1000 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

I'm sure the schools had doctors available to them, but we're looking at healthcare through a 2021 lens if we believe healthcare was just a quick phone call away or a short drive away to an emergency room.

[Victoria Watcher]

 (as opposed to "murdered by nun", although the child's actual parents might argue that they're one and the same).

 

 

 

i have not even seen any sisters or brothers of missing/dead kids even come forward.  like i said previously even the families seem to have lost the records.  

 

would it not be likely that many siblings would have been attending these schools together in some way?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 June 2021 - 06:42 AM.

[Rob Randall]

It's a range of fates; I was reading old local newspaper stories of the time and one story was about a staff member that murdered a boy, man was found guilty after a trial. Another 1970s death was caused by an inexperienced teacher driving a van full of kids that crashed. Purely an accident but when I was that age we had professional drivers take us on field trips.

 

What I'm trying to say is there's a variety of people buried there, many of them kids and who ended up there for a variety of reasons so let's not toss the whole story just because it doesn't neatly fit into a yes or no narrative.

[Mike K.]

It's a range of fates; I was reading old local newspaper stories of the time and one story was about a staff member that murdered a boy, man was found guilty after a trial. Another 1970s death was caused by an inexperienced teacher driving a van full of kids that crashed. Purely an accident but when I was that age we had professional drivers take us on field trips.

 

We had parents in elementary school, and in high school there was one teach/assistant who usually drove the cheesebox but not always. The other was the gym teacher, whom you'd have known during your time at the provincial institution.

[Daveyboy]

delete

Edited by Daveyboy, 25 June 2021 - 08:24 AM.

[Rob Randall]

You dingbats are still missing the point. Indigenous students ALWAYS got the amateur driver, the third rate doctor, the expired food, the oldest textbook, the most severe punishment. What happened to us sometimes was the norm for them. And that was by design.

[Victoria Watcher]

You dingbats are still missing the point. Indigenous students ALWAYS got the amateur driver, the third rate doctor, the expired food, the oldest textbook, the most severe punishment. What happened to us sometimes was the norm for them. And that was by design.

 

probably.  and our society was OK with it then.  it's only now we see it was unfair.  our contemporaries were fine with it.  but what are you going to do?  we already did the big financial settlement.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 June 2021 - 08:11 AM.

[Spy Black]

......but what are you going to do? .......

Demonstrate ongoing and profound compassion with our words and deeds for all those who were/are personally affected by the residential school debacle.

[Mike K.]

You dingbats are still missing the point. Indigenous students ALWAYS got the amateur driver, the third rate doctor, the expired food, the oldest textbook, the most severe punishment. What happened to us sometimes was the norm for them. And that was by design.

In the 1940s students in Poland were sent to concentration camps, and died building tools for the Third Reich. Some where slaughtered on sight, because insufficient transport was available to transport them to said concentration camps.

The world was an abhorrent place not that long ago.

[Victoria Watcher]

Demonstrate ongoing and profound compassion with our words and deeds for all those who were/are personally affected by the residential school debacle.

 

we can't go on forever apologizing.  plus "we" were not responsible.  

 

 

 

Catholic group that ran B.C., Sask. residential schools to disclose records

 

The Missionary of Oblates of Mary Immaculate says it has worked to make historical documents available through universities, archives and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This comes after remains of Indigenous people were found in unmarked graves in B.C. and Saskatchewan. The Oblates operated 48 schools, including the Marieval Indian Residential School at on the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and the Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. 

 

 

 

seems to me these records were not ever considered when we put together the 94 recommendations or whatever.  this is a new demand.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 June 2021 - 08:29 AM.

[spanky123]

seems to me these records were not ever considered when we put together the 94 recommendations or whatever.  this is a new demand.

 

They were and the FN wanted all records held by the Feds destroyed as they felt that releasing them would cause people to be re-victimized. Perhaps they feel that Church records will help them identify individuals that may have been forgotten or perhaps they feel there is evidence to support legal action against the Chruch for damages.

[Rob Randall]

In the 1940s students in Poland were sent to concentration camps, and died building tools for the Third Reich. Some where slaughtered on sight, because insufficient transport was available to transport them to said concentration camps.

The world was an abhorrent place not that long ago.

 

And the students without politically-connected parents were treated worse, and Jewish kids were treated worse than that and if they were gay or had a criminal record worse still ad nauseum. 

 

So I don't know what your point is, as usual.

[Victoria Watcher]

the point probably is that other peoples worldwide have successfully moved on from bad things in the very recent past.  and built a great future.  nothing good comes from drowning in your woes.  or waiting for "your settlement".

 

but if there is one group that has not moved on well it's our own indigenous population on-reserve.  the 75% that live off-reserve do much better.   probably at least partly because they do not then let their corrupt "leadership" speak for them, or rely on that corrupt leadership for assistance, housing, healthcare and employment.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 June 2021 - 08:55 AM.

[Spy Black]

we can't go on forever apologizing.  plus "we" were not responsible. 

 

There is a massive difference between "compassion" for your fellow human beings and "apologizing" for something "you didn't do".

That you insist on conflating simple compassion with an inappropriate or unnecessary apology renders our exchange somewhat pointless.

[spanky123]

There is a massive difference between "compassion" for your fellow human beings and "apologizing" for something "you didn't do".

That you insist on conflating simple compassion with an inappropriate or unnecessary apology renders our exchange somewhat pointless.

 

I agree with you, no reason why Canadians can't emphasize with what FN are experiencing. 

 

The problem is that every discussion seems to revolve around money, empathy and compassion doesn't really appear to be what many FN groups are looking for.

[Mike K.]

And the students without politically-connected parents were treated worse, and Jewish kids were treated worse than that and if they were gay or had a criminal record worse still ad nauseum. 

 

So I don't know what your point is, as usual.

 

You're not trying to understand the point, or really listening. Your knowledge of WWII might also be a little less informed than you might be aware.

 

Politically-connected people were targeted for murder. An early step in as savage a conflict as WWII, was killing the intelligentsia. Now whether you were Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, in many circumstances it made no difference, when your adversary was pursuing you for your Slavic ethnicity, religious views aside.

 

Vic Watcher speaks to the other side of the message I'm trying to convey.

[Mike K.]

I agree with you, no reason why Canadians can't emphasize with what FN are experiencing. 

 

Indeed. Some of us may understand the trials with more familiarity than others. Some of us are the children of survivors, too, and know all too well the horrors of evil empires and evil people. This country is comprised to a large degree of people who escaped from other places to find freedom in Canada, and believe me, they understand what it means to suffer at the hands of someone else. To really suffer.

[Rob Randall]

You're not trying to understand the point, or really listening. Your knowledge of WWII might also be a little less informed than you might be aware.

 

Politically-connected people were targeted for murder. An early step in as savage a conflict as WWII, was killing the intelligentsia. Now whether you were Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, in many circumstances it made no difference, when your adversary was pursuing you for your Slavic ethnicity, religious views aside.

 

 

 

I thought it was obvious but I guess I must explain again. We all know anyone suspected of being anti-nazi was targeted. But there were low-level government administrators not connected to the government in exile who, if their kid was picked up, might have had sufficient connections to pull some strings. That's what I mean. Whether an employee had pull depended on a variety of factors.

 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

Vic Watcher speaks to the other side of the message I'm trying to convey.

 

 

the point probably is that other peoples worldwide have successfully moved on from bad things in the very recent past.  and built a great future.  nothing good comes from drowning in your woes.  or waiting for "your settlement".

 

 

An analogy might be a 1968 Royal Bank employee fired for being gay. Abhorrent today but back then it was seen as a necessity. "They are a high risk for blackmail or extortion" the bosses would say. Only when homosexuality was de-stigmatized was blackmail risk negated. In those cases it's a tragedy innocent lives were ruined but that was the way things were at the time.

 

Each generation thinks they are the pinnacle of progression until the next generation comes along.

[Mike K.]

The analogy might be more along the lines of you being accepting of a history for one group of people based on lived experience and knowing, but considering another people's lived experience and knowing as just an aside to what a textbook may have told you. You are engaging with someone whose grandmother survived WWII, and who spoke often of her lived experience and witness to atrocity, to educate her children and grandchild, so that the world could be a better place. My aunts and uncles, they too survived the war. They too spoke of their lived experiences. I can tell you, what you think you might know as a rigid rule of that conflict, you don't.

 

 

But there were low-level government administrators not connected to the government in exile who, if their kid was picked up, might have had sufficient connections to pull some strings.

 

 

Cool plot for a Hollywood film. But in the real world the kid was picked up, so was the grandmother, the wife, and dad was executed in front of them before they were loaded onto cattle cars and shipped off to their eventual death in a nazi camp, if they were lucky. If they were less lucky, they would have seen dad's murder, then they would have been shipped off to Siberia where they had an extra difficult time because dad had political leanings that were not particularly fond of socialism, and they likely froze to death just before they starved to death.

 

That was Europe 80 years ago.

[Rob Randall]

My point is power/powerlessness lies along a broad spectrum and whether you're a bureaucrat in Poland or Powell River not everyone enjoys the same degree of privilege at any given time yet you persist in repeating the dispensable argument that things were equally bad for everyone.