More Bodies of Indigenous Children have been found at former Residential Schools Using Ground Penetrating Radar in Canada

[AbsolutSurgen]

‘Horrific and shocking’: FSIN, Cowessess First Nation to announce unmarked grave findings Thursday

 

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The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) and Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan say they will be announcing a “horrific and shocking discovery” on Thursday morning.

The discovery is in relation to unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School, which was located about 140 kilometres east of Regina.

“The number of unmarked graves will be the most significantly substantial to date in Canada,” a news release from the FSIN read.

The FSIN said “hundreds” of unmarked graves have been discovered.

The legacy of residential schools is one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history.  About 150,000 aboriginal children were taken, mostly forcibly, from their families and sent to boarding schools (called residential schools) that were primarily run by churches (primarily Catholic).  This started in the 1890s, and ran until the 1990s  (most were closed significantly before this).  These schools suffered from poor funding -- they were inadequately heated, the students were not appropriately fed/clothed and abuse was rampant. Estimates show that between 3,000-6,000 children died at these schools -- many of them late in the 19th century, or very early in the 20th century -- but records are very poor, and have been obfuscated by the Catholic Church.  One of the most distressing parts about this was the callousness in which the church treated the aboriginal parents.  Notification of death  was frequently very poor (and delayed), and the Canadian government generally refused to pay for bodies to be returned to their families, and were instead buried in unmarked graves.

 

The knowledge that most of these children were buried in unmarked graves surrounding these schools is not new.  These schools were created at a time when child mortality was high -- and even higher at these schools than in the general Canadian population.  Average life expectancy in the 1890s was somewhere in the late 40s (although if you lived to be 18, it was in the mid-60s).  There were numerous outbreaks of TB (in residential schools, and elsewhere).  The Spanish flu hit in 1918, killing almost 100 million people worldwide, and was particularly deadly in residential schools.  They were the perfect target -- poorly fed children, with limited natural immunity and a deadly flu that targeted children.  Every single school that is looked at will have a large amount of unmarked graves.  This should come as a surprise to no one -- people who "act surprised" are just not paying attention.  This is not "new news".

[CitizenVectron]

Horrible. The Catholic Church needs to be destroyed for this. They still refuse to release records of the schools. Hell, they are effectively still doing this around the world. There will likely be dozens more sites like this found. While it's not surprising to anyone who knows history...most people don't. And hey, the more people that are shocked about Canada's history, the better.

 

 

[Brick]

This is one of the darkest, most disgusting stains on our country. Yet another reason to hate the Catholic Church as well. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

It would seem that someone is taking justice into their own hands.

 

Canadian police investigate two Catholic churches burned down in ‘suspicious’ fires - The Washington Post

WWW-WASHINGTONPOST-COM.CDN.AMPPROJECT.ORG

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The separate fires arrive less than a month after the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found at a former residential school in British Columbia once operated by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[CitizenVectron]

Jesus fucking Christ

 

Sask. First Nation announces discovery of 751 unmarked graves near former residential school | CBC News

WWW.CBC.CA

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The chiefs of the Cowessess First Nation and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations spoke about the discovery of a "substantial" number of unmarked graves at the site of the Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

 

[CayceG]

The Anglican church operated these schools too. They shouldn't be all that shrouded from responsibility. But they've done more to acknowledge this failing in the past--moreso than the Catholic church.

[Uaarkson]

Remains of Native American children to be exhumed at site of former boarding school

WWW.CNN.COM

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The remains of 10 children and young adults who died at a Pennsylvania boarding school for Native Americans more than a century ago are expected to be exhumed and returned to their...

America has joined the chat 

[Keyser_Soze]

I guess Canadians try to act nice because really deep down they are cold blooded murderers.

[Fizzzzle]

I don't need to be this angry today, I'm going to go watch the videos of @silentbob's puppy for a while.

[CitizenVectron]

4 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I guess Canadians try to act nice because really deep down they are cold blooded murderers.

 

The Canadian experience of colonization is basically America-lite. Some slavery that stopped earlier, some genocide that was not as outright, and less than the US so the country doesn't get as much flak. It deserves condemnation, though, regardless of any comparison to anywhere else.

[CitizenVectron]

St. Albert cancels Canada Day fireworks at site of former residential school

EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM

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ST. ALBERT, Alta. — A city northwest of Edmonton says it has cancelled its Canada Day fireworks display because it was to be held on the site of a former…

 

I've already seen "outrage" that Canada is being "cancelled" because of these findings. Fuck you to anyone who says or thinks that—these are events that are still causing trauma to this day, and celebrating how awesome Canada is during these types of discoveries is fucked up...especially when the celebration was going to take place on the actual land where kids were abused and died!

[Guest]

Stopping patriotic parties because of bad things done in the past on a particular piece of land is a recipe for never having patriotic parties  

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Just now, sblfilms said:

Stopping patriotic parties because of bad things done in the past on a particular piece of land is a recipe for never having patriotic parties  

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I mean…

[heydude93]

Gregg Deal talked about similar boarding schools in a podcast interview. Fucking horror shows, and even crazier is some of them were STILL in operation as recently as the early 2000's. 

[Brick]

I would love if this ended the Church, but I know it won't because the über religious Catholics don't care if the Church is at fault (especially those who don't live in Canada), and any sort of criticism or wanting to hold the Church accountable would be seen as blasphemy, and they don't want to go to Hell, so the Church will just continue to pay lip service to how horrible they feel about this, and go on forcing people to become Catholic in other impoverished nations, denying science, molesting children, and fear mongering about birth control, etc. etc. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

"Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme spoke at a virtual news conference Thursday morning. 

"This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves," Delorme said. 

elorme said there may have at one point been markers for the graves. He said the Roman Catholic church, which oversaw the cemetery, may have removed markers at some point in the 1960s.

He said it was not immediately clear if all of the unmarked graves belonged to children, but that there were oral stories within Cowesses First Nation about both children and adults being there. 

He said some of the remains discovered may be people who attended the church or were from nearby towns."

[CitizenVectron]

5 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

"Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme spoke at a virtual news conference Thursday morning. 

"This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves," Delorme said. 

elorme said there may have at one point been markers for the graves. He said the Roman Catholic church, which oversaw the cemetery, may have removed markers at some point in the 1960s.

He said it was not immediately clear if all of the unmarked graves belonged to children, but that there were oral stories within Cowesses First Nation about both children and adults being there. 

He said some of the remains discovered may be people who attended the church or were from nearby towns."

 

Maybe, like police and bodycams, the Church releasing records could actually help defend them in this situation. Not that I am holding my breath. Besides, if it's 200 dead kids or 751, it's still dead kids at the hands of the Catholic Church, RCMP, and government of Canada.

[AbsolutSurgen]

3 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Maybe, like police and bodycams, the Church releasing records could actually help defend them in this situation. Not that I am holding my breath. Besides, if it's 200 dead kids or 751, it's still dead kids at the hands of the Catholic Church, RCMP, and government of Canada.

Perhaps.  Child mortality pre-1925 was significant everywhere -- 25-30% of children in Canada didn't live to see their fifth birthday.

[CitizenVectron]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Perhaps.  Child mortality pre-1925 was significant everywhere -- 25-30% of children in Canada didn't live to see their fifth birthday.

 

Residential schools commonly used the adopted policy of bunking sick Indigenous children with children who were well, in order to spread illness. They also neglected the children and abused them physically. I mean, yeah, some kids would have died. But not as many if they had been white.

[BloodyHell]

4 hours ago, Brick said:

I would love if this ended the Church, but I know it won't because the über religious Catholics don't care if the Church is at fault (especially those who don't live in Canada), and any sort of criticism or wanting to hold the Church accountable would be seen as blasphemy, and they don't want to go to Hell, so the Church will just continue to pay lip service to how horrible they feel about this, and go on forcing people to become Catholic in other impoverished nations, denying science, molesting children, and fear mongering about birth control, etc. etc. 

It wasn't just the church, thats the thing being missed in all this. The damn government used the rcmp to forcibly remove kids from homes whose parents refused to send them away. My wifes grandmother was forced into one of these schools, and blamed the government as much as the church until the day she died. The current pm's father was instrumental in helping the  continuations of this crime against humanity well in into the 90's.

While the church should be dismantled and destroyed, it's pretty disgusting that the governments role is barely mentioned.

[Brick]

I didn't say it was just the Church. The government needs to be held responsible too. There needs to be investigations into who is responsible for this, and charges to be pressed. Reparations as well. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

30 minutes ago, Brick said:

I didn't say it was just the Church. The government needs to be held responsible too. There needs to be investigations into who is responsible for this, and charges to be pressed. Reparations as well. 

 

 

I'm relatively certain that they've been deceased for a very long time.

[BloodyHell]

47 minutes ago, Brick said:

I didn't say it was just the Church. The government needs to be held responsible too. There needs to be investigations into who is responsible for this, and charges to be pressed. Reparations as well. 

Oh, i wasn't pointing at you specifically, just seeing a lot of people talking about the church without mentioning the government.

[Brick]

29 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

I'm relatively certain that they've been deceased for a very long time.

 

Most yes, but certainly not all if these schools were still open until the '90s.

[AbsolutSurgen]

15 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Residential schools commonly used the adopted policy of bunking sick Indigenous children with children who were well, in order to spread illness. They also neglected the children and abused them physically. I mean, yeah, some kids would have died. But not as many if they had been white.

I am not defending residential schools in any way.  Forcibly removing children from their parents is a disgusting practice for any government.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 hours ago, Brick said:

 

Most yes, but certainly not all if these schools were still open until the '90s.

Most were closed much earlier than this.  While, based on the reports I've read, the situation in the 90s was completely unacceptable.  Most of the really horrific stuff happened much earlier.

[CitizenVectron]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Most were closed much earlier than this.  While, based on the reports I've read, the situation in the 90s was completely unacceptable.  Most of the really horrific stuff happened much earlier.

 

For sure. While the practice continuing this far into modern history is despicable (and investigations should be done into living administrators, etc), the most abuse and deaths would have occurred in the 1860-1930 window.

[CitizenVectron]

Saskatoon Catholic cathedral covered with paint after discovery of 751 unmarked graves | CBC News

WWW.CBC.CA

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The doors of a Roman Catholic cathedral in downtown Saskatoon were splattered with paint Thursday afternoon after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School.

 

 

The woman did it in broad daylight, too, which is good. 

[CitizenVectron]

As I've said before, I work for a Catholic school division, in their IT department. I've been conflicted before about working for them. Though the school division is publicly funded (and follows public curriculum) and has no ties to any past church history, it's still associated with the church. One of my coworkers is gay, and he too has said he feels conflicted. On the one hand, our IT team itself is awesome and diverse, and generally atheist/agnostic (as you'll find in most IT departments). We are the only part of the division that is not required to be Catholic, really (good luck finding devout Catholics for software development, sysadmin roles, etc).

 

I guess I rationalize my decision to work there by trying as hard as I can to make change from the inside. Each chance I get the opportunity to speak up on social issues, I press the leadership on being inclusive, recognizing faults in the Catholic Church, etc. I was actually happy today to see the division's director openly call for the Pope to issue an apology for residential schools, as well as issue the following document as part of Truth and Reconciliation:

 

 

Openly calling for the church to give back land, issue apologies, and for government to hold it accountable. 

 

So, I remain conflicted on working here (and likely always will, as long as I do), but at least the division is pushing the church on this issue, and I will continue to push from the inside.

[Guest]

Unless you are assisting an organization in doing something wrong in your work, no need to feel conflicted.

[CitizenVectron]

Catholic group gives 'formal commitment' to disclose all records from B.C. and Sask. residential schools | CBC News

WWW.CBC.CA

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The Catholic religious order that operated residential schools in Saskatchewan and British Columbia where hundreds of unmarked graves have been found says it will disclose all historical documents in its possession.

 

[CitizenVectron]

Oh man, get ready for the chud outrage.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Two more Catholic churches located on indegenios land have burned.

 

 

More churches burn down on Canada indigenous land

WWW.BBC.COM

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In total four Catholic churches have burned down in western Canada over the past week.

 

 

[Fizzzzle]

On 6/25/2021 at 3:14 PM, CitizenVectron said:

Catholic group gives 'formal commitment' to disclose all records from B.C. and Sask. residential schools | CBC News

WWW.CBC.CA

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The Catholic religious order that operated residential schools in Saskatchewan and British Columbia where hundreds of unmarked graves have been found says it will disclose all historical documents in its possession.

 

Absolutely, we are 100% percent committed to releasing all records, after we, uh... "have to find them."