Canada’s Phantom Genocide — Cannot Put a Face or Name to the Alleged ‘desaparecidos’ — The Disappeared

By Michelle Stirling ©2023

Images from the History Channel Header:

https://www.history.com/news/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-disappeared-children-dirty-war-argentina

I was struck by a comment on X/Twitter responding to Barbara Kay about Indian Residential Schools and unmarked graves.

The Xeeter responded to Barbara’s comment that there have not been any bodies found with:

“Regardless, we know thousands of children never returned home from these schools. We carry an inheritance of shame.”

None of that is true.

What we know is that 432 students out of 150,000 over the course of 113 years died at Indian Residential Schools, most of tuberculosis or influenza, both of which were rampant in all sectors of society at the time.

Some 400 children died in hospital, 43 in sanatorium, 300 at home and 75 non-school. These are the statistics from the Truth and Reconciliation report. It should be noted that the broader non-school numbers included any child that died within a year of attending Indian Residential School, thus automatically ascribing their death to school attendance when that is not a reasonable attribution by any measure.

As Marc Miller noted, it is ghoulish to focus on bodies.

So, let us focus on faces and names.

Marie Wilson, former TRC commissioner claimed in an April 22, 2013 report in Western Catholic Reporter, that thousands of children who died in residential schools are buried across Canada, “many of them in unmarked graves, many of them in graveyards where their own family members perhaps never had the chance to do proper spiritual farewells or sending-home ceremonies.”

Thousands of children, she said. An outrageous comment, never questioned. No evidence offered. No historical record of this.

Unlike countries like Argentina, where the families stand with pictures of their disappeared loved ones and their names, no such thing exists in Canada.

The closest thing to this is the Memorial Banner and Memorial Register put together by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The banner and register indeed have thousands of names, but many are names of children whose deaths had nothing to do with residential schools, like the young adult murder victim, Helen Betty Osborne. Nothing to do with residential schools.

Indian Residential Schools were established for the education of ‘status Indian’ children as defined by the Indian Act; many bands had signed on to the Numbered Treaties of Canada. Consequently, the federal government had a registry of the names of the members of the band. The Indian Residential Schools and the Indian Agent, a local government official who was the liaison between band members and the government, documented the comings and goings of band members, including their births and deaths, so that treaty payments for the newly born could be commenced and those for the deceased could be removed from the government treaty pay-outs.

We don’t see Indigenous family members standing with photos and names because there is no list of ‘missing persons’ or ‘disappeared’ from Indian bands where the missing person from the Indian Residential School has not been found or the case resolved (i.e., in the cases of runaways who died in the woods or by drowning).

In Argentina, the case for mass murder or genocide of dissidents is easy to see. Just look at the family members, the photos and the names.

In Canada, such a thing cannot even be replicated because the death certificates are all filed with the provinces with rare exception. It is known what people died of, where, and where they were buried. That a wooden cross or headboard has disintegrated over time does not indicate any nefarious deed.

Some Indigenous people have claimed that in each family 4 or 5 family members went missing at Indian Residential Schools. This is not possible based on simple math.

Of the 150,000 Indian Residential School students (as estimated by the government), 103,203 of them were still alive in 2007.

This means 69% of the students who attended an IRS institution over a period 113 years, were still alive 124 years after the first government-funded schools were established.

The claim of ‘genocide’ is false.

Some might ask what happened to the 46,797 other students of the 150,000 noted above. Are they not the ‘missing?’ No. They are accounted for in provincial death records and church/school registers where available. Life expectancy in Canada was low in the early decades. People lived shorter lives in earlier times. Tuberculosis killed one Canadian every hour of the day and two Canadians every hour of the night in 1908, according to Dr. George Wherrett’s “The Miracle of the Empty Beds.”

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041135/life-expectancy-canada-all-time/

Likewise, there are no historical documents such as missing persons reports that would substantiate such claims of genocide.

So now the question is, how do we dislodge this notion of a Canadian genocide against Indigenous people. How do we get the general public to understand that on many reserves, the sense of despair that is killing young people by fentanyl or alcohol is fueled by lack of housing, meaning 10 or 15 people are living in a house meant for a family of 4 or 5. This inevitably leads to domestic violence and physical or sexual abuse. For most Indigenous youth, they suffer this pain and humiliation in silence with nowhere to turn for help because these are small, nepotistic societies where those in power protect their own, even if their own are perpetrators. In some communities, criminal drug gangs are the overlords. Challenge the status quo and your house might get burned down, or you might be beaten by a gang of youths wielding pipes. No one will show up as a witness at the trial, so even if a case gets to court, there will be no justice. And for many young people or elderly, there is no realistic escape route as city life is also very challenging, especially if you are poor and unable to access whatever services you used to have at home on reserve.

Meanwhile everyone in Canada is parading around in orange shirts claiming ‘every child matters’ and doing land acknowledgements while the future of First Nations and Indigenous groups — the children and young adults — are dropping dead from drugs and acts of despair.

It seems that unmarked graveyards that no one cared about until recently hold more attraction for the Indigenous community, hoping to cash in on “land back” claims supported by the ‘white guilt’ over the phantom genocide claim. But there will be no First Nations future left if all the children are dead from fentanyl and suicide.

How is getting ‘land back’ a viable goal if your First Nation is decimated by drugs, alcohol, human trafficking and suicide? Many First Nations communities only number in the hundreds of people. If a few dozen children and youth die of desperation or drugs every year, what is the future of that nation?

Ironically, it was the NWMP (RCMP) who came west to stop the decimation of the Blackfoot Nation by American whisky traders — praised for this at the signing of Treaty 7 by Chief Crowfoot. In other words, the Mounties stopped a genocide then. Today, the RCMP are smeared and vilified as being the ones who took children away to Indian Residential Schools when the fact is that most Indigenous parents voluntarily enrolled their children, hoping to give them an education and skills for the ‘just transition’ of 100 years ago. Just when we most need the Mounties to be able to get a grip on the rising crime on reserve, they are framed as the enemy by activists. Who benefits from that?

According to the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress 2003 report, the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory has been an entry point for migrants and goods related to Chinese criminal gangs: drugs flow through Vancouver port from China.

Drugs and gangs. This is where and how Indigenous people are disappearing today.

Yet, ironically, Indian Residential Schools are still the focus of the blame for this present-day crisis.

In Canada, there were about 4000 opioid-related deaths in 2017.1 In British Columbia, the mortality rate for Indigenous people who use drugs is 5 times higher than for other drug users. Despite representing just 2.6% of the total population, Indigenous Peoples account for 10% of overdose deaths.2,3 Indigenous women are 8 times more likely to have a nonfatal overdose and 5 times more likely to have a fatal overdose than non-Indigenous women.3 The severity of this crisis is likely understated owing to poor disaggregation of data on Indigenous Peoples in many settings.[1]

Maybe Indigenous mothers should start showing up at the band office or downtown at government offices with pictures and names of their present-day children ‘disappeared’ to drugs and suicide. For these tragic losses, we do have a name and face. And these desaparecidos — ‘the disappeared’ — have disappeared in the irrational Indigenous frenzy to live in the past, to forget the present, and ignore the future of your people.

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Michelle Stirling is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists. She researched, wrote, and co-produced historical shows about Southern Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Hugh Dempsey, then curator of the Glenbow Museum. She also researched and co-wrote a documentary on genocide; the factual content so dark the producer decided not to release it.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6291395/#:~:text=Despite%20representing%20just%202.6%25%20of,for%2010%25%20of%20overdose%20deaths.&text=Indigenous%20women%20are%208%20times,overdose%20than%20non%2DIndigenous%20women.