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Mystic said:
How much do we actually know about how many children died at these schools and how they died?
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The Truth and Reconciliation Comission estimated that 6,000 children died in these facilities. TB was the leading cause of death.

I suspect numbers have been updated or that there may be other numbers out there.

Mystic said:
Did these children have other realistic options to get a decent school education?
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They didn't get a decent education.

They were getting educated and taught in their communities.

It was the law that these children had to go to these facilities. The RCMP "arrested" them and took them there.

If you want to read an informative book about this, read Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. She also wrote "Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada"

There's a lot of good material out there about the residential "school" system in Canada. There was a similar system in the US and I'm sure there's good information about them out there.
 
I am not sure about this but I am thinking that schooling was mandatory for all children in Canada.

Truancy officers ?

While looking into that I found a bit of interesting history* such as this.

Public schooling developed at different times and at different paces in various parts Canada, depending upon the settlement patterns of the area. In addition to the creation of mass public schooling, many Aboriginal children were subjected to the residential schooling system in Canada, which began in 1880 and carried on for nearly 100 years. Other forms of racial segregation also occurred within the public schooling system in various parts of the country. Black students attended segregated schools in many parts of Ontario and Nova Scotia, while Japanese and Chinese students faced segregation in British Columbia.
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* A Historical Overview of Education in Canada – Sociology of Education in Canada
 
WhyCzar said:
I am not sure about this but I am thinking that schooling was mandatory for all children in Canada.

Truancy officers ?
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That may very well be true. The difference is, most children attended schools in their community or neighbourhood. They went home at night. The school's values and culture probably matched or closely matched those of the community members. If boarding was involved, people generally went to a boarding school that matched their values. Ie, Catholics attended to Catholic schools. They could speak their own language.

Residential schools were created to "remove/kill the Indian in the child". The stated goal was to assimilate these children into the "Christian" culture. Indigenous children were called savages and were punished if they were caught speaking their own language. It was an entirely different mandate.

A citizen’s guide to reconciliation
 
Kids were taken as young as 4.

CBC has a documentary a while back with interviews . I remember one with an Inuit who reported that his “school” had an electric chair to punish “students”. They were also given numbers instead of names. Very noticeable the parallels to concentration camps….
 
I find the reaction among Canadians to the findings of the graves shocking. I think that the reason for that is that Canadians can’t picture that cruelty like that is possible and admit that any human and any country has the potential for it.As one with German background, I have it much easier to believe this can be true, but we had the shock treatment in high school, when we had to watch the documentaries about the liberations of the concentration camps.
When the graves were found, one of my coworkers ( who admitted to never had read anything about residential schools), said that she didn’t find unmarked graves unusual, as in the past, many graves were unmarked.
She is a very kind soul. On several occasions, she had been in tears when patients have told her their personal stories. I think, she just had to protect herself and her image of Canada.
( I did ask her if her school also had a graveyard).
 

The False Narrative of Residential School Burials ​

None of this is to suggest that the people who reside in First Nations communities do not have many legitimate grievances, or that many people were not harmed in residential schools. The concerns are real, the harm is real, and both must be addressed. However, believing stories that are not true does none of that.
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www.dorchesterreview.ca

The False Narrative of Residential School Burials

There is no documentary or forensic evidence of murdered and secretly buried indigenous children or other bizarre and fantastical stories, write Tom Flanagan and Brian Giesbrecht
www.dorchesterreview.ca www.dorchesterreview.ca
​

 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Kids were taken as young as 4.
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I met a woman who had been removed around that age too. Thanks for the reminder. She was in a community in AB that had two schools. Her older siblings were in the other school. My memory is that she told me she could see her subs, or knew they were there, and was heartbroken that she couldn't talk to them or interact in any way

Mrs.Anteater said:
I find the reaction among Canadians to the findings of the graves shocking. I think that the reason for that is that Canadians can’t picture that cruelty like that is possible and admit that any human and any country has the potential for it
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We want to think we're polite and nice and all that. In some ways we're as friendly/ nice as our geese.

The residential school system and it's aftermath is proof we have systemic racism. It's also at least attempted genocide.

Africkville in Halifax and how that was destroyed is evidence of our racism.

We aren't so pure as some would have ha believe.

South Africa created Apartheid based at least partly on our residential school system and how we treated Indigenous people. That's not something to celebrate.
 
Children died in residential schools. They experienced malnutrition. They died of TB.

It may not strictly be murder. Many did die.

Many who did not die physically, died spiritually.
 
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WhyCzar said:

The False Narrative of Residential School Burials ​


www.dorchesterreview.ca

The False Narrative of Residential School Burials

There is no documentary or forensic evidence of murdered and secretly buried indigenous children or other bizarre and fantastical stories, write Tom Flanagan and Brian Giesbrecht
www.dorchesterreview.ca www.dorchesterreview.ca
​

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Is there also a false narrative for Roman Catholic priests or anyone in positions of authority too? Pedophilia seems to flourish in isolation IMO and the reserves were likely perfect breeding grounds for some with another agenda.
 
I have a friend who is a member of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. We had a visit recently on the band land, in the shadow of KIRS. We talked a bit about the school. It is clearly a painful place for him even though he did not attend himself. He does though have family members who did.

I'm not sure why there is such a desire to focus on one part of this and apparently deny that it happened.

Frankly, there isn't enough outrage about the IRS system in Canada.
 
Waterfall said:
Is there also a false narrative for Roman Catholic priests or anyone in positions of authority too? Pedophilia seems to flourish in isolation IMO and the reserves were likely perfect breeding grounds for some with another agenda.
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Exactly. And the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland.
 
Waterfall said:
Is there also a false narrative for Roman Catholic priests or anyone in positions of authority too? Pedophilia seems to flourish in isolation IMO and the reserves were likely perfect breeding grounds for some with another agenda.
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Which has nothing to do with the article?

"None of this is to suggest that the people who reside in First Nations communities do not have many legitimate grievances, or that many people were not harmed in residential schools. The concerns are real, the harm is real, and both must be addressed. However, believing stories that are not true does none of that."

These people talked aboot here are believing stories that aren't true

A Monty Python Take on the Quesnel Book Banning | IRSRG

A Monty Python take on the Quesnel book banning Hymie Rubenstein April 9, 2024 There have been growing calls for Quesnel, B.C. Mayor Ron Paull to resign following the discovery that his wife had been handing out free copies of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about...
irsrg.ca irsrg.ca

This is dangerous
 
Delightful Life said:
Which has nothing to do with the article?

"None of this is to suggest that the people who reside in First Nations communities do not have many legitimate grievances, or that many people were not harmed in residential schools. The concerns are real, the harm is real, and both must be addressed. However, believing stories that are not true does none of that."

These people talked aboot here are believing stories that aren't true

A Monty Python Take on the Quesnel Book Banning | IRSRG

A Monty Python take on the Quesnel book banning Hymie Rubenstein April 9, 2024 There have been growing calls for Quesnel, B.C. Mayor Ron Paull to resign following the discovery that his wife had been handing out free copies of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about...
irsrg.ca irsrg.ca

This is dangerous
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Yes it's dangerous, because those who deserve to be heard will find it harder to come forward. I'm sure there are many who have chosen not to, just like many who have been abused because the scrutiny is intense on discounting those who were abused.
 
Waterfall said:
Yes it's dangerous, because those who deserve to be heard will find it harder to come forward. I'm sure there are many who have chosen not to, just like many who have been abused because the scrutiny is intense on discounting those who were abused.
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You are predicting the future?

You know you don't have ability with that?


We can feel horror (rightfully) at the Schools AND be concerned with the Truth of the alleged/potential loops school graves?

We can do both? It isn't either/or?
 
Apparently you didn't read this @Delightful Life. You did not respond.

Northwind said:
Imagine that as a six year old you're visiting friends on Vancouver Island and you're from Saskatchewan. The RCMP come to take you to the institution on the island because it's the law. You and your mother protest that you are not from the island, etc. That doesn't matter. It's the law. So you get there. Your beautiful long hair is cut. You're stripped naked and scrubbed clean. Maybe given some delousing treatments. You are there for awhile and make a few friends. One night, your best friend is gravely ill. They remove him from his bed and that's the last you see of him. The stories are that he died. Then the time comes when you leave the facility. You go home only to find your community is deep in grieving. Your mother has found comfort in the bottle because that's the only way she can cope with the grief of losing her child(ren) Fast forward all these years. How do you imagine it would be to see someone calling the graves "alleged" and using the term "kerfuffle". It wouldn't feel good.
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Delightful Life said:
You are predicting the future?

You know you don't have ability with that?


We can feel horror (rightfully) at the Schools AND be concerned with the Truth of the alleged/potential loops school graves?

We can do both? It isn't either/or?
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Most of the courts will decide, not groups of people that are trying to make a name for themselves on social media by exposing the one sided truth they've found or who go into grave digging with a preconceived bias agenda.
As far as knowing the future, we all know the past and we've seen it in our own population and are still seeing it. Psychological and physical abuse is well documented and the after effects also. This is a whole population that experienced turmoil and is now trying to reclaim their past, before assimilation, by allowing it back into their present and future. That alone was abuse to take that away....amongst many other negative introductions of another civilizations idea of normal.
 
"Pedophilia seems to flourish in isolation." - Waterfall

What Hockey Canada knew about sexual assault allegations ?

Scouts Canada kept 'confidential list' of pedophiles?​

The earliest proof of Canada's Scouting movement maintaining records on pedophiles dates back 59 years to a letter in the United Church of Canada archives.

globalnews.ca

Over 250 Canadian school personnel accused of sexual offenses: report - National | Globalnews.ca

A new report says 252 current or former school personnel committed or were accused of committing offences of a sexual nature against 548 children over a five-year span.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca

None of these stories are related to "mass graves" but they do further support @Waterfall supposition.
 
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