In June of this year, it was falsely reported in the media that mass graves of native children were discovered in the areas where Indigenous Residential Schools were located. The operation of many of the schools was contracted by the government to Christian churches including the Catholic Church. When reporting on the event, the Canadian media recklessly and erroneously used the term “mass graves” when referring to the burial sites containing the deceased Indigenous children. But as Sophie Pierre, former chief of the St. Mary’s Indian Band in B.C. told Global News, “There’s no discovery, we knew it was there, it’s a graveyard. The fact there are graves inside a graveyard shouldn’t surprise anyone.”
A 2015 report on Indigenous Residential Schools in Canada determined that the primary cause of the failure to protect the lives and wellbeing of the children was mainly due to government policies, underfunding and mismanagement. It states in part, “The federal government never established an adequate set of standards and regulations to guarantee the health and safety of residential school students… The failure to establish and enforce regulations was largely a function of the government’s determination to keep residential school costs to a minimum…The failure to establish and enforce adequate standards, coupled with the failure to adequately fund the schools, resulted in unnecessarily high residential school death rates. Policies that would have had positive effects were recommended for residential schools - but were not adopted. The most basic questions about missing children – Who died? Why did they die? Where are they buried – have never been addressed or comprehensively documented by the Canadian government.”
Recently, I was amazed to read an article by Journalist Teresa Wright, entitled, “Backing away from a battle.” (Ms. Wright is a freelance journalist based in P.E.I., who covers federal and regional politics, most recently for the Canadian Press in Ottawa. She is also a journalism instructor at Holland College in Charlottetown.) In her article she attempts to lay the major responsibility for the deaths of Indigenous children on the Catholic Church and challenges Prime Minister Trudeau to take on the Church by suspending its charitable status for its role in the running of residential schools.
Ms. Wright claims that the Catholic Church never officially apologized for their role in the failed Residential Schools disaster but she is wrong. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI received a native delegation and “expressed his sorrow and anguish for the deplorable conduct of those Catholics who caused immense pain and suffering to those in residential schools.” In 2014, the Canadian bishops of Alberta also apologised to the Indigenous people and it included the following statement, “We also express our apology and regret for Catholic participation in government policies that resulted in children being separated from their families and often suppressed Aboriginal culture and language at the Residential Schools.” While they expressed regret for being part of the failed government program, the primary responsibility must be owned by the federal government.
The scathing indictment by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report of the government’s overall failure was not something that Trudeau wanted to own up to just before an election. He therefore seized the opportunity to portray the Catholic Church as the culprit responsible for the deaths of the Indigenous school children. To create the scenario, Trudeau publicly called on Pope Francis to come to Canada and personally apologize to the Indigenous people. The government subsidised media picked up on Trudeau’s agenda and promoted a smear campaign against the Catholic Church. This deliberate hate propaganda incited the violent vandalizing of nearly 60 Catholic churches, many of which were burnt to the ground. When questioned by the media, Trudeau refused to condemn the violence. However, his friend and top advisor, Gerald Butts said that burning churches isn’t cool but it “may be understandable”. Where the government was mostly to blame for this tragedy, would Mr. Butts consider it “understandable” if the rioters burnt down the House of Parliament?
So, we can see that the Canadian Government was the culprit primarily responsible for the deaths of Indigenous children and not the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict XVI and the Canadian bishops of Alberta did apologise to the Indigenous people.
While the 2015 Report points out that it was the Canadian government who failed to document the history at Residential Schools, Trudeau shifts the blame by claiming that the Catholic Church was withholding information.
Unfortunately, while Ms. Wright is a talented writer, her art should not be used to spread false information that could lead to discrimination against a large segment of Canada’s population. As a teacher of journalism, she might use the media’s irresponsible journalism and her own article to point out the dangers of allowing bias and bigotry to influence their writing. As it is, she is fanning the flames of hatred toward Catholics that was begun by Justin Trudeau. Will it be “understandable”, even if not cool, to see another sixty Catholic Churches vandalized or set afire?