Western Standard - July 12, 2022


Cory's Monologue： Residential schools We need more investigation, less cancelation


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

193.44241

Word Count

1,001

Sentence Count

72

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

The discovery of over 200 unmarked graves at the site of a former Indian residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia rocked the nation. Activists have long alleged that these graves are the remains of Native children who died while attending Indian residential schools.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 And, you know, the case is never closed, and discussion is always allowed. It has to be.
00:00:06.120 And that statement can be applied to pretty much any issue, but I'm going to talk about today the residential school grave sites.
00:00:13.400 There's the revelation of the discovery of possibly over 200 unmarked graves at the site of a former Kamloops residential school, and it rocked the nation.
00:00:22.000 I mean, our flags were kept at half mass for almost half a year. Apologies came fast and furious from the government, and activists raged.
00:00:28.200 The other consequence of the discovery was a flood, a flood of misinformation and exaggeration of what actually happened in residential schools.
00:00:37.080 Unfounded anecdotes of abuses as horrific and absurd as the purposeful murder and cremation of babies were shared, and they're taken as fact.
00:00:44.600 They weren't questioned, because you would be shouted down.
00:00:47.660 It was assumed that every single person who attended a residential school was there by force, and they were abused, and that's just not true.
00:00:54.000 To question any allegations would, and still leads, though, to allegations of racism and attempted cancellation by the media and the internet mob.
00:01:02.900 This most recently happened when the Fort Times, a newspaper in Saskatchewan, ran a column by former Judge Brian Geisbrecht,
00:01:09.620 where he pointed out that not a single body has been confirmed yet at that site in Kamloops.
00:01:13.980 Similar radar findings have indicated potential graves at a spot in Nova Scotia, Charles Kamsall Hospital in Alberta, Cooper Island, B.C., and Brantford, Ontario.
00:01:23.380 Radar showed similar things underground, but when excavations were conducted, there were no bodies actually found.
00:01:29.700 It doesn't mean there aren't any burials at the Kamloops site.
00:01:32.420 It does mean, though, we can't be sure what's going on until they're exhumed.
00:01:35.940 We can't assume.
00:01:38.640 Now, Geisbrecht also said that 832 people died at residential schools, mainly from tuberculosis, when they had already had it when they enrolled in the school.
00:01:48.700 Most would have died if they'd stayed at their homes as well.
00:01:51.580 And, I mean, if you don't believe that, that's fine.
00:01:53.640 Let's study it, though.
00:01:54.440 Let's discuss it.
00:01:55.160 Like, these deaths are being attributed wrongly, and we should be allowed to discuss this.
00:01:59.040 The next assumption being taken as fact is that there are bodies, and those bodies are of children from the residential schools.
00:02:07.300 I mean, there was one site excavated in eastern Canada, but then they found it actually carried the remains of Irish settlers.
00:02:14.080 Unmarked and forgotten cemeteries aren't exclusive to any race or group.
00:02:18.220 The term mass graves, that's another one.
00:02:20.160 It's constantly being used by activists.
00:02:22.100 There's been yet to be a single mass grave found.
00:02:25.340 Using the term mass graves implies large holes where a number of bodies were dumped.
00:02:28.640 And that never happened in Canada.
00:02:30.860 While activists are trying to draw parallels, and that's what they're doing, between the Holocaust of World War II and with what happened to residential schools.
00:02:38.100 They do so by loosely using the term genocide and labeling every single native who ever attended a residential school as a survivor.
00:02:45.360 Six million Jews were purposely slaughtered factory-style in World War II.
00:02:50.380 Well over half a million Tutsis were exterminated in Rwanda during their civil war.
00:02:55.020 In Canada, fewer than 150,000 students even attended residential schools over the period of 100 years.
00:03:02.920 And yeah, some died while they were in those schools, but there was no purposeful effort to kill them.
00:03:07.680 There was no genocide.
00:03:09.180 And labeling every student as a survivor is an exaggeration.
00:03:13.300 Records were meticulously kept by organizations managing the schools.
00:03:16.340 They did so to ensure they got funding.
00:03:17.960 It wasn't some altruistic thing they wanted to get paid for those kids.
00:03:20.760 They recorded every student entering and leaving those schools.
00:03:24.120 There was no mass of missing children.
00:03:26.600 None vanished without record while attending the schools.
00:03:29.620 A myth has been perpetuated that thousands disappeared that simply isn't true.
00:03:33.520 And we need to be able to point that out.
00:03:36.440 Are there graves of children at some former residential school sites?
00:03:39.520 It only stands to reason that there would be.
00:03:42.340 Those schools were harsh places 100 years ago.
00:03:44.500 They were underfunded, and the West was barely developed.
00:03:46.840 Many children died in the early to mid-20th century of the Spanish flu, polio, tuberculosis.
00:03:53.060 And this was both Native and non-Native kids alike.
00:03:55.340 Students at residential schools were particularly vulnerable, as they had little natural immunity to those diseases.
00:04:00.840 They were not always fed balanced nutritional diets, and they lived in crowded quarters that lent themselves to disease transmission.
00:04:06.920 It was wrong to put kids in that situation and pack them into those schools.
00:04:10.760 But let's not allow these claims of genocide to stand unquestioned and unfounded.
00:04:16.560 Because they're unfounded.
00:04:17.720 Don't let them stand that way.
00:04:18.980 It wasn't easy to transport the remains of a person a century ago.
00:04:22.220 Bodies were often buried close to the place of death as a means of practicality, and they were usually marked with nothing more than a wooden cross.
00:04:28.060 Over a century, those crosses decayed and disappeared.
00:04:30.960 The cemeteries were forgotten.
00:04:32.260 It wasn't a purposeful effort to hide them, though.
00:04:34.800 There were abuses, and there were tragedies in those schools, and we should investigate and find out what they're about.
00:04:38.760 Any abuser is still alive today, and if their abuse can be proven, they should be charged.
00:04:43.620 We need to critically study what happened in those residential schools, but we won't be able to if the debate is shouted down and unfounded allegations remain unquestioned.
00:04:52.120 How can we achieve closure and final reconciliation if we don't have all the facts?
00:04:56.160 I fear that many activists and lawyers don't want to see closure and reconciliation, though, because they profit greatly off the cash settlements and ongoing anger.
00:05:03.660 They perpetuate myths and keep the anger in flame for their own benefit.
00:05:06.820 Well, the discussion is never closed, and we're going to carry it on.
00:05:10.460 We're going to carry it on.