Canada’s Indigenous People Must Stand Up Against China’s Uyghur Genocide

Contrasting Canadian and Chinese history

By Michelle Stirling

With the current controversy over improper influence via foreign funding from China to the Trudeau Foundation, and revelations of Chinese interference in Canada’s election by leaks from within the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), it is time to scrutinize the timing of announcements of discoveries of unmarked Indigenous graves across the country. In this story “Indian” refers to First Nations and aboriginal people of Canada.

The shocking announcements of unmarked or mass graves at former Indian Residential Schools in Canada, turned out to be conveniently timed to get China off the hook at the UN for an investigation into genocide of the Uyghur people. Now instead, Canada is being investigated by the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Affairs…for genocide related to these alleged unmarked graves at former Indian Residential School sites!  

China issued a formal condemnation of Canada, the US and Australia, claiming that in North America alone, some 5 million indigenous people had been wiped out by European colonizers.  That’s quite the chutzpah from China.  Few historians think there were 5 million Indigenous people on ‘Turtle Island’ (the name many Indigenous people use for North America) at the time of European contact. Many Indigenous people did die due to lack of immunity to foreign diseases, so the tragic deaths of so many Indigenous people due to smallpox and other diseases was unintentional.  The various battles that raged centuries ago cannot be judged by today’s context. 

But, if we are into numbers, let’s talk about the 30-46 million Chinese citizens who were intentionally starved to death in Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward,’ which occurred in between 1958 and 1962.  Curious that today, the Chinese should suddenly care so much about Canada’s Indigenous people when there is evidence of actual forcible enslavement and genocidal activity against their own Uyghur Indigenous people of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China.

As BBC reported on March 22, 2021, Western nations of the European Union, UK, US, and Canada imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over reports that “China has detained Uighurs at camps in the north-west region of Xinjiang, where allegations of torture, forced labour and sexual abuse have emerged.”

On May 21, 2021, the story of the Kamloops Residential School discovery of an alleged 215 unmarked graves, made headline news around the world. However, the alleged graves were only identified by Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) which can only ‘see’ disturbances in the soil, but not ‘what’ it is – neither coffin nor body can be identified this way.  The alleged grave must be excavated; if coffins or remains found, then exhumed.  So far, none has been done and First Nations have recently rejected the offer of assistance from the NGO “International Commission on Missing Persons” claiming that they were not consulted.

On June 22, 2021, as reported by CBC, “On the same day Canada helped to launch an international effort at the United Nations to demand that China allow free access to Xinjiang to investigate reported human rights violations, China and its allies have called on the UN to investigate crimes against Indigenous people in Canada.”

The claims of ‘genocide’ in Canada rest largely on the premise that children were forcibly taken from their parents and tribes and indoctrinated against their will and culture at Indian Residential Schools.

Historical records do not support these claims.

When taking Treaty 6 in 1876, Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (Chief Poundmaker) said, “When I commence to settle on the lands to make a living for myself and my children, I beg of you to assist me in every way possible. When I am at a loss how to proceed, I want the advice and assistance of the government. The children yet unborn, I wish you to treat them in like manner as they advance in civilization like the white man.”

Honorary Kainai Nation Chief Potai'na, historian Hugh Dempsey wrote in his book:  "Red Crow: Warrior Chief":

"It was in Shot Close [his favorite adopted son] that the chief placed his faith in the future. Convinced that education was the key to advancement, he wanted the boy to get the best training possible." 

"...Red Crow believed that the Indian of the future would need to be able to work and compete with the white man on his own level. He had seen it happen on the Six Nations Reserve and he wanted it to happen at home." 

"Red Crow...was fiercely possessive of what was his but was always ready to adopt the knowledge or the teachings of others if he felt they would help. After his trip to Brantford (1886), he became convinced that education was the answer to his tribe's problems. After seeing the Six Nations Indians at work, he wanted his young men trained to run factories, farms and ranches." 

"...Red Crow gradually came under the influence of Legal and other priests. But even when they opened a boarding school on the reserve, the chief did not want Shot Close educated there. Believing that there had to be a clean break from the family, he finally arranged in 1894 to have him sent to St. Joseph's Industrial School at Dunbow, just south of Calgary. Here the Roman Catholics operated a school to teach farming and trades to young Indians. Upon arrival, the boy was given the name Frank Red Crow..." 

"In the Spring of 1896, Red Crow made a trip with Singing Before to see their son Frank at the industrial school. They were pleased to see that the boy, hair cut short and dressed in a grey uniform, could speak perfect English. His complete isolation from the Blood Reserve had helped to transform him into the kind of person whom Red Crow hoped would lead his people in the future." 

"Frank Red Crow, the young boy in whom the old man placed so much of his faith in the future, left school shortly before the turn of the century and went on to become a prosperous rancher. He was elected a minor chief of the tribe and served faithfully until he retired in the 1950s." 

Ninety-one years after Chief Poundmaker signed Treaty 6, in the 1967 Lament for Confederation speech by Geswanouth Slahoot (Chief Dan George): “Oh God! Like the thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success—his education, his skills—and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.”

There is no comparison between Canada’s history of relations with Indigenous people and that of the Chinese government reportedly forcing some 1 million Indigenous Uyghur people into reeducation camps and committing crimes against humanity against them.

In Canada, some 150,000 Indigenous children went through Indian Residential Schools, or industrial schools between the years of the 1870s to 1997.  They were enrolled by their parents. Since the schools were often over-subscribed, there was often a waiting list.  Only about 1/3 of potential status Indian students went to these schools, on average for 3 years (though some were there for longer). This was only one sixth of all Indigenous kids. Indigenous includes status, non-status, Inuit and Metis. 

Parents had the right to withdraw students, which they sometimes did.  Many students were orphans. As historian Robert Carney has documented (father of the more famous Mark Carney), Indian Residential Schools served as the local social services and medical hub, especially in the early days.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) spent six years travelling Canada and recorded the testimonies of 6,500 people, or about 4% of all Indian Residential School attendees over time.  The people’s recollections about abuse – physical and sexual – neglect, loneliness and illness were accepted without question or requirement for witnesses or evidence. While cathartic for those who suffered, this process did not meet the legal standard which would normally have to be met when criminal or child abuse accusations like these are made. The Canadian Charter of Rights guarantees that an accused is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.  The way TRC operated meant that former school staff—many of them Indigenous—who might have introduced balanced insights were reluctant to testify for fear of being shamed or suffering recrimination.

Without the context of history, and the statements of school staff, and without the commentary of the other 96% of residential school attendees, Canada was found guilty in a public trial with few to no defendants and in a manner that lacked due process of law.  

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee reported on the mistreatment of hundreds of students; less reported were statements from the students who found the residential schools to have given them the skills for rewarding work and a healthier life.  For those orphaned children, the Indian Residential Schools became their home; some grew up and remained there as employees.

It is true that some children tragically died while at Indian Residential Schools, most from Tuberculosis (TB) as reported by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee Report; some attendees had already been orphaned as TB was the greatest killer of all Canadians until the 1950s.  TB – then known as “the captain of all these men of death” - was more virulent on Indian reserves due to communal living, lack of sanitary practices and poverty.  This was similarly the case for off-reserve poverty-stricken Canadians, but no social strata remained untouched by TB.

A hundred years ago, the Indian Residential Schools system was graduating capable and successful farmers, ranchers, medics, clerks, musicians, priests, homemakers, and administrators.  As noted in Terry Glavin’s book “Amongst God’s Own,” Peter James, who attended St. Mary’s Mission in B.C. from 1951-1956 said: “I am chief of Katzie now, and I have been for a little over two years, and when I go over the valley, or the other way, west, you meet a lot of people that went to Mission, and they are leaders of their people today.”

Hardly sounds like ‘genocide.’ Sounds like self-realization in a changing world.  

Time to push the UN to investigate China for genocidal activity toward its Uyghur Indigenous people and time to cancel the House of Commons motion of Oct. 27, 2022, that falsely describes Canada’s Indian Residential Schools as genocide.

Surely Canada’s Indigenous people do not support China’s genocidal actions against the Indigenous Uyghurs of the autonomous region of Xinjiang. Hopefully, they will speak up.

Michelle Stirling is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists. She researched, wrote, and co-produced historical shows about Southern Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Hugh Dempsey, then curator of the Glenbow Museum. 

https://michellestirling.com/

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Thanks for reading! For more from this author read “No Pride in Genocide”

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