I have long believed that the Aboriginal Industry has been at play for decades. How long and how much has to be paid to right either real of perceived wrongs. The only people that ever seem to benefit from this are the chief and other aboriginal leaders in the elite echelons. The money rarely, if ever, goes to where its needed. The 'mass grave' story has been debunked many times, by many journalists, but yet it still persists. It is another addition to the mythology of the aboriginal woes. We must remember that the aboriginals were not a homogenous people when 'white' man first arrived on the scene. They were tribes, that had tribal wars. If you read Peter Newmans books, Caesars of the Wilderness and Company of Adventurers, you learn that the aboriginal leaders in those days very willingly entered into partnerships in the fur trade to their benefit. They weren't victimized or duped. Tribes warred against each other to get a bigger piece of the trading industry. The Iroquois virtually wiped out the Huron in trade wars. But you never hear about that when you talk about victims.
I'm reminded specifically of the Hudson Bay company history at Fort Langley, BC, whereas you say arrangements were encouraged for benefit of business on both sides of the river. There's a whole article in the development of the area long before notions of wrongdoing became part of the agenda. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/bc/langley/culture/histoire-history
James, this is the first time I have read anything like this from the NCTR which contradicts what you say about no relatives looking for missing IRS children:
“Over the past two years, the number of survivors and families looking for information about a loved one who attended residential schools has “increased exponentially,” Frogner says. The NCTR has received so many requests through its survivor inquiry system that it had to hire three new full-time staff members to keep up — raising the total to 51 people doing this difficult detective work on a national level.” (https://globalnews.ca/news/9216470/residential-school-ungraved-graves-canada/)
It suggests that hundreds or more named family members are searching for their named loved ones “who never returned home” from their IRS doesn’t it?
In my view the NCTR cannot be trusted. Frogner (the NCTR archivist) says the following - “First, we have to link these numbers (IRS student numbers) to the names of children, and then from there, try to find any evidence of a loss of a child at that school at that time,” - this is the basic investigative work that should have been completed before any TRC reports were published. Because the material investigation aimed at identifying names of former IRS students and discovering what happened to them is nowhere near complete, what exactly are the conclusions of the six volume TRC report based on? In my view, the TRC bases its findings almost entirely on specific oral tellings (ghost stories, urban legends) that the Aboriginal Industry selects and exploits in service of their narrative.
The best example the Global News piece comes up with is an indigenous person who has no idea what happened to their relative who attended an IRS. They hope their relative lived a long life, but they suspect not. Why in this case, is the implication that the IRS was somehow responsible for what is a hunch that wrongdoing may have occurred?
The whole thing is so backwards. The judgment has come before the investigation. Is there even one full account of a former student - who we know both their correct name and student number - where an “unnecessary death” can be shown with material evidence to have been caused by the neglect or murderous intent of former staff at any IRS?
Well said, James. No documentation at all to prove a single case of "unnecessary death" or death caused wilfully by a teacher. Indigenous children died at a higher rate from disease on the reserve than at school.
I have long believed that the Aboriginal Industry has been at play for decades. How long and how much has to be paid to right either real of perceived wrongs. The only people that ever seem to benefit from this are the chief and other aboriginal leaders in the elite echelons. The money rarely, if ever, goes to where its needed. The 'mass grave' story has been debunked many times, by many journalists, but yet it still persists. It is another addition to the mythology of the aboriginal woes. We must remember that the aboriginals were not a homogenous people when 'white' man first arrived on the scene. They were tribes, that had tribal wars. If you read Peter Newmans books, Caesars of the Wilderness and Company of Adventurers, you learn that the aboriginal leaders in those days very willingly entered into partnerships in the fur trade to their benefit. They weren't victimized or duped. Tribes warred against each other to get a bigger piece of the trading industry. The Iroquois virtually wiped out the Huron in trade wars. But you never hear about that when you talk about victims.
I'm reminded specifically of the Hudson Bay company history at Fort Langley, BC, whereas you say arrangements were encouraged for benefit of business on both sides of the river. There's a whole article in the development of the area long before notions of wrongdoing became part of the agenda. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/bc/langley/culture/histoire-history
Nice little piece of history to know.
James, this is the first time I have read anything like this from the NCTR which contradicts what you say about no relatives looking for missing IRS children:
“Over the past two years, the number of survivors and families looking for information about a loved one who attended residential schools has “increased exponentially,” Frogner says. The NCTR has received so many requests through its survivor inquiry system that it had to hire three new full-time staff members to keep up — raising the total to 51 people doing this difficult detective work on a national level.” (https://globalnews.ca/news/9216470/residential-school-ungraved-graves-canada/)
It suggests that hundreds or more named family members are searching for their named loved ones “who never returned home” from their IRS doesn’t it?
In my view the NCTR cannot be trusted. Frogner (the NCTR archivist) says the following - “First, we have to link these numbers (IRS student numbers) to the names of children, and then from there, try to find any evidence of a loss of a child at that school at that time,” - this is the basic investigative work that should have been completed before any TRC reports were published. Because the material investigation aimed at identifying names of former IRS students and discovering what happened to them is nowhere near complete, what exactly are the conclusions of the six volume TRC report based on? In my view, the TRC bases its findings almost entirely on specific oral tellings (ghost stories, urban legends) that the Aboriginal Industry selects and exploits in service of their narrative.
The best example the Global News piece comes up with is an indigenous person who has no idea what happened to their relative who attended an IRS. They hope their relative lived a long life, but they suspect not. Why in this case, is the implication that the IRS was somehow responsible for what is a hunch that wrongdoing may have occurred?
The whole thing is so backwards. The judgment has come before the investigation. Is there even one full account of a former student - who we know both their correct name and student number - where an “unnecessary death” can be shown with material evidence to have been caused by the neglect or murderous intent of former staff at any IRS?
Well said, James. No documentation at all to prove a single case of "unnecessary death" or death caused wilfully by a teacher. Indigenous children died at a higher rate from disease on the reserve than at school.
what's the annual budget for the NCTR then? Maybe I don't want to know....