1000 replies to this topic

[Rob Randall]

Not unusual. government didn’t fund much back then. no medical system. no welfare or unemployment system.

 

The tedious tangent you're on makes no sense. We established the obvious already: health care 100 years ago was sub-standard, even more so for residential school inmates. I don't know what point you're trying to make. 

[Victoria Watcher]

Healthcare was likely better at the schools than on the Indian reserves.

[Danma]

Healthcare was likely better at the schools than on the Indian reserves.

 

That is also besides the point if they were both substandard relative to the care given to white people.

[Victoria Watcher]

in 1922 care was “given” to whoever paid for it. there was no system even remotely resembling what we have today.

white people that did not pay upfront for care were given none.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 June 2021 - 10:10 AM.

[sukika]

If the government removes children from their homes to live in government funded institutions, then they are responsible for the wellbeing of those children.  

[Rob Randall]

Onsite doctors and nurses does not necessarily equate to superior healthcare, as Dachau inmates will attest.

[spanky123]

I think the unfortunate thing about revelations like this is that it prevents us from moving forward. If all we do is keep looking to the past then nothing is going to improve for FN. Despite tens of billions of dollars being paid over the decades to FN councils and bands many of their members still live in squalor without clean drinking water. Progressive FN have found a working relationship with their communities and their members have done very well, most others not so much.

 

Lots of people have been hard done by but do the Chinese, Japanese or Jews dwell on the past or have they moved forward as a community?

[Rob Randall]

Lots of people have been hard done by but do the Chinese, Japanese or Jews dwell on the past or have they moved forward as a community?

 

Uh...

[Victoria Watcher]

If the government removes children from their homes to live in government funded institutions, then they are responsible for the wellbeing of those children.

a negotiated cash settlement was already achieved.

[spanky123]

a negotiated cash settlement was already achieved.

 

Correct an average of $28,000 was paid to every person who attended a residential school and had no claim of abuse or loss. Up to $275,000 was paid to every person who claimed abuse. About 50% of students claimed to have been abused.

Edited by spanky123, 01 June 2021 - 11:20 AM.

[Rex Waverly]

Correct an average of $28,000 was paid to every person who attended a residential school and had no claim of abuse or loss. Up to $275,000 was paid to every person who claimed abuse. About 50% of students claimed to have been abused.

 

Well then, as long as they were paid for it, it's all good in the hood then, eh? /s

 

I'm really confused by what's going on here, is there really a 'residential schools weren't all bad" argument going on here? Jesus, what's next, 'not all slave-owners were evil; some didn't even beat their slaves'?  

 

FFS, there are 200+ dead children here.... even if the school gave them appropriate health-care, food, shelter, etc., and even if they would have died at home anyway, the simple fact is, these were 200+ kids that were forcibly torn away from their families in an explicit attempt to eradicate their culture.   

 

Their deaths were unrecorded, their names are lost and forgotten.  Their families weren't informed and didn't get to mourn, forever wondering what happened to their children / brothers / sisters....   

 

 

But in the end, they got paid I guess, so no harm no foul. 

[Victoria Watcher]

why did the families lose the names? or even basic records?

[spanky123]

But in the end, they got paid I guess, so no harm no foul. 

 

That is kind of how it works isn't it? You ask for money, you get the money, you sign a release. At that point people expect that the matter is closed and everyone moves on. 

 

There was a record of deaths at the school for a period of its operations. It is not a surprise that for the remainder of the time there were other deaths. Nobody is saying those deaths were without significance, that is why the we the taxpayer paid billions in settlement monies.

 

Perhaps you can explain what you feel should be done differently now aside from what has already been agreed to.

[Rex Waverly]

That is kind of how it works isn't it? You ask for money, you get the money, you sign a release. At that point people expect that the matter is closed and everyone moves on. 

 

There was a record of deaths at the school for a period of its operations. It is not a surprise that for the remainder of the time there were other deaths. Nobody is saying those deaths were without significance, that is why the we the taxpayer paid billions in settlement monies.

 

Perhaps you can explain what you feel should be done differently now aside from what has already been agreed to.

 

I think obviously as a white man, i'm not even close to being an authority on what steps need to be taken to atone for the atrocities that have been committed.   

 

That said, i'm thinking that we need to at a minimum:

- respectfully mourn the loss of life,

- dedicate the necessary resources to investigate what's occurred here as well as examine other school sites where this may have occurred;

- discuss with First Nations, or directly with families if possible, on the treatment of the remains and how best to honor them (i.e. do they want to leave as is or exhume to attempt to identify and then re-inter at an appropriate place)

- make sure we no longer try to hide what happened, that we speak openly and honestly about it, and include it in our histories and school curriculum so that it never happens again.  

[Victoria Watcher]

- make sure we no longer try to hide what happened, that we speak openly and honestly about it, and include it in our histories and school curriculum so that it never happens again.  

 

we don't really know and never will though. it all took place too long ago.  and nobody seemed to want to document much of it.  victims or perpetrators.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 June 2021 - 12:26 PM.

[Danma]

There's 94 recommendations that came out of the Truth and Reconciliation Council, and at the current rate they'll be completed in ~2062. A little slow for my taste.

 

https://ualbertalaw....-94-update.html

Edited by Danma, 01 June 2021 - 12:29 PM.

[spanky123]

^ That is about 100x faster than recommendations from any other report!

[JohnsonStBridge]

That is kind of how it works isn't it? You ask for money, you get the money, you sign a release. At that point people expect that the matter is closed and everyone moves on. 

 

If you are arguing that money has settled this you are seriously missing the point. The news of burying children without the basic decency of documenting their resting place or recording their names only continues the horrific suffering that happened.

 

We remember our unrecovered war dead with various memorials and dedicated tombs to the Unknown Solider. A similar memorial may be fitting for the unknown children who were robbed of remembrance. Obviously local indigenous leaders should direct what form would be fitting for a memorial but I feel that is a necessary step forward.

[sukika]

Deleted.  

Edited by sukika, 01 June 2021 - 01:10 PM.

[Spy Black]

1. Nine year old Vicky Stewart of the Tsimshian nation was killed at the United Church residential school in Edmonton on April 9, 1958 by school matron Ann Knizky, who hit Vicky over the head with a two by four. The RCMP refused to press charges against either Knizky or the United Church, and threatened Vicky`s family with imprisonment if they pursued the matter.

2. Margaret Sepass was raped and then beaten to death by an Anglican priest named John Warner on December 5, 1969, at St. Michael’s Indian school in Alert Bay, British Columbia. Margaret was nine years old. Her burial site is unknown and John Warner was never charged.

3. On January 5, 1938, Albert Gray was beaten to death by Reverend Alfred Caldwell of the United Church of Canada when Albert took a prune from a jar without permission. Albert was eleven years old. His body was buried in secret behind the Ahousat Indian school and Alfred Caldwell was never charged.

4. On December 24, 1946, the same Principal Caldwell kicked 14 year old Maisie Shaw to her death down a flight of stairs at the United Church`s Alberni residential school, as witnessed by Harriett Nahanee. The RCMP covered up the murder.

5. On April 3, 1964, Richard Thomas was sodomized and then strangled to death by Catholic priest Terence McNamara at the Kuper Island Indian school. Richard was buried in secret in an orchard south of the school, and Terence McNamara, who is still alive, was never charged.

6. Elaine Dick, age 6, was kicked to death by a nun in April of 1964 at the Squamish Indian school in Vancouver. The RCMP refused to press charges when requested by the victim`s family.

7. Daniel Kangetok, age 4, was infected with an untreatable virus as part of a Defense Research Board experimental program funded by the Canadian military. He was left to die at the Carcross Anglican residential school in the Yukon, in February of 1971.

8. David Sepass, age 8, was pushed down some stairs by a priest at the Kuper Island catholic school and left to die, early in 1958.

9. A newborn Cree baby was burned alive by a senior priest at the Catholic Muscowegan Indian school near Regina in May of 1944, as witnessed by Irene Favel. The priest was never charged.

10. Susan Ball, age 5, starved to death in a closet at the United Church Edmonton residential school during the winter term of 1959, after being confined there by a church matron for speaking her own language.

11. Pauline Frank, age 8, died from medical experimentation performed by Canadian army researchers at the Nanaimo Indian Hospital in March of 1972. Her body was buried in secret on the grounds of the hospital, which is still restricted military property.

12. Albert Baptiste, age 9, died from electric shocks from a cattle prod wielded by a catholic priest at the Mission residential school over Christmas in 1951.

13. Nancy Joe, age 14, died from involuntary drug testing by military doctors at the Nanaimo Indian hospital in the spring of 1967.

14. Lorraine white, teenager, was gang raped by United Church residential school staff and left to die, Port Alberni, summer of 1971.

15. Eighteen Mohawk children, all under the age of sixteen, were shot to death by Canadian soldiers outside Brantford, Ontario, in the summer of 1943, as witnessed by Rufus McNaughton. The children were buried in secret in a mass grave.

16. Johnny Bingo Dawson, an eyewitness to crimes in Anglican residential schools and a leader of protests against these criminal churches, died of injuries from a police beating after being threatened by them, in Vancouver on December 9, 2009. Official cause of death was alcohol poisoning, despite the absence of alcohol in his blood.

17. Ricky Lavallee, the eyewitness to Bingo’s beating by the Vancouver police, died of a blow to his chest in early January of 2011.

18. William Combes, an eyewitness to the abduction of ten children by Queen Elizabeth from Kamloops Indian school on October 10, 1964, was killed by a lethal injection at St. Paul’s catholic hospital in Vancouver on February 26, 2011.

19. Harriett Nahanee, the first eyewitness to a residential school murder to go public, died after mistreatment in a Vancouver jail, February, 2007.

20. Nora Bernard, the first aboriginal in Canada to sue the Catholic church for residential school crimes, was murdered in December of 2007 on the eve of Canada`s official spin doctoring of the residential school genocide.

… and more than 50,000 others, all of them children.

No-one has ever been charged or tried under Canadian law for any these killings.