 11: Prime Minister Stephen Harper issues an "apology" to residential school survivors in the Canadian Parliament. No plan of action to bring about full disclosure and accountability around the residential schools accompanies the "apology". June 15: Annett is interviewed on the national CBC and calls for a rejection of the apology and the TRC, calling instead for support for the independent IHRTGC.June 22: Harper's "apology" is publicly rejected by groups of residential schools survivors at rallies organized by Annett's FRD in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto.August 2-September 14: Kevin Annett conducts a European speaking tour and screening of his film UNREPENTANT, and establishes overseas support for the IHRTGC, including among members of the European Parliament. In London, Annett calls for a boycott of Canada, its churches, and the 2010 Olympics.October 20: TRC head Judge Harry LaForme resigns in protest over the TRC's operation. The government uses his resignation as an excuse to halt and "re-evaluate" the TRC and its Missing Childrens' Group.October 27: The Globe and Mail runs a front page story on grave sites at Indian residential schools, not mentioning any of the sites named by Kevin Annett and the FRD on April 10.Early November: Kevin Annett conducts another speaking tour in eastern Canada and the USA. UNREPENTANT is screened in six European cities. The independent IHRTGC releases a new list of mass graves totalling thirty three in number, along with affidavits and survey evidence of the sites. The government and TRC do not respond, but new groups of clan mothers and elders join the IHRTGC and begin conducting local investigations.Source: The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Sun, The Epoch Times, 24 Hours News, CBC and CTV radio and TV, Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared media archives, Rev. Kevin Annett, The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC).Monitor ongoing events on Kevin Annett's website:http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
Nothing but the truth can give apology true substance
Nothing but the truth can give apology true substanceBy ROY MACGREGOR
The Globe and MailMonday, June 9, 2008 – Page A2
This Wednesday, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologizes on behalf of the country for the many abuses of the residential school system, there
will be those who say it is only the proper thing to do.
There will be those who will say it is going too far.
And then there will still be the Rev. Kevin Annett.
How far would he go?
Sit down, take a deep breath, and listen up:
A full International War Crimes Tribunal with the powers to prosecute those who can be held
responsible for crimes or cover-ups at the native schools.
A nationwide search for the remains of children - Mr. Annett estimates some 50,000 –
who died at these schools, by neglect or abuse, and were never given proper burials.
The creation of a National Aboriginal Holocaust Museum so Canadians will never forget the crimes
against humanity that took place in these schools.
An official nationwide "Day of Mourning" for all victims, both dead and living, of residential schools.
An end to any federal tax exemptions for churches that had any involvement in establishing and running such institutions.
The abolishment of the Indian Act, the winding down of the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs
- and the return of all "stolen lands and resources" to Canada's indigenous nations.
Don't worry about upsetting Mr. Annett if you disagree with him. He's used to it. He's used to being dismissed.
He's been called a troublemaker. He's been accused of exaggerating to the point of making things up entirely just
to draw attention to himself.
And yet this 52-year-old defrocked former United Church minister who looks uncannily like Frasier actor Kelsey
Grammer says what he really is trying to draw attention to is the likes of Vancouver's Harry Wilson, and the unnamed
woman from Saskatchewan who isn't yet sure she can tell her story in public.
They are, he says, the living victims of residential schools - the ones who desperately need far more than a simple apology.
Mr. Annett, who now ministers to the homeless along Vancouver's East Hastings, helped Harry off a bus last week. Harry is an alcoholic,
a middle-aged man who was beaten and sodomized at the Port Alberni Residential School, and who claims that, when he was 13, he
found the naked, bloodied body of a young Haida girl on the grounds.
He also says he was tortured for months until his tormentors persuaded him he had never seen a body.
As for the woman from Saskatchewan, she remembers having to hold open the furnace doors in her residential
school as small bodies were shovelled in for incineration.
Mr. Annett's critics say no such things ever happened, that such stories are either imagination or some sort of false memory.
Mr. Annett says the only way to know is through "forensic investigations." He says there is anecdotal evidence of mass graves
at many residential schools. He wants digs. Others say there is no point in digging because there is nothing to find.
Going against the grain is nothing new for Kevin Annett. He was an unnoticed United Church minister until he began
questioning the church's role in shifting native-held lands to logging operations and then became increasingly involved
in the residential schools question as persistent challenger of church responsibility.
In 1997, he was removed from the pulpit and defrocked.
"My faith is stronger now," he says, "but not in organized religion."
His strong public stands have brought him praise from the likes of Noam Chomsky, but his battles also
helped destroy his marriage - although he says he is reconciled with his two teenage daughters. He still
regularly challenges the churches involved in residential schools to come clean on what happened.
That bad things happened, no one denies - that they were as bad as Annett believes they were remains the question.
He points to such historical evidence as statements by Duncan Campbell Scott, long-ago deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs,
who mentioned the much-higher native death rates in the schools and how this fit with Ottawa's policy of "a final solution of our
Indian Problem." And he points, as well, to Harry's story, and the Saskatchewan woman's story, and hundreds of similar stories
that still stir in native circles across the country.
The Rev. Kevin Annett, understand, is not against the apology coming down this week. He agrees, in fact, that "amazing progress"
has been made since the possibility of a formal apology first surfaced. But, he says, the apology is at best only a beginning.
"It's important in theory," he says, "but it's the wrong direction."
He wouldn't have the Prime Minister address Parliament, but come down to East Hastings and sit in a healing circle and listen
before he says anything at all. And once the apology has been issued, the real work should begin.
"An apology," he says, "should not have any sense of 'We didn't mean to do it and we're sorry.' That would have no substance.
It's not an action that will have meaning.
"I don't know if we can really talk about resolution until we know the truth about what happened."
Link:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?current_row=42&tf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.html&cf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=&dateOffset=&hub=royMacGregor&title=Roy_MacGregor&cache_key=royMacGregor&start_row=42&num_rows=1Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
The Globe and MailMonday, June 9, 2008 – Page A2
This Wednesday, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologizes on behalf of the country for the many abuses of the residential school system, there
will be those who say it is only the proper thing to do.
There will be those who will say it is going too far.
And then there will still be the Rev. Kevin Annett.
How far would he go?
Sit down, take a deep breath, and listen up:
A full International War Crimes Tribunal with the powers to prosecute those who can be held
responsible for crimes or cover-ups at the native schools.
A nationwide search for the remains of children - Mr. Annett estimates some 50,000 –
who died at these schools, by neglect or abuse, and were never given proper burials.
The creation of a National Aboriginal Holocaust Museum so Canadians will never forget the crimes
against humanity that took place in these schools.
An official nationwide "Day of Mourning" for all victims, both dead and living, of residential schools.
An end to any federal tax exemptions for churches that had any involvement in establishing and running such institutions.
The abolishment of the Indian Act, the winding down of the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs
- and the return of all "stolen lands and resources" to Canada's indigenous nations.
Don't worry about upsetting Mr. Annett if you disagree with him. He's used to it. He's used to being dismissed.
He's been called a troublemaker. He's been accused of exaggerating to the point of making things up entirely just
to draw attention to himself.
And yet this 52-year-old defrocked former United Church minister who looks uncannily like Frasier actor Kelsey
Grammer says what he really is trying to draw attention to is the likes of Vancouver's Harry Wilson, and the unnamed
woman from Saskatchewan who isn't yet sure she can tell her story in public.
They are, he says, the living victims of residential schools - the ones who desperately need far more than a simple apology.
Mr. Annett, who now ministers to the homeless along Vancouver's East Hastings, helped Harry off a bus last week. Harry is an alcoholic,
a middle-aged man who was beaten and sodomized at the Port Alberni Residential School, and who claims that, when he was 13, he
found the naked, bloodied body of a young Haida girl on the grounds.
He also says he was tortured for months until his tormentors persuaded him he had never seen a body.
As for the woman from Saskatchewan, she remembers having to hold open the furnace doors in her residential
school as small bodies were shovelled in for incineration.
Mr. Annett's critics say no such things ever happened, that such stories are either imagination or some sort of false memory.
Mr. Annett says the only way to know is through "forensic investigations." He says there is anecdotal evidence of mass graves
at many residential schools. He wants digs. Others say there is no point in digging because there is nothing to find.
Going against the grain is nothing new for Kevin Annett. He was an unnoticed United Church minister until he began
questioning the church's role in shifting native-held lands to logging operations and then became increasingly involved
in the residential schools question as persistent challenger of church responsibility.
In 1997, he was removed from the pulpit and defrocked.
"My faith is stronger now," he says, "but not in organized religion."
His strong public stands have brought him praise from the likes of Noam Chomsky, but his battles also
helped destroy his marriage - although he says he is reconciled with his two teenage daughters. He still
regularly challenges the churches involved in residential schools to come clean on what happened.
That bad things happened, no one denies - that they were as bad as Annett believes they were remains the question.
He points to such historical evidence as statements by Duncan Campbell Scott, long-ago deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs,
who mentioned the much-higher native death rates in the schools and how this fit with Ottawa's policy of "a final solution of our
Indian Problem." And he points, as well, to Harry's story, and the Saskatchewan woman's story, and hundreds of similar stories
that still stir in native circles across the country.
The Rev. Kevin Annett, understand, is not against the apology coming down this week. He agrees, in fact, that "amazing progress"
has been made since the possibility of a formal apology first surfaced. But, he says, the apology is at best only a beginning.
"It's important in theory," he says, "but it's the wrong direction."
He wouldn't have the Prime Minister address Parliament, but come down to East Hastings and sit in a healing circle and listen
before he says anything at all. And once the apology has been issued, the real work should begin.
"An apology," he says, "should not have any sense of 'We didn't mean to do it and we're sorry.' That would have no substance.
It's not an action that will have meaning.
"I don't know if we can really talk about resolution until we know the truth about what happened."
Link:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?current_row=42&tf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.html&cf=tgam/columnists/FullColumn.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=&dateOffset=&hub=royMacGregor&title=Roy_MacGregor&cache_key=royMacGregor&start_row=42&num_rows=1Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
A list of Canada' residential schools
A list of Canada's residential schools
Posted: May 30, 2008, 8:31 PM by Ronald Nurwisah
Canada
British ColumbiaAlberni Indian Residential School Port Alberni 1920 1973Ahousaht Indian Residential School Ahousaht 1901 1950All Hallows Indian Residential School Yale 1884 1920Christie Indian Residential School Tofino 1900 1973New Christie Indian Residential School Tofino 1974 1983Cowichan Catholic Convent School Cowichan 1863 UnknownFriendly Cove Day School Yuquot 1930 1964Greenville Mission Boy’s Boarding School Naas River 1863 UnknownKamloops Indian Residential School Kamloops 1890 1978Kamloops Indian Residential School Kamloops 1890 1978Kitimaat Indian Residential School Kitimaat 1883 UnknownKootenay Indian Residential School Cranbrook 1898 1970Kuper Island Indian Residential School Chemainus 1890 1975Lejac Indian Residential School Fraser Lake opened 1910 1976Methodist Coqualeetza Institute Chilliwack 1886 1937Metlakatla Indian Residential School Metlakatla 1891 1962Port Simpson Methodist Girl’s School Port Simpson 1863 1950Presbyterian Coqualeetza Indian Residential School Chilliwack 1861 1940Roman Catholic Coqualeetza Indian Residential School Chilliwack 1890 1941Sechelt Indian Residential School Sechelt 1912 1975Squamish Indian Residential School North Vancouver 1898 1959St. George’s Indian Residential School Lytton 1901 1979St. Mary’s Mission Indian Residential School Mission 1861 1984St. Michael’s Indian Residential School Alert Bay 1929 1975Thomas Crosby Indian Residential School Port Simpson 1879 1950Victoria Catholic Convent School Victoria 1863 UnknownWilliams Lake Indian Residential School Caribou 1890 1981Yale Indian Residential School Yale 1900 UnknownYuquot Indian Residential School Yuquot 1901 1913YukonAklavik Anglican Indian Residential School Shingle Point 1927 UnknownBaptist Indian Residential School Whitehorse 1900 1968Carcross Indian Residential School Forty Mile 1891 1910Carcross Indian Residential School Carcross 1910 1969St. Paul’s Indian Residential School Dawson 1920 1943 Yukon Hall Whitehorse 1956 1965Lower Post Indian Residential School Lower Post 1940 1975AlbertaAssumption Indian Residential School Hay Lakes 1953 1965Blue Quill’s Indian Residential School Lac la Biche 1862 UnknownBlue Quill’s Indian Residential School Lac la Biche 1898 1931Blue Quill’s Indian Residential School Lac la Biche 1931 1970Convent of Holy Angels Indian Residential School Fort Chipewyan 1902 1974Crowfoot Indian Residential School Cluny 1909 1968Dunbow Industrial School High River 1888 1939Edmonton Industrial School St. Albert 1919 1960Ermineskin Indian Residential School Hobbema 1916 1973Fort Smith Indian Residential School Fort Smith 1955 1970Immaculate Conception Indian Residential School Stand-Off 1884 1926Immaculate Conception Boarding School Stand-Off 1911 1975McDougall Orphanage and Residential School Morley 1886 1949Old Sun’s Boarding School Gleichen 1894 1912Old Sun’s Boarding School Gleichen 1929 1971Peigan Indian Residential School Brocket 1892 1965Red Deer Industrial School Red Deer 1889 1944Sarcee Indian Residential School Calgary 1894 1930St. Albert’s Indian Residential School St. Albert 1941 1948St. Andrew’s Indian Residential School Whitefish Lake 1895 1950St. Barnabas Indian Residential School Sarcee 1899 1922St. Bernard Indian Residential School Grouard 1939 1962St. Bruno Indian Residential School Joussard 1913 1969St. Cyprian’s Indian Residential School Brocket 1900 1962St. Francis Xavier Indian Residential School Calais 1890 1961St. Henri Indian Residential School Fort Vermilion 1900 1968St. John’s Indian Residential School Wabasca 1895 1966St. Martin Boarding School Wabasca 1901 1973St. Paul Des Métis Indian Residential School St. Paul 1898 1905St. Paul’s Indian Residential School Cardston 1900 1972St. Peter’s Indian Residential School Lesser Slave Lake 1900 1932Sturgeon Lake Indian Residential School Sturgeon Lake 1907 1957Youville Indian Residential School Edmonton 1892 1948Northwest TerritoriesAklavik Anglican Indian Residential School Shingle Point 1927 1959Aklavik Catholic Indian Residential School Aklavik 1925 1952Fort McPherson Indian Residential School Fort McPherson 1898 1970Fort Providence Indian Residential School Fort Providence 1867 1953Fort Resolution Indian Residential School Fort Resolution 1867 UnknownFort Simpson Indian Residential School Fort Simpson 1920 1950Fort Simpson Indian Residential School Fort Simpson 1950 1970Hay River Indian Residential School Hay River 1898 1949Yellowknife Indian Residential School Yellowknife 1948 1970Saskatchewan Battleford Industrial School Battleford 1883 1943Beauval Indian Residential School Beauval 1895 1983Cowesses Indian Residential School Marieval 1936 1975Crowstand Indian Residential School Kamsack 1888 1913St. Michael’s Indian Residential School Duck Lake 1892 1964Emmanuel College Prince Albert 1865 1923File Hills Indian Residential School Okanese Reserve 1889 1949Gordon Indian Residential School Punnichy 1889 1975Guy Indian Residential School Sturgeon Landing 1926 1964Ile-à-la-Crosse Indian Residential School Ile-à-la- Crosse 1878 UnknownLake La Ronge Mission Indian Residential School La Ronge 1914 1947Muscowequan Indian Residential School Lestock 1932 1981Prince Albert Indian Residential School Prince Albert Unknown 1951Prince Albert Indian Residential School Prince Albert 1865 1964Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School Lebret 1884 1969Regina Indian Residential School Regina 1890 UnknownRound Lake Indian Residential School Whitewood 1886 1950St. Anthony’s Indian Residential School Onion Lake 1891 1968St. Barnabas Indian Residential School Onion Lake 1893 1951St. Phillips Indian Residential School Kamsack 1899 1965Thunderchild Indian Residential School Delmas 1933 1948ManitobaAssiniboia Indian Residential School Winnipeg 1957 1973Birtle Indian Residential School Birtle 1889 1975Brandon Industrial School Brandon 1923 1975Cross Lake Indian Residential School Cross Lake 1915 1942Elkhorn Indian Residential School Elkhorn 1888 1919Elkhorn Indian Residential School Elkhorn 1925 1949Fort Alexander Indian Residential School Fort Alexander 1906 1970Guy Hill Indian Residential School The Pas 1955 1974Lake St. Martin Indian Residential School Fisher River 1874 1963MacKay Indian Residential School The Pas 1915 1933MacKay Indian Residential School Dauphin 1955 1980Norway House Methodist Indian Residential School Norway House 1900 1974Pine Creek Indian Residential School Camperville 1891 1971Portage la Prairie Methodist Indian Residential School Portage la Prairie 1896 1975Portage la Prairie Presbyterian Indian Residential Portage la Prairie 1895 1950Sandy Bay Indian Residential School Sandy Bay First Nation 1905 1970St. Boniface Industrial School St. Boniface 1891 1909St. Paul’s Industrial School Selkirk County 1886 1906Waterhen Indian Residential School Waterhen 1890 1900NunavutChesterfield Inlet Indian Residential School Chesterfield Inlet 1929 1970Frobisher Bay Indian Residential School Frobisher Bay 1965 UnknownOntarioAlbany Mission Indian Residential School Fort Albany 1912 1963Alexandra Industrial School for Girls Toronto 1897 UnknownAlnwick Industrial School Alderville 1838 1966Bishop Horden Memorial School Moose Factory 1907 1963Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School Kenora 1900 1966Chapleau Indian Residential School Chapleau 1907 1950Fort Frances Indian Residential School Fort Frances 1902 1974Kenora Indian Residential School Kenora 1949 1963McIntosh Indian Residential School Kenora 1924 1969Mohawk Institute Residential School Brantford 1850 1969Mount Elgin Indian Residential School Muncey Town 1848 1948Shingwauk Indian Residential School Garden River 1873 1873Shingwauk Indian Residential School Sault Ste. Marie 1873 1934Shingwauk Indian Residential School Sarnia 1877 1934Shingwauk Indian Residential School Sault Ste. Marie 1934 1971Sioux Lookout Indian Residential School Sioux Lookout 1911 1973Spanish Indian Residential School Spanish 1883 1965St. Anne’s Indian Residential School Fort Albany 1936 1964St. Joseph’s Indian Boarding School Fort William 1936 1964St. Mary’s Indian Residential School Kenora 1894 1962Wikwemikong Indian Residential School Manitowaning 1840 1963QuebecAmos Indian Residential School Amos 1948 1965Fort George Anglican Indian Residential School Fort George 1934 1979Fort George Catholic Indian Residential School Fort George 1936 1952La Tuque Indian Residential School La Tuque 1962 1980Pointe Bleue Indian Residential School Pointe Bleue 1956 1965Sept-Iles Indian Residential School Sept-Iles 1952 1967Nova ScotiaShubenacadie Indian Residential School Shubenacadie 1922 1968
People never do evil so cheerfully
“People never do evil so
cheerfully as when they do it
from religious conviction.”
-Blaise Pascal
“Bella Figura” means to have a good image is important. The church protects the imagine over all things. They are the imagine not the people. Once you understand that you understand all other actions.
It is easier to kill 1000’s and have the public deny it then to kill one child and have the public deny it. They killed over 50,000 children and didn’t even hide it that much. Yet how many know the truth of what happen? What process in is place to allow that kind of truth to not be known by most people? What else do you not know that is right in front of you? Wake up!
Hiddenfromhistory.org
UNREPENTANT: KEVIN ANNETT AND CANADA'S
GENOCIDE Full Length documentary
Please watch this documentary and share it with
as many people as you can!
..
Drag the bar to make the video start. Thanks
Please lend your support to him:
http://hiddenfromhistory. org/
Deliberate Genocide of Aboriginal People in Canada – The Facts
Deliberate Genocide of Aboriginal People in Canada – The Facts
Evidence of the intent by government and churches to commit genocide against native people, reflecting a national policy and plan (documents are available):
The report of Dr. Peter Bryce, summer 1907, in which a constantly high death rate of between 30%-50% was found in most western residential schools because of a practice by staff of “deliberately infecting children with infectious diseases”. This death rate stayed constant for over 40 years (Globe and Mail, April 24, 2007).
Statistical Tables from the federal government reveal a net de-population of native people across Canada between 1904 and 1917 of nearly 25%, and again during the 1920’s. This decline was directly attributable to widespread and untreated tuberculosis.
Despite this huge mortality level in the residential schools, the federal government passed a law in 1920 requiring compulsory attendance in these schools by every native child, on pain of imprisonment and fining of their parents.
The same year (1919-1920), all medical inspection of these schools was abolished by a federal government order-in-council. Deaths of native students from tuberculosis rose dramatically immediately following this abolition of medical inspection.
During the subsequent decade (1920-30), natives were stripped of their legal rights and power to hire a lawyer (1927), formal legal guardianship of native children was transferred from the federal government to residential school Principals, i.e., the churches (1929), and involuntary sterilization laws were implemented by which any native child in these schools could legally be made infertile (1929-1933).
One third to one half of residential school students continued to die on average for nearly fifty years (1900-1950), despite repeated studies and warnings to the churches and federal government.
The policy of the federal government was not to hospitalize Indians and Inuit people suffering and dying from tuberculosis. (Globe and Mail, May 29, 1953)
Numerous accounts exist of native children sick with tuberculosis being admitted en masse into residential schools and deliberately housed with the healthy, causing subsequent deaths. No segregation of sick and healthy was practiced.
Native children consistently died at a much higher rate within residential schools than outside them, because of conditions within the schools that "weakened ... their constitution". Despite knowing this, government officials took no action. (Letter of M. McKay to D.C. Scott, April 1910)
Native children infected with smallpox and tuberculosis were deliberately sent back to their homes and into native villages by residential school staff and doctors (e.g., Mission Catholic school, 1923).
Two distinct standards of health and medical care were practiced by government and church doctors at the residential schools, along clear racial lines. Native children received a consistently lower standard of attention and treatment (e.g., letter of Dr. F. Pitts, Lejac school, 1934).
Government officials, including the heads of Indian Affairs, authorized these practices through a policy that legitimated lack of care and widespread deaths on the grounds that “a high death rate from tuberculosis and other diseases is to be expected … among Indian children” (DIA Superintendent D.C. Scott, 1918).
Extensive residential school records were deliberately destroyed by federal government “document destruction teams” throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s across Canada (Ottawa Sun, May, 2007). Government and church officials suppressed evidence of deaths and other crimes in residential schools consistently for nearly a century, and as recently as the 1960’s. (Province, October, 1998)
Source:
Documents from the RG 10 series on Indian Residential Schools, federal Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, (Vols. R 7733), reproduced in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2005, 2nd ed.) by K. Annett
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org
For more information, contact Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared-Toronto at FRDToronto@yahoo.ca.
Evidence of the intent by government and churches to commit genocide against native people, reflecting a national policy and plan (documents are available):
The report of Dr. Peter Bryce, summer 1907, in which a constantly high death rate of between 30%-50% was found in most western residential schools because of a practice by staff of “deliberately infecting children with infectious diseases”. This death rate stayed constant for over 40 years (Globe and Mail, April 24, 2007).
Statistical Tables from the federal government reveal a net de-population of native people across Canada between 1904 and 1917 of nearly 25%, and again during the 1920’s. This decline was directly attributable to widespread and untreated tuberculosis.
Despite this huge mortality level in the residential schools, the federal government passed a law in 1920 requiring compulsory attendance in these schools by every native child, on pain of imprisonment and fining of their parents.
The same year (1919-1920), all medical inspection of these schools was abolished by a federal government order-in-council. Deaths of native students from tuberculosis rose dramatically immediately following this abolition of medical inspection.
During the subsequent decade (1920-30), natives were stripped of their legal rights and power to hire a lawyer (1927), formal legal guardianship of native children was transferred from the federal government to residential school Principals, i.e., the churches (1929), and involuntary sterilization laws were implemented by which any native child in these schools could legally be made infertile (1929-1933).
One third to one half of residential school students continued to die on average for nearly fifty years (1900-1950), despite repeated studies and warnings to the churches and federal government.
The policy of the federal government was not to hospitalize Indians and Inuit people suffering and dying from tuberculosis. (Globe and Mail, May 29, 1953)
Numerous accounts exist of native children sick with tuberculosis being admitted en masse into residential schools and deliberately housed with the healthy, causing subsequent deaths. No segregation of sick and healthy was practiced.
Native children consistently died at a much higher rate within residential schools than outside them, because of conditions within the schools that "weakened ... their constitution". Despite knowing this, government officials took no action. (Letter of M. McKay to D.C. Scott, April 1910)
Native children infected with smallpox and tuberculosis were deliberately sent back to their homes and into native villages by residential school staff and doctors (e.g., Mission Catholic school, 1923).
Two distinct standards of health and medical care were practiced by government and church doctors at the residential schools, along clear racial lines. Native children received a consistently lower standard of attention and treatment (e.g., letter of Dr. F. Pitts, Lejac school, 1934).
Government officials, including the heads of Indian Affairs, authorized these practices through a policy that legitimated lack of care and widespread deaths on the grounds that “a high death rate from tuberculosis and other diseases is to be expected … among Indian children” (DIA Superintendent D.C. Scott, 1918).
Extensive residential school records were deliberately destroyed by federal government “document destruction teams” throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s across Canada (Ottawa Sun, May, 2007). Government and church officials suppressed evidence of deaths and other crimes in residential schools consistently for nearly a century, and as recently as the 1960’s. (Province, October, 1998)
Source:
Documents from the RG 10 series on Indian Residential Schools, federal Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, (Vols. R 7733), reproduced in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2005, 2nd ed.) by K. Annett
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org
For more information, contact Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared-Toronto at FRDToronto@yahoo.ca.
Kevin Annett guest on blogtalkradio.com/redtownradio
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com Censored News Radio focuses on Indigenous Peoples and international human rights.
Brenda Norrell was in the chat room for the http://www.blogtalkradio.com/redtownradio show that had Kevin Annett as a guest. She was kind enough to compile this blog on Kevin Annett’s interview. She also has a show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell Please lend your support to this show. Thank you Brenda Norrell for your great work in blogging so many issues that need to be heard!
..
Churches in Canada have not been held responsible for the rape, murder and disappearance of 50,000 to 100,000 Native American children in Canada’s residential schools, said Kevin Annett, speaking on RedTown Blog Talk Radio today. Canada has not made an attempt for real healing for Native people, or to prosecute the perpetrators, including those who murdered and buried children.Annett said many of the Indian survivors of residential school abuse have taken their own lives.
“They are crushed and broken by this.”“Who will speak for the children who never came back?”“What about all those children who died? Are we going to pretend it never happened?”During the 90-minute program aired on RedTown, Annett said the churches pushed the Canadian government to keep these schools open, even after Canada wanted to close the schools. Now, the churches place themselves above the law, refusing to even identify where the children's graves are.
One of the survivors said after a young girl was raped by a priest, she gave birth to a child. The priest threw the baby in the furnace. On a video on the Hidden From History website, Irene Favel, survivor of Muscowequan Catholic residential school in Lestock, Saskatchewan, describes seeing a newborn baby thrown alive into a furnace at that school by a priest in 1944. “They heard the little cry," Annett said on RedTown radio.On Turtle Island, the genocide of Indian people was the worst genocide in the history of mankind, he said.
In Canada, the churches had a motivation for genocide. The churches stole land from the west coast tribes and sold it off to logging companies. In return, the churches received kickbacks. Now, Canada’s system of compensation payments to survivors of residential schools is designed to produce more trauma, as survivors relive the abuse. Using a crude system, Canada gives a number of points for abuse. For example, victims of rape or beatings are given specific numbers of points.The survivor has to remember the name of the perpetrator. But Annett asked how many five-year-olds remember the name of the person who abused them. The survivors also have to provide proof that they attended residential school, even though many of the documents have been destroyed. Now, of those seeking compensation, 8 out of 10 have been disqualified. Canada designed a system to victimize the victims.
“They know that when someone relives that, they will go off and kill themselves. That is not an accident, it is deliberate,” Annett said. Canada is not concerned about healing, he said. Canada is concerned about minimizing the liability. There are actions people can take to help, like recording the stories of survivors and writing letters to newspapers. Urging people to people exchanges, rather than relying on the Internet, is how change happens, he said.
In Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is holding forums which do not allow for exposure of the actual crimes or naming of the perpetrators.“That is their plan, to whitewash the whole thing.” Annett wants real observers, from outside Canada, to go to the children’s graves. Then, for the children to be repatriated and charges and prosecution to follow. Annett said it is vital to have an international tribunal resulting in charges and prosecutions.
There is also a Boycott of the 2010 Olympics underway, so the media and government will take notice of the crimes, including the Indian sterilization clinics in mass all over the west coast of Canada.
It was a crime of genocide. Still, no one responsible for the murder of these children has been prosecuted. Some of the perpetrators are still alive. Annett said his personal life was destroyed and he was defrocked by the church because he exposed the systematic genocide of Indian children by the churches in Canada. Annett described what happened to him over the past 15 years of exposing the genocide.
Annett’s own transformation began as a minister in Vancouver when he met many Native people who were suffering. He became aware of the suicides and the widespread intergenerational trauma. Then Native people came to the schools and began talking about the abuse. “The churches have never been prosecuted for these crimes.”Indian children were sterilized and other atrocities of Nazi Germany were carried out.“The institutions got away with that.” Annett discovered in historical archives that early medical records reveal that 40 to 60 percent of the children in Canada’s residential schools died. It was a systematic effort to kill off Indian people. Children were locked in dorms with others with tuberculosis and fast spreading diseases.“It was germ warfare.”“They were doing it to depopulate the west.” “It is genocide. It has to be treated like any other crime,” Annett said.
Referring to financial compensation for survivors, he said acts this terrible cannot be compensated or apologized away. In many cases, when money is paid to the victims of residential school abuse, there is a gag order and an agreement that the government cannot be sued. The money that has been paid out has not solved anything and in some cases has resulted in suicides and other forms of death. “It is designed to protect the perpetrators.”
The churches widespread abuse of children was designed to wipe out Indian people. The schools began in the 1800s. The last school in Canada did not close until 1996. Besides speaking out for 15 years about the systematic genocide, Annett produced a film, “Unrepentant,” which can be viewed online.While his own personal life was destroyed, it made him realize what the church was capable of.
“Native people are disposables in our culture,” he said. The abuse has not stopped. Today, police in Canada still take Native people outside of town and leave them to freeze to death. When Annett began to expose what he found in archives, he realized there was a conspiracy of silence. “Everything is run by the government here,” he said. In Canada if anyone challenges the government or churches, he is considered a threat. He said it is a very Totalitarian government. Annett was fired from his pulpit. “They tried to scapegoat me like there was something wrong with me.” The church offered to pay for his wife’s divorce. After the divorce, he lost custody of his children. But, then the Native people began to tell him more of their stories and invite him to their healing circles.Today, he said there is a great deal of denial in Canada. However, there is more openness from the young people when there are protests and calls for action. “Most of the people who come by on the street are supportive of us.”The older clergy knows it is true and become angry at the protests and truth.“I can see real change happening,”“I’m still under a real blacklist, in terms of getting work in Canada.”When asked if he ever considered giving up, he said he did not want them to win. He wanted to be able to look his children in the eyes one day and for them to know what he did.
Annett described how he went with survivors into a Vancouver church and respectfully held up a banner, “All the children need a proper burial.” Alongside him was a survivor who was almost tortured to death as a child in residential school. But after standing in that church with that banner, the man stopped drinking. He said he found a power within himself that he didn’t know he had, as they were standing there together.The priests were very angry and called the police. But when they left this church, the congregation stood and honored them.Annett said their message to the people of Canada has been, “If it happened to your child, wouldn’t you want to know where they are and what happened to them.”There were 500,000 to 100,000 Indian children in Canada that never came back from church operated residential schools. A lot of these crimes are continuing today, as Indian children are put into white foster homes. Now, pedophile networks are exploiting children from the reserves.
“Unless you can confront this, it is carried on. People who are abused, become the abuser.” A report form UNESCO shows Vancouver is one of the top cities in the world for child prostitution.
During the RedTown Radio show, host Brenda Golden said both she and her mother are survivors of residential schools. Golden’s mother was forbidden to speak her language and isolated from her family. “My mother had a detachment, my mother didn’t know how to love us kids because she hadn’t had that.”
Annett relayed the story of a survivor and how an eight-year-old was stretched out on a rack in a residential school in a form of Medievil torture. “He saw someone die on that rack.” But the survivor said he had been taught his own traditions and that is how he survived.
“When you lose touch with the spirit, you start dying from the inside out,” the survivor said. Annett said this is what happened to white people, to Europeans. They lost touch with the spirit. “We survive by remembering who we are.”
This was a war and some children survived it, but they carry this with them, at a cellular level. He said we all have to find out how to heal ourselves, with the traditions passed on.What Annett discovered, and lived through, is the dark side of the culture in Christianity.While Canadian churches are fighting the exposure of this truth, Golden said in the United States people refuse to believe that the government sterilized Indian women.During the show, one caller, Kathy said, “If we are not a watchdog for the children, we will have no future. She said her brother is a survivor of residential school in Ireland. “It happens everywhere.”
In closing Annett spoke of his ancestor Peter Annett who was also persecuted for speaking out. “The power of one person speaking the truth is something we must honor.”“People are judged by their actions, instead of their words.”Praising the qualities of Native people, Annett said Indian people have withstood the genocide because of their great strength. Now, all of humanity must struggle together if mankind is to survive.“It is how we survive, together now, if we are even able to,” Annett said, pointing out the destruction of the old growth forests.
When asked about his current beliefs, Annett said he is a spiritual person, but not in a way that he expected. “I feel a deep peace inside. I feel I have done the right thing.”More at Hidden from History: http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
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Kevin Annett: Looking Forward
Red Town RadioGuest: Kevin Annettwww.blogtalkradio.com/RedTownRadio Looking Back, Looking Forward:The Political Consequences of Uncovering Genocide in CanadaBy Kevin D. Annett (Eagle Strong Voice) Squamish Nation territory2008 was the year the impossible happened in Canada. Our national network known as The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared made history this past year, and forever changed the political landscape of Canada. In the words of Dora, an elderly survivor of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, “You’ve finally put our people on the map. They can’t ignore us, ever again.” In a nutshell, we have forced Canada to admit to its genocide of native people, and issue a formal apology for the residential school crimes, and admit that thousands of children died in these schools. Our allied hereditary chiefs proclaimed sovereignty over indigenous land and issued eviction orders against the churches responsible for genocide. Quite simply, after years of effort, we have forever changed the image of Canada in the world and ended an official regime of Holocaust Denial.
It has been a joy and an honor for me to help win such a moral victory for people who have never been “on the map”. But what has this victory meant for such people?On Palm Sunday, March 16, 2008, fifty of us - natives and "whites" - walked quietly to the front of the Holy Rosary Catholic Cathedral in downtown Vancouver and stood there, facing the congregation, holding a banner that read, “All the Children Need a Proper Burial.”
We had been warned to stay away from that church. But I remember walking unafraid to the front of the sanctuary with all our people, led by three clan mothers. Among us were William Combes, Rick Lavallee and Bingo, homeless survivors of hideous tortures at Catholic residential schools. That moment was a pinnacle for me, and for the survivors, for in the very heart of that which had tried to kill them, they were able to face it and say, We are still here, and we want our friends returned to us. Past the angry threats of the priests, and the police who later descended on us, we were reaching out and touching the hearts of people in the Catholic church that day. And it worked. For, after a few minutes, as our procession left the sanctuary led by the drumming of the clan mothers, the entire congregation rose spontaneously as we walked by. It was then that I knew we had won. And sure enough, the walls began coming down after our moral victory that day.In the wake of our March action, the missing residential school children have, for the first time, preoccupied the conscience and public discourse of Canada . It is as if the entire dominant culture is now standing, as did the Catholic parishioners, to acknowledge what they know is true, in remembrance of the missing children. In opposition, both church and state have done their best, since that day, to belittle our work and downplay the reality of murders in Indian residential schools, and their responsibility for them. But such is always the behavior of those with their backs to the wall.If our simple act of speaking of the dead and holding up the survivors has begun to shake loose centuries of Holocaust Denial in Canada , it has also caused us to ask ourselves,
Where do we go from here? We are no longer asking for anything from the churches and state that are responsible for genocide. Rather, all our actions in 2008 have laid the groundwork for an even greater step: drawing the broader political consequences of our exposure of Canada as a colonial and genocidal settler state, and creating an altogether new society. Who are We and What Can We Become?Our exposure of the Canadian genocide has simultaneously indicted the social order that gave rise to it. Euro-Canadian Christian society as a whole stands condemned in the dock alongside those persons who ran the residential schools, sterilized and murdered children, spread smallpox, and dug the mass graves. Despite their best efforts to ignore this fact and contain the whole matter with pseudo “apologies”, the Canadian government and its partner Catholic, Anglican and United churches now face the same kind of historical reckoning that Nazi Germany did after its defeat in 1945: an awakening to their own criminal nature.
On April 20, 2007, Canada and those churches suffered a fundamental moral defeat in Parliament, when the first cabinet minister in Canadian history publicly acknowledged that untold thousands of children had died in Christian Indian residential schools.The extent of this defeat has yet to be appreciated by most Canadians, or even indigenous people. But its impact is nevertheless reverberating throughout every level of society and undermining the very basis of Canada ’s existence.
The question now is how to draw the larger conclusions of this defeat in order to reinvent Canada from the top down, and the bottom up, with a basic purpose: the establishment of a decolonized, secular, and genuinely democratic federation of sovereign nations – the Republic of Kanata .Shedding the Past, Creating a Future
Canada has never been allowed to become a sovereign and democratic nation because of its historical role as a resource base and captured market for first the British and then the American empire. That dependency required that Canada remain frozen as a colonial, church-dominated, semi-feudal society: a condition that has caused the sustained genocide of indigenous peoples and the destruction of their lands, and now threatens the lives of all of us.
The two attempted democratic revolutions in our history – the abortive rebellions in 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, and the Metis Insurrection of 1885 in the Red River basin – had as their aim the ending of an Imperial oligarchy and the creation of a democratic Republic in which aboriginals and Europeans could co-exist equally. The crushing of both rebellions ensured that oligarchy and apartheid would remain the political norm in Canada .And yet, the same vision of freedom that propelled these revolts had been originally offered by the eastern Six Nations to the arriving Europeans through the “Two Road Wampum” Great Law of Peace, in which both cultures would share the land and not seek to dominate or conquer the other.
That offer was rejected not by Europeans as a whole, but by the religious and commercial elites who ran the foreign policy of both the French and British Empires, especially during the European Religious Wars of the formative 17th century.Time and again, the Catholic and Protestant churches subverted peaceful relations between whites and natives, and among aboriginal nations such as the Huron and Iroquois, as part of their plan to exterminate all non-Christian peoples and take their land ...The Elders and National Council of the Republican Movement of Kanata, in alliance with traditional Squamish Chief Siem KiapilanoREAD MORE AT:http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
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