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Remains found at Kamloops residential school 'not an isolated incident,' Indigenous experts and leaders warn

Political lack of will at all levels & all parties notwithstanding, I'm going to guess there's also more geography in play in NW Ontario (40+ communities in an area the size of France) when you compare province-to-province, but I stand to be corrected.

And if France was muskeg.
When a mine/mill with a company town closes, so does the company town.



Best case, they do.

Which is the reason why, in Ontario anyway, the government will no longer approve permanent settlements around new mines, because they are stuck servicing the infrastructure. Any new mine that is not without a reasonable distance of an existing community (Victor, Detour, Musslewhite, etc.) are just modular with itinerate shifts.

One problem with youth leaving an isolated reserve is it becomes a dispora of mostly unskilled people with limited social supports, much like what already happens in many large urban centres, and the first nation societies have an increasingly weaker ability connect with the land they claim as their traditional territory.

One hundred and fifty-odd years ago, they primarily lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic, land-based, season-influenced lifestyle. Now they live in houses. In terms of social anthropology, that is lightning fast.
 
This 👍🏻 Was well said
And if France was muskeg.


Which is the reason why, in Ontario anyway, the government will no longer approve permanent settlements around new mines, because they are stuck servicing the infrastructure. Any new mine that is not without a reasonable distance of an existing community (Victor, Detour, Musslewhite, etc.) are just modular with itinerate shifts.

One problem with youth leaving an isolated reserve is it becomes a dispora of mostly unskilled people with limited social supports, much like what already happens in many large urban centres, and the first nation societies have an increasingly weaker ability connect with the land they claim as their traditional territory.

One hundred and fifty-odd years ago, they primarily lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic, land-based, season-influenced lifestyle. Now they live in houses. In terms of social anthropology, that is lightning fast.
 
I'm in favour of unskilled people going to where they can acquire skills and work and pursue their own lives; advancement isn't a "problem". Whether or not the communities they leave lose "connection with the land" or vanish entirely is irrelevant. It's a hell of a thing to create a system of carrots and sticks that nudges people into remaining trapped between the stone age and the space age.
 
And if France was muskeg.


Which is the reason why, in Ontario anyway, the government will no longer approve permanent settlements around new mines, because they are stuck servicing the infrastructure. Any new mine that is not without a reasonable distance of an existing community (Victor, Detour, Musslewhite, etc.) are just modular with itinerate shifts.

One problem with youth leaving an isolated reserve is it becomes a dispora of mostly unskilled people with limited social supports, much like what already happens in many large urban centres, and the first nation societies have an increasingly weaker ability connect with the land they claim as their traditional territory.

One hundred and fifty-odd years ago, they primarily lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic, land-based, season-influenced lifestyle. Now they live in houses. In terms of social anthropology, that is lightning fast.
Which perhaps is one reason that the governments of the day thought that bringing the children out and giving them a 'white' education would be the best thing for them. Good intentions maybe rotten execution definitely.
 
Which perhaps is one reason that the governments of the day thought that bringing the children out and giving them a 'white' education would be the best thing for them. Good intentions maybe rotten execution definitely.
Had it just been education, then they would have achieved much of their goals, instead they went with a social version of the scorched earth and also restricted the FN to their reserve needing permission from the Indian agent to leave. So get your "white education" but we are not going to allow you to use it.
 
I'm in favour of unskilled people going to where they can acquire skills and work and pursue their own lives; advancement isn't a "problem". Whether or not the communities they leave lose "connection with the land" or vanish entirely is irrelevant. It's a hell of a thing to create a system of carrots and sticks that nudges people into remaining trapped between the stone age and the space age.
Perhaps if they (the First Nations) had any say in the matter it would have gone better.

There is a line from a movie - I don't know if it has any historical basis - that said the goal of the British Empire was to make "the whole world England". It certainly wasn't alone in the age of exploration and expansion, they were just particularly good at it. It seems cultural sensitivity wasn't in vogue.
 
Had it just been education, then they would have achieved much of their goals, instead they went with a social version of the scorched earth and also restricted the FN to their reserve needing permission from the Indian agent to leave. So get your "white education" but we are not going to allow you to use it.
Not allowed to use the “white education” they were forced to get, by law.

But also completely alienated from their own culture as they could not practice their own languages or cultural traditions.

(I read a lot on residential schools the other night as my neighbour & I were sitting in my house chatting over some tea. He is an elderly gentleman, quite pleasant & smart - and he had honestly never heard of them. And was shocked to find out what they were, etc)
 
Perhaps if they (the First Nations) had any say in the matter it would have gone better.

I doubt it. Movement from the land into cities and from the cities of the past into the cities of the future is ongoing and disruptive for almost all people. Two generations ago, my ancestors were very attached to lifestyles of "the land" (and "the sea"). Not so much now. Anyone who wants that is welcome to it, but no-one should be chained to it.
 
(I read a lot on residential schools the other night as my neighbour & I were sitting in my house chatting over some tea. He is an elderly gentleman, quite pleasant & smart - and he had honestly never heard of them. And was shocked to find out what they were, etc)
And some people are not aware of the Holocaust of WW II.
 
Not allowed to use the “white education” they were forced to get, by law.

But also completely alienated from their own culture as they could not practice their own languages or cultural traditions.

(I read a lot on residential schools the other night as my neighbour & I were sitting in my house chatting over some tea. He is an elderly gentleman, quite pleasant & smart - and he had honestly never heard of them. And was shocked to find out what they were, etc)
The primary intent of the education wasn't the readin', writin' and 'rithmatic part, it was to make them 'not Indian' and 'not pagan'.
I doubt it. Movement from the land into cities and from the cities of the past into the cities of the future is ongoing and disruptive for almost all people. Two generations ago, my ancestors were very attached to lifestyles of "the land" (and "the sea"). Not so much now. Anyone who wants that is welcome to it, but no-one should be chained to it.
Or forced from it.
 
remember you are talking about a 19th century mentality that we imported from Britain. They reasoned the same way with regards to any resident of the British Isles that wasn't Anglo-Saxon origin. Also dig up the history on the children/orphans that were brought over from England and adopted by families particularly in Ontario and Quebec where they were put to work. And that was right up until the end of WW2. Their way of getting around the anti-slavery act. The Indigenous folks were treated no differently. All bad but not racist.
 
64 more pages of Canada's First Nations discussion,

and an interesting report on the technology used.
 
remember you are talking about a 19th century mentality that we imported from Britain.

It was ubiquitous. Boarding schools weren't invented by and limited to only the UK and its offshoots. Think about the way people have been treated in various institutions over time - boarding schools, orphanages, asylums. General neglect and abuse were widespread, and slowly diminished with time and improving sensibilities.
 
One very large recent project I worked on hung up on what might have been a grave, clearly post contact as the local bands put their dead on platforms prior. There were two different bands claiming it and they didn't want to dig it up to confirm whether it was a grave or not. In that particular area the soil was acidic, so there would unlikely be any bones, perhaps some shoes, belt buckle.

Meanwhile in the UK HS2: service held for 60,000 to be exhumed at Euston burial ground
 
Leaving the question of whether or not the First Nations would want this aside, are there any CAF assets which might be useful in this work?
 
Leaving the question of whether or not the First Nations would want this aside, are there any CAF assets which might be useful in this work?
I believe there is a casualty identification coordinator at DND that deals with that sort of thing, like when WW1 remains are found and need identification. I’m not sure if that would be the more appropriate asset to be used or if other civilian government services would be better placed. I’m think maybe the RCMP forensics lab maybe. Things like identifying causes of death, DNA matching to families etc. It also really depends on whether the community even wants this done. I think it was in Manitoba where they found 80 in a mass grave and the community opted to just let them all Rest In Peace. The very first step is to confirm what the wishes of the indegenous communities would be. I suspect we’ll see more of these but my feeling is it should be on a community by community basis.
 
Complicated by the fact that the kids that died there came from several different nations, so you would have to get them to come to a consensus as well. I am surprised this is all a big surprise to everyone. The facts were well known and a plan should been in place as to how to deal with this issue, but then INAC and this government is not the best at forward planning, so I shouldn't be surprised....
 
People are having a hard time separating the case for political and economic integration (laudable) from the case for cultural assimilation (immoral). And as has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past couple of years, one bad act or thought supercedes everything else a person did during his life.
 
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