Canada has been overwhelmed by the not surprising, but horrendous discovery of the unmarked graves of, so far, more than one thousand Residential Schools children, youths, and others in BC and Saskatchewan. 

 

“Not surprising” because the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) had alerted us to the fact that thousands of children and youths – “inmates”, as Duncan Campbell Scott, the Deputy Superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs, labelled them - had died during their detention in these facilities ordered by government and operated by national Christian denominations.   

“Overwhelmed” because the discovered remains put into stark relief the horror visited upon these children and their families and on all Indigenous peoples by Canada’s Indian Act policies over the life of the nation.

There were 140 government-run “schools” and only these, unlike other “Indian schools”, were covered by the TRC  Settlement Agreement signed by the churches and federal government. Most of these facilities had cemeteries on their property – a-typical for schools in Euro-based cultures!

Calling them “schools” is far more complimentary than justified by the purpose and reality of these facilities. Much learning took place there, but any useful learning was mostly suffocated by the brutal lessons of the system and the personal abuse and violence of too many staffers. 

The intended learning was to ensure that the children would be alienated from their “savage” Indigenous roots and assimilated into Euro Christian settler ways. The actual learning was more about the racism and savagery of dominant European Christian culture.

  

The spartan facilities themselves were incubators of disease, especially tuberculosis and other contagions. The death toll is now finally literally being unearthed even though as early as 1907 the Chief Medical Officer of the Government of Canada, Dr. Peter Bryce, had alerted all who would listen about the extremely high rate of death for these young human beings.  

For his trouble, not only was Bryce not listened to by officialdom, but even sidelined out of his role. Whistle-blowing calls for justice for Indigenous children were rewarded with ostracism and loss of employment.

Scott, however, saw the death statistics as meeting the goal of the government’s policy. In these facilities “Indian children…die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared toward a final solution of our Indian problem.”* (my emphasis)

For anyone aware of the mid-20th century European Holocaust, this single amoral quote will evoke only horror and disgust reminding us of the Nazi “final solution” visited upon Jews and other demonized groups of humans.  

More currently we think of the merciless expulsion of Rohingya people from Myanmar and the herding of Uyghur Muslim people into concentration camps in China, and the oppression lived by Palestinians.   

Mercifully, the Canadian “final solution” failed in its intended purpose, but the government policies wreaked destruction and suffering deserving to be classified as another illustration of humanity’s  propensity to demonize and destroy diverse sisters and brothers.

In Rabble.ca,* Pamela Palmater reports passionately and convincingly that the residential schools were part of the Canadian government's systemic colonial policy of genocide to rid Canada of "the Indian problem".  Conservative party policies, as advocated by Sir John A MacDonald in the late 19th century and sustained and supplemented by subsequent Liberal and Conservative governments, aimed to limit and/or do away with “inferior” Indigenous peoples, as if to ensure the nation's flourishing depended on such blatant racist policy objectives.   

The Indian Act became the legislative vehicle denying Indigenous people fundamental human rights and enforcing a dependency relationship on government exercised by paternalistic Indian agents armed with powers over “Indians” and backed up by the RCMP.  

Over the generations, Indigenous peoples were systematically deprived of freedom and well-being. Promises made in Treaties signed by Indigenous leaders and Crown representative were (and are) broken. 

For example, every reserve was to have its own school and educational capacity. But, according to Murray Sinclair,** this was deemed by government not to fit its assimilationist policy. With the Treaty model, the children would be able to return home at the end of every school day. This however risked them unlearning their Euro-based lessons and continuing in their families’ “savage” Indigenous ways. Said MacDonald, the unwanted result would be “savages who could read and write English”! Hence the Indian Residential “School” system with its enforced removal of children from their homes was established.

The unearthed remains of thousands of children and youth in grave sites are calling all settler Canadians to take seriously the costly impact their governments’ policies had and still have on both Indigenous and Settler peoples. 

The cost for Indigenous peoples has been incalculable and reported extensively. They inherited impoverished dependency and so much more to harm their well-being.  But they also retained the will to live and to fight for the right to be treated justly as full members of the one global human family and in Canadian society.  

The effect of these policies on Settler Canadians has hardly been assessed – presumably based on the facile assumption that their western consumer society was evolving as it should. The high cost of suppressing Indigenous spirituality, wisdom, experience, natural knowledge, and many other values and virtues that might have flourished in a two-row wampum society has not been calculated and hardly taken seriously. 

Canadian culture might have been substantially enhanced and more peaceable had there been a willingness to walk together with respect and humility and to learn from Indigenous peoples’ long history of living on the land and respecting Creation as Mother. 

  

Could Canadian culture have become more respectful of Creation and less inclined to plunder the land for raw resources? Less inclined to commodify and to monetize the natural world; more adept at expressing gratitude and sharing? Might the looming climate change crisis have been mitigated if Indigenous voices had been part of the energy generation conversation? Would the Creator have played a greater role in the lives of all?

The unearthed graves of the children and the laments of their families are calling the entire Settler society of Canada to a new way of being together with Indigenous Peoples. It is time to grasp the opportunity to work together toward a fairer and more equitable "two-row wampum" relationship with Indigenous peoples – the promise of a more “peaceable kingdom.”

Canada needs urgently to mass talents, energies, and resources – as we would if fighting a war or as we did for countering the Covid 19 pandemic - to address this long-standing shadow on the Canadian body politic. We need to mobilize leadership to that we may all live in the light.  Doing less than that is to  continue tokenism and would perpetuate the broken relationship.

It is no longer enough to have only two federal ministers paddling this freighted canoe against the current of other government business and, now, against rumours of a snap and unnecessary general election.  Collectively working to renew the relationship between Settler and Indigenous peoples is top priority now.  We can only hope that the appointment of Mary Simon as Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General is an encouraging step in that direction.

2. Parliament declares the national intention to work towards a “two-row wampum” society respectful of both Indigenous and Settler peoples, honouring the spirit and intent of Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 and relevant judicial interpretations of the Section. +

  

3. Parliament creates, mandates, holds accountable an all-party Cabinet Circle (CC) to give focussed and disciplined leadership  in providing researching, evaluating, directing, guiding, resourcing, and recommending to enable Canada to move efficiently and effectively toward a two-row wampum society.  (The "war" cabinet approach has been used productively by various national governments, avoiding  the  more cumbersome workings of government.)

• The CC reviews reports of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and its calls to action, the National Inquiry into Missing & Murdered Women & Girls and its recommendations,  the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and other relevants documents e.g. Kelowna Accord, Treaty Implementation Reports, UNDRIP, Supreme Court of Canada judgements, etc.
• The CC initiates a review of the “Indian Act” with a view to its abolition and the development of a new legislative framework for the Crown/Indigenous relationship in.  Self-determination of Indigenous Peopes is the cornerstone goal.
• The CC receives the report of the review of all government legislation affecting the relationship with Indigenous peoples (Bill C15) and directs various ministries to draft amendments and revisions as required.
• The CC identifies the steps required to arrive at a “two-row wampum” vision of Canadian society and makes recommendations to Parliament.

• As a sign of good faith and as a step toward making real the meaning of the “land acknowledgements” ritually repeated across the land, the government of Canada inaugurates a one per-cent levy on all real estate sales to provide an ongoing revenue stream to Indigenous Peoples for the purpose of supporting their participation in pathways leading to their self-determined engagement in a renewed “two-row wampum” society benefitting all Canadians – The Indigenous Peoples Fund.
• ii. The Indigenous Peoples Fund does not replace any financial programs or provisions under current arrangements which continue in effect until new mutually agreed arrangements are made.   
• iii. The Indigenous Peoples Fund is administered by and for Indigenous Peoples by a fully accountable pan-Canadian representative authority structure.  (Current representative groups of Indigenous Peoples include:  Assembly of First Nations,  Inuit Tapirit Kanatami, Metis National Council, Congress of Aboriginal People, National Women's Association, traditional elders, etc.)   

+Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 explicitly recognizes and affirms the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Section 35 also indicates that the term