A New Democrat member of Parliament said Tuesday she hopes all of her colleagues will now recognize the residential schools system as genocide, now that Pope Francis has used the term.
Leah Gazan, who represents Winnipeg Centre, tried last year to get unanimous consent from MPs in the House of Commons to press the Canadian government to call what unfolded inside residential schools a genocide.
Her motion referred to the United Nations convention on genocide adopted in 1948, which defines genocide as killing members of a group, causing them serious physical or mental harm, placing them under conditions to destroy them, imposing measures to prevent births or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Gazan said at the time that Canada’s residential schools policy met all five criteria, but some voices in the House of Commons said “no,” so her motion requiring unanimous consent failed.
“Having the experience of residential school survivors continually up for debate is another act of violence,” Gazan said in an interview Tuesday. “We need to be mindful of that.”
Anomalies consistent with unmarked graves have been found at the site of a former residential school near High Prairie in northern Alberta, the local First Nation said.
Kapawe’no First Nation made the announcement on Tuesday. During Phase 1 of the search, 169 anomalies were found at the Grouard Indian Residential School, also known as St. Bernard Mission School.
Of those, 115 were found in the community cemetery with no grave markers, while the other 54 were found outside of the cemetery.
The first phase of the search covered only one acre of the vast property.
Hey remember when they found over 200 bodies of native children buried behind a residential school and the world cared for… what, a week?
They’ve counted about 6,000-7,000 now, for those of you who do still care
It should NOT fall on Indigenous people’s shoulders to keep this known still. We’ve been doing that for generations at this point and NO ONE wants to listen to us.
We’re tired, mourning and constantly reopening our trauma and pain to keep people caring about us. It’s terrible.
I should start by noting that I am white, and not Canadian, and that if op wants me to remove this comment for any reason, please let me know.
This is a map of all the residential schools in Canada:
Each dot on this map represents a residential school. Blue dots mean the school is considered completely searched. Yellow dots mean they are either in the process of being searched or there are plans to be searched. Red dots indicate that no search has happened and that no search is currently planned
There were more than 130 residential schools in Canada. This map suggests that only six have been fully searched, and a little more than a dozen partially searched (I counted 15 yellow dots). That leaves at least 109 schools completely untouched.
Let that sink in; if 6,000-7,000 unmarked, indigenous children’s graves were found by searching less than a fifth of all the schools, how many are still undiscovered.
Wikipedia estimates that the body count could be over 50,000, and honestly, that could be a low estimate
[ID: A map of Canada with dozens of dots on it, 6 of which are blue and 7 of which are yellow; the rest are red. Later there is a screenshot from wikipedia reading, “Estimates range from 3,200 to over 50,000 children that were killed. Most of the recorded student deaths at residential schools took place before the 1950s. /end ID]
Don't give up. Unless you have to for a little while. Then don't panic. CONTAINS: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Critical Role, History, Current Affairs, Space, Cats, and Etc. Adult.
