babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
UNREPENTANT: Canada's Genocide ...HAVE YOU SEEN THIS FILM ??
April 4, 2007 - 6:21pm
Kevin Annett has been documenting and trying to tell this story for years, at great personal 'expense'. His film is recently released in Canada, having won two film awards elsewhere.
A story that needs to be heard by all Canadians, IMO ... about the residential schools ... and about WHY.
May be coming to a town near you ... soon
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[ 30 May 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
[ 04 April 2007: Message edited by: bohajal ]
It still persists
Health Canada muzzles oilsands whistleblower
AB physician sounded cancer alarm, slapped with College complaint
By Peter Woodford
[ 08 April 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
By Joan Delaney Epoch Times Victoria Staff Jan 27, 2007
"We want to generate international pressure on Canada and the churches to start to have full disclosure about what went on so that there can be some healing; real healing can only happen when there's been that kind of complete disclosure," Annett told The Epoch Times from his home in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
In Memory of Harriett Nahanee ...
and the child she saw murdered ...
and thousands like them ...
Come to the ...Third Annual
Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day
Sunday, April 15, 2007
1. Where are 50,000 residential school children buried?
2. How did they die?
3. When will these churches return their remains to their families?
Sponsored by the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared Residential School Children
(Founder, Anishinabe Elder Whispers Wind)
=== No Reconciliation without Full Disclosure! ===
For more info: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
or phone 1-888-265-1007
Vigils and protests will be held outside these churches in seven Canadian cities on the same day.
Info: Canadians for Aboriginal Rights
...................
I do think there should be a full accounting for the children who were often in legal custody of the School Principals, I believe.
This is the ugly underside of the residential schools settlements. It doesn't acknowledge the ones who didn't return from school. The government's own reports indicate a 50% acknowledged death rate, and higher, and that waqs considered "in keeping with policy". Well over 100,000 children attended the 'Indian' Residential Schools over more that 150 years, the last one closing in 1996.
There is evidence of intensification of abuse as human rights came on the radar, seizures of children in the "sixties scoop" ... are common knowledge among Canadian adults of that time ... grandparents ... like me.
The people interviewed in Kevin Annett's documentary alive now or until recently, and they seldom die of old age. They eloquently tell their own stories of abuse and horrors they witnessed, in our lifetimes, and the aftermath in the lives of thousands upon thousands of victims.
......................
anglicanjournal: former students urge fairness in schools settlement
Rev. Andrew Wesley, a Cree priest who runs the urban native ministry of Toronto’s Church of the Redeemer, also raised the issue of missing records, citing his own experience.
“I myself requested for my records and received a letter saying I never did attend the residential schools,” said Mr. Wesley. “But I did my time for 10 years.”
...
“Some of them were those who fled and escaped because of the abuse and stayed for a year and they don’t speak English,” he told Justice Winkler...
...
Two other objectors raised the issue of missing students who never returned from the schools and whose parents wonder, to this day, what became of them. The issue of missing students is not mentioned in the agreement.
“Nobody has mentioned the children that passed away or weren’t sent home. Some weren’t even registered,” a teary-eyed Shirley Roach said. “There should be a recognition of them because they were there and their parents never saw them again. They never came home.”
............................
The government has acknowledged physical and sexual assault and is processing settlements. It also acknowledged the preexistence of the church schools, the role of the church in its 'mission', and no one is excused from further legal action, I don't believe. I am not sure about the gag order ... I heard they don't have to sign that.
What an asinine and predictable thing to try to do ... !
This is the beginning of the whole truth I think ... where Canada grows up.
[ 09 April 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
Truth Commission
Tribunal Evidence Excerpts
Nuremberg-standards study case on residential schools
Amnesty International report
Even the federal government has somewhat tacitly admitted to it.
Compensation Suit
Compensation Lawsuits
Court rules churches liable
Although the numbers and severity, as well as the motives, are in dispute, the fact is it happened, and for anyone to deny or minimize it is akin to denying or minimizing the Holocaust.
Casualty Estimates
Historic Chronology
Residential Schools Mortality Rates
The government makes its deals with the Band Councils. However, it was the traditional people who were the targets of the worst treatment in the schools, and the 'assimilated' kids were the enforcers, out of necessity to protect themselves, I expect. This pattern continues on the territories today in some cases, where traditional people are left out of government funds, etc.
The current settlement doesn't really address the full scope of the tragedy, the murders of small children (to terrorize their older siblings into silence), the germ warfare, the murders of 'mixed race' babies born of sexual assault, etc.
I personally think the churches need to be held accountable for their beliefs that said it was ok to kill children ... of another race. The fact that the churches are not coming forward ... well ... how could anyone believe anything the churches have to say then ...?
Documentary Exposes Ugly Secret of Colonialism in Canada
[ 30 April 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
Yes it is ... but none of that evidence ever went forward to the UN.
It is now being looked at again, I believe, with the release of the film.
It has never fully entered the public knowledge, not full disclosure.
But it will now.
Kevin Annett will be speaking in Hamilton at McMaster Tues May 22.
Other dates TBA.
It remains to be seen whether Canadians will step up and ask for a full inquiry out of the hands of the politicians, perhaps via the Senate?
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Canada probes TB 'genocide' in church-run schools
* 05 May 2007
* Debora Mackenzie
CANADA is to investigate claims that tens of thousands of native Indian and Inuit (First Nation) children died of tuberculosis at church-run residential schools in the early 20th century, and that their deaths were hushed up. Campaigners allege that school officials did nothing to halt the march of TB despite warnings, and charge that their inaction was tantamount to genocide.
Christian churches ran up to 88 boarding schools for aboriginal children across Canada between 1874 and 1985. Their stated aim was assimilation; children were forbidden to speak their native languages. Some 200,000 children passed through the schools, attendance was mandatory and the Mounted Police rounded up truants. Their experiences were often brutal, and Canada is finalising a C$1.9 billion ($1.7 million) class-action settlement for 80,000 surviving former inmates, with extra payments for those who suffered physical and sexual abuse.
So far there have been no lawsuits over deaths at the schools, although survivors tell of children disappearing and secret burials. Under pressure from campaigners, Indian Affairs minister Jim Prentice announced last week that his department would find out "why [children] didn't return and where the bodies are".
Kevin Annett, who led the campaign, says he found reports of high rates of TB at residential schools in records, held at the University of British Columbia, which the government has since sealed. In 1907 Peter Bryce, a chief medical officer for the federal Department of Indian Affairs, recorded that 24 per cent of pupils at 15 schools had died of TB over 14 years. At one school, 63 per cent of the children died.
Other documents show that officials knew death rates were high until the 1940s, Annett told New Scientist. They record children being admitted with active, contagious TB, with no quarantine or even ventilation in their rooms, the only ways to control TB before antibiotics. Former students say they slept in crowded dormitories with sick children, and were often hungry: hunger lowers immunity and exacerbates the spread of TB.
They faced high rates of TB at home too: the infection, brought by European settlers, ran riot in crowded, impoverished aboriginal communities, where even now TB infection is 20 to 30 times higher than among non-aboriginal people born in Canada. Canada's health ministry says the yearly death rate from TB in native communities in the early 20th century, before antibiotics were available, exceeded 7 per 1000, "among the highest ever reported in a human population". However, the ministry also says school death rates reached 80 per 1000 in the 1930s and 1940s.
The question now is whether methods such as quarantine could have prevented deaths, and whether the schools' inaction constitutes genocide. According to Annett, the University of British Columbia records reveal Bryce's thoughts on the matter: yes, on both counts.
From issue 2602 of New Scientist magazine, 05 May 2007, page 11
Canada probes TB 'genocide' in church-run schools
Kevin Annett has persisted for years to try to bring this to the point of a full investigation, with opposition at every turn.
As he says in the film ...
"What does that tell you?"
[ 04 May 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
I think this is in Romeo Dallaire's area for investigation.
However, most urgently, the families need to repatriate the remains of the children, to put their spirits at rest. Having studied the church and government responses, I believe the Anglican Church is the best hope to set an example in this regard. The Catholic Church says as little as possible, focusing on and succeeding in whittling down the financial obligation of the churches. The United Church also says as little as possible: What can they say? They have delisted, defrocked, blackballed, blacklisted and smeared Kevin Annett for telling the true story about the deaths in the schools and the theft of land, and pedophile rings usiong aboriginal children that exist to this day.
Here is the recent letter of the Anglican Archbishop to the Prime Minister, which refers to the fact that there were children who died, even though that is not included in the current settlement process:
Primate’s Letter to The Prime Minister — 28 March 2007
The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister
Government of Canada
Fax: 613-941-6900
Dear Prime Minister,
On behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I am writing to convey to you my strong disappointment and sadness at your refusal to offer an apology to Aboriginal Canadians who are former students of Indian Residential Schools, and to their families, as reported this morning in The Globe & Mail.
The stated goal of the assimilation policy of the Government of Canada in former times was, in the words of Indian Affairs deputy superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott, “to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic”. The main vehicle to implement this policy was the system of Indian Residential Schools, by means of which children were removed from their homes and communities and placed in boarding school, where they were forbidden to speak their own languages, and where they were taught the culture of the colonizers. Many did not return to their homes and families for years; others died at the schools and their parents were never told of their deaths. While this policy did not succeed, nonetheless the pain, suffering and dysfunctionality witnessed today in Canadian Aboriginal communities and families is a direct result of the attempts to “take the Indian-ness out of the Indians.”
The Anglican Church of Canada was complicit in implementing the policy of assimilation. A total of 26 Indian Residential Schools were run by the Anglican Church, functioning as an agent of the Government of Canada. We are ashamed of this part of our history. In 1993 our former Primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, offered an apology on behalf of the whole church for the harm done by the residential schools system. Here is an excerpt from that apology:
I accept and I confess before God and you, our failures in the residential schools. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed God
I am sorry, more than I can say, that we were part of a system which took you and your children from home and family. I am sorry, more than I can say, that we tried to remake you in our image, taking from you your language and the signs of your identity. I am sorry, more than I can say, that in our schools so many were abused physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally. On behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I offer our apology.
The Anglican Church of Canada has been participating in the current Alternative Dispute Resolution Process. We have been sending a church representative to ADR Hearings in the role of listener, to hear and receive the story of the survivor, and to offer an apology on behalf of the church. We have learned that for many survivors, the apology is at least as important as the financial compensation, if not more so. People whose lives have been shattered through no fault of their own, are immensely helped by having their suffering acknowledged and validated, and by hearing the words of apology.
Noting that we are not alone in requesting that an apology be made, I quote from the judgement issued by the Honourable Chief Justice Brenner, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia: “[35] Although I am making no order and am issuing no directions, I would respectfully request counsel for Canada to ask that the Prime Minister give consideration to issuing a full and unequivocal apology on behalf of the people of Canada in the House of Commons.”
Mr. Harper, I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to refuse an apology to IRS former students and their families.
Sincerely,
+Andrew
The Most Reverend Andrew S. Hutchison
Primate
The Anglican Church of Canada
Download in PDF
Primate’s Letter to The Prime Minister — 28 March 2007
..................
I note that this Anglican letter mentioning the deaths of children (March 28) preceded mention of this issue in the press: Jorge Barrera published the first article in the Sun on April 14. The United Church did not mention deaths until forced to by the media attention. The Catholic Church has not responded. There were schools run by other churches here and there, but these three are the main ones, and the majority of schools were Catholic run.
[ 08 May 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
Two Row Wampum (Treaty) 1692, 1867, 1982
"We will travel the river together, but each in our own boat.
And neither of us will try to steer the other's vessel."
Come and hear former clergyman Kevin Annett speak about his experience ministering in BC: the stories of people who survived the residential schools, the children who disappeared or died there,
The land, the churches and our governments.
***** See this award winning film *****
Unrepentant
Wednesday May 23 7 pm McMaster University Medical Centre Hamilton Rm 1A5
Tickets: RECOMMEND reserve in advance $5 grannysaga@gmail.com
At the door $10 (People with status free)
**************************************************
May 14, 2007: IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Special Hamilton showing of award winning Canadian film
UNREPENTANT, with Kevin Annett
Los Angeles Independent Film Festival: Best International Documentary 2006
New York Independent Film and Video Festival: Best Director of an International Documentary 2006
Unrepentant, released in 2005, reveals poignant stories of survivors of residential schools in Canada, and what they know of the children who died or disappeared there. It is one step beyond Canada’s current Residential Schools Resolution process, as that process does not call us to account for the children who did not survive. The Globe and Mail and SunMedia recently ran series of stories about the fact of children’s deaths in the residential schools, and for the first time ever, the topic was raised in the House of Commons. The government has responded that it will be dealt with in the Truth and Reconciliation phase. The Families and Friends are saying we won't be subjected to that further humiliation and delay. We want the children home now.
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/National/2007/05/14/4178195-sun.html
Natives push to find lost remains
By JORGE BARRERA, NATIONAL BUREAU
A Native group is threatening an "escalating campaign of civil disobedience" to force the federal government into identifying and repatriating the bodies of 50,000 Native children who the group claims died in residential schools.
...
"You are not going to get a lot of information on the number of children who died," said Milloy.
Bob Watts, interim executive director of the commission, remains optimistic. More and more records are coming into their hands, including private documents like school officials' diaries.
"We are getting more and more files on a daily basis," said Watts, former chief of staff to Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine. "There is more and more history coming forward."
Produced by Kevin Annett and directed by Louis Lawless, this film reminds us that the thousands of children who died in the schools are missed and mourned. Their stories and lives and selves are remembered, and the families and friends of those who died yearn to bring home the remains of the children so the spirits of the children can finally rest.
And some say the sacred land where the children may be buried should simply be returned to those who hold aboriginal title, from whom it was taken.
Unrepentant is the story too, of Kevin Annett, a former member of the clergy in Canada, who listened to the survivors’ stories, allowed them to speak the horrific truths from his pulpit and documented their knowledge of abuse, torture and murder of children in the schools. Kevin ran afoul of his church for allowing the truth to be spoken in public, and was summarily and without cause removed from the ministry, his family and his livelihood and prospects.
Aboriginal rights play a significant role in the film: The stories of the people who seek to sustain their land rights and ways of life, and those who seek to take them away, believing that the end justifies the means:
For that horror has never been halted, but has turned back upon us in the unstoppable fury of global ecocide, and is devouring the air we breathe and the land we cling to.
Kevin Annett, hiddenfromhistory.org
UNREPENTANT is a mammoth story that cuts to the heart of what is Canada. It is a story that is still unfolding today, nearby and all across the country.
“If you are Canadian you should see this film, and judge the truth for yourself.”
Canadians for Aboriginal Rights, Hamilton
Kevin Annett joins us next Wednesday, May 23 for this special showing of Unrepentant, to speak and answer questions. Sponsored by Canadians for Aboriginal Rights, the evening will begin at 7 pm in Room 1A5, Ewart Angus Centre, on the south-west corner of the McMaster Health Sciences Centre.
Reserve tickets are strongly recommended ($5). Contact grannysaga@gmail.com
$10 at the door, People of status free
Media Contacts:
Kevin Annett (Vancouver) 1-888-265-1007 hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Canadians for Aboriginal Rights
(Hamilton) 905-296-0396 grannysaga@gmail.com
http://cfar.proboards104.com
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[ 15 May 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
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[ 15 May 2007: Message edited by: saga ]
I urge people to go to our website (www.hiddenfromhistory.org) to keep posted about our work, especially our efforts to find and repatriate the remains of children who died in residential schools, and bring their murderers to justice.
I will keep you all updated,
many thanks,
Kevin Annett
Friends of the Disappeared Strike Again, Occupy Anglican Church headquarters in Vancouver
Friday, May 18, 2007, 1:00 pm PST, Vancouver
For the second time in one week, aboriginal men and women of the Friends of the Disappeared (FoD) undertook an occupation in Vancouver today to demand the repatriation of the remains of thousands of children who died in church-run Indian Residential Schools across Canada.
"We gave the government and churches one week to answer our demand, and they ignored us, so we're back" declared Rob Morgan, FoD spokesperson.
Twenty five aboriginal men and women, including residential school survivors, peacefully occupied the headquarters of the Anglican Church of Canada and demanded records and other evidence of deaths in residential schools from church officials.
"Eyewitnesses describe how Anglican Church officials flogged children to death at the St. George's residential school in Lytton, B.C. in 1952" said Kevin Annett, a FoD researcher, to media.
"Rows of little skeletons were unearthed at the Anglican school in Alert Bay, B.C. in the late 1960's. Eyewitnesses were sterilized with an X Ray machine at the Anglican Carcross school in the Yukon, during the 1950's. This church is responsible for genocide."
The occupiers demanded to see Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham, who was handed a letter over a year ago by residential school survivors which asked for information about missing residential school children. Ingham has never replied.
"We gave Michael Ingham a letter of demand on April 15, 2006 to tell us where our relatives are buried, and he never answered us. So we're here to find out why he's ignoring us and covering up mass murder" said Rob Morgan, a second generation residential school survivor from the Nishga nation.
Church media officer Neil Adams told Morgan and the occupiers that "Bishop Ingham is not available and can't be reached." Adams also declined to share information about any death records held by the Vancouver diocese, and refused to answer questions put to him by survivors, including, "Who is going to be held responsible for the deaths of these children?".
One residential school survivor told reporters who attended the occupation how her friends found the skeletal remains of small children "between the walls" of the Lejac school in Prince George, BC.
"I was locked in a small closet for two weeks and almost died because I wouldn't cry when they whipped me" she described.
Other survivors spoke of family members who never returned from residential schools, how they themselves were tortured on "a rack (where) they stretched and broke me", and of children thrown to their deaths down stairs by priests, and then buried in orchards near residential schools.
"The church and government keep doing this to us: a lot of polite nothing" stated Rob Morgan to reporters as the occupiers vacated the office after an hour.
"They are evading the whole thing and they still treat us like we're children. But we're not dumb Indians, we're educated now and we're standing up. We're going to keep doing these sit ins and other things to shake them up until they return the bodies of our people, and surrender the criminals".
Morgan and Annett announced at the end of today's occupation that similar actions are being planned in Ontario in the coming weeks, as part of an escalating campaign to "bring the children home and their murderers to justice."
For more information:
hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca , rob_morgan2@yahoo.com
(messages) 1-888-265-1007
website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org ...
... and on this radio program: "Hidden from History", every Monday from 1-2 pm (PST) on CFRO 102.7 FM (www.coopradio.org) (Vancouver)
Thanks Kevin. I guess you made it home safely then. It was an awesome night with all of the good people who came to see the film at McMaster and hear you speak. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
It is nice to know that Kevin has friends here at babble too!
We are continuing to try to get the message out that there is no reconciliation without full disclosure of the deaths of children in the residential schools. Anyone inclined to help could email Senator Romeo Dallaire as we have been doing:
DallaR@sen.parl.gc.ca
I notice they blame "the church" for "genocide".
I might be convinced that the onslaught of Europeans upon Canada's native cultures amounted to a kind of genocide over centuries, but I doubt that "the church" is the responsible institution.
They also say that native people "continue today to die at genocidal levels".
Really, it is important to be able to distinguish between real genocides, such as that in Rwanda, when 10,000 people A DAY were butchered, or the Nazi genocide of the Jews, in which 5,000,000 people were killed in TWO years, an AVERAGE of 7,000 people every day, and what is occurring in Canada now.
It's the same sort of thing which has to be said to those who say that Canada is "fascist" or Prime Minister Harper is a "Nazi".
No support for Harper is implied by defending him from false charges. Same for the church.
It is being used correctly, Jeff.
Hello jh. Have you seen the film? A point you may wish to consider is that genocide isn't just piles of corpses; it is also the eradication of a culture's traditional ways, hence the application of the phrase 'ongoing' genocide.
RCMP officials would arrive in gunboats and proceed to kidnap children in order to send them to what amounted to death camps, being run by so-called enlightened religious orders such as the Catholic, United, and Anglican institutions. Even today, children are used as carnal recipients because priests have found a loop-hole to their vow of abstinence regarding fornication with women; and more often than not, just like the Canadian government is allocating hard-worked for tax dollars towards pitiful compensation packages that purchases continued silence of historical atrocities against First Nations people, there are churches diverting their congregation's donations to pay for lawyers, settlements, and relocations of abusive clergy, in the hopes the full extent of their role in creating and furthering devastating impacts throughout society remain unaddressed.
jh, you've mentioned Rwandan and Jewish massacres, and that is certainly valid. Yet when looking at all of North America, the Native reserves have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and Native men and women are jailed diproportionately, just like Africans. As much as the Jewish holocaust really isn't over because of racism, neither is the African, South American, Palwestinan, Iraqi, or First Nation's struggle to be recognized as a grossly undercompensated peoples.
Yes, millions of Jewish people were slaughtered in order to afford a lucrative tract of land called Israel. Yet, what have Africans received besides the right to be better paid slaves, South Africa's Apartheid, and continued occupation of stolen land? How many millions died and continue to die in 3rd-world like ghettos throughout the U.S.? How many First Nations people died and continue to die in abhorrent conditions where bathing in polluted water causes lesions, inside the borders of one of the most affluent countries in the world?
Jewish people weren't even accepted as refugees in North America during WWII, they were condemned to acts of genocide, and were only recognized by the U.S. as valuable because they served U.S. interests at the expense of the Palestinian holcaust, which also continues to this day, in order to establish a foothold in a region of the world where they could eventually gain access to liquid gold. That is the only reason the plight of the Jewish people garnered the undivided attention of Washington, and for half a century have been 'on the map' as a fully recognized victim of genocide; fully militarily backed by the worst perpetraitors of terrorism and state sponserers of genocide in existance today, the U.S., with Harper right on Bush's heels.
The African genocide, not just Rwandan, is not recognized. Palestinans are not recognized. Iraqis are not recognized. First Nations people are not recognized.
Perhaps you could explain to me how an average of 7,000 people dying a day is any different than 7,000 dying over a longer stretch of time due to an actively implemented agenda of oppression?
EDITING:
Here's the United Nations definition of genocide:
http://
quote: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
* (a) Killing members of the group;
* (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I live in Thunder Bay, and without mentioning deplorable conditions on reserves, all I need to do is look at neglected parts of the city and witness the homelessness, prostitution of minors and adults, solvent abuse, AIDS, starvation, violence, addictions and corruption amongst the Aboriginal population, in order to reach the conclusion that something outrageously grotesque occured within the confines of residential 'schools' that were simply government funded assimilation programs.
Children thrown to their deaths from windows, thrown into furnaces, electric chairs, stretching racks, sterilization, exposure to experimental drugs, beaten to death, intensive slave labour, rape, starvation, and more...
Are you absorbing the gist of this thread?
Just what would it take for you to embrace the truth no matter the depth of it's ugliness?
Wishing You Walk In Health,
scy
[ 29 May 2007: Message edited by: scy ]
Kevin Annett and The United Church of Canada ]
excerpt:
3. In Mr. Annett's film, stories are told of murders at the schools, including at the Alberni Residential School in British Columbia, which was affiliated with the United Church. Mr. Annett also alleges that the United Church has been involved in secret burials, medical experimentation, and pedophile rings, and has conspired with the government and others to "cover up" these activities. While the United Church has no knowledge of such criminal behaviour, our response remains consistent in urging Mr. Annett and anyone else to present any evidence they may have to the police.
Riiiiiiight...; here in my city, there's a multiply convicted pedophile who works for a human rights organization in a very influential position with international access to children, and this person also worked for one of the United Church's Sunday Bible classes. The Canadian government shuffles around it's cabinet when under fire, and churches offer the same protection for their criminalistic brethren.
That link you discovered, which I came across a while back, doesn't care to mention that the United Church forked over a 1/4 million dollars to pay for Kevin's divorce. If the U.C. cares so much about rectifying the wrongs of the past, why wouldn't that money be spent outfitting at least one reserve with proper water filtration so a small group of Aboriginals could wash their faces in the morning?
In Unrepentant, Kevin displays a photo in a book that shows a child suffering from TB casually sitting amongst healthy children in what looks like a classroom setting; quarantine and isolation are very basic concepts that were blatantly ignored.
I guess it's easy to deny wrongdoing, when a few thousand dollars are offered as hush money to individuals in the throws of serious psychological dysfunction stemming from their tenancy in residential 'schools', and many of the first-hand witnesses have since died, or are on the verge of death. The most agregious crimes were committed more than 1/2 a century ago when violation of human rights was still standard practice and could be implemented overtly, as opposed to the church and state spun overtness occuring within and beyond Canadian borders.
[ 29 May 2007: Message edited by: scy ]
Really? And you see nothing wrong with that? In this forum?
FWIIW, moderators, this commentary would NOT be acceptable if it was about Jews and the Holocaust, and someone wanted it to be discussed from the "Nazi" side!
I have a friend, yes really, who was one of the last group of FN's to be FORCED to attend the Alberni Residential School. How does this grab you, she loves her daughter deeply but has NO idea how to be a parent, as she never had any, she was NOT allowed to. DO you get it? She was NOT allowed to have parents, even though she had them, and a whole extended family too.
As such, she feels an abject failure to her daughter, that is furthered because of her trying to self medicate away the memories. She exhibits classic signs of PTSD, but of course mental health comes way down on the list of what her band can afford to pay for.
This is a place for Aboriginal voices. Lots of room in the mainstream for denial of Aboriginal experiences in residential schools.
You're implying someone's denying the residential school atrocities. Not me, and not the United Church, so far as I can see.