The Special Interlocutor and the Odds of Future Reconciliation

Graves claim leads to an open taxpayer wallet

Photo by Benoit Dare on Unsplash

By James Pew

This article first appeared in the Western Standard on Nov. 16.2022.

The aboriginal industry has this in common with a casino: that while presenting itself as one thing, it's also a scam with a million distractions.

That is, there are countless ways money is siphoned from the patrons of casinos. The perpetual nature of the process — casinos stay open 24-hours a day, seven days a week — creates a steady flow of pecuniary transfers from patrons to a house that always wins.

In Canadian politics, the never-ending flow is from taxpayers to an aboriginal Industry that is never satisfied.

In May 2021, unproven allegations “the remains of 215 children” had been found at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School began circulating the globe. Since then, at least nine indigenous communities have reported discovering a further 1,685 potential unmarked graves.

Ottawa committed to providing money and resources to the First Nations to investigate these alleged discoveries.

However, all sites of unmarked graves are located in former known cemeteries with the single exception of Kamloops. There it seems almost certain the ground penetrating radar said to have detected “the remains of 215 children” had more likely detected the 2000 linear feet of trenches from a long-forgotten septic field installed at the school in 1924.

On June 8, 2022, the federal government appointed Kimberly Murray to serve as an Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites, associated with Indian Residential Schools.

Murray is a member of the Kahnesatake Mohawk Nation in Quebec, and a former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 

There is much doublespeak involving the specifics of Kimberly Murray’s role as special interlocutor. While much of the media coverage of her appointment centers on “finding the missing children,” her job description on a government website mentions only the development of a “new federal legal framework” for unmarked graves:

"The special interlocutor will work closely and collaboratively with indigenous leaders, communities, Survivors, families and experts to identify needed measures and recommend a new federal legal framework to ensure the respectful and culturally appropriate treatment and protection of unmarked graves and burial sites of children at former residential schools."

So here's the question: Are we searching for missing children, or are we enshrining in legislation the aboriginal industry’s newest cash cow, unmarked graves?

Is the claim the special interlocutor is finding thousands of missing children a cover to justify the perpetual transfer of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds?

For years Murray had access to hundreds, if not thousands, of provincial death records, including records for the Mohawk Institute at which she was executive lead of the Secretariat of the Six Nations of the Grand River prior to her appointment as special interlocutor. Even so, she never announced the finding of a death record for a single ‘missing’ child.

In contrast, independent researchers found, and made publicly available, hundreds of death records for alleged ‘missing’ children, including the 48 children named on the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s (NCTR) list for the Mohawk Institute.

The data uncovered by independent researchers regarding these 48 children said to be “missing” from the Mohawk Institute and buried in unmarked graves reveals a completely different picture.

Relying on census records, death certificates and other documents, independent researchers established the students named on the NCTR list for the Mohawk Institute are not 'missing'.

In 75% of cases there is documentary evidence of their place of death, and in almost 50% of cases there is documentary evidence of their place of burial. In 71% of cases the cause of death is documented, and in 50% of cases there is documentary evidence they received professional medical care. In 27% of cases there is documentary evidence family members were involved during the student's final illness and burial. In 37% of cases, documents sent to Ottawa concerning the child's illness and/or death survived. Only nine students actually died on the premises of the Mohawk Institute. The others died elsewhere.

If Kimberley Murray is unable to find any ‘missing’ children for the benefit of indigenous families and communities across Canada while independent researchers can and do find these allegedly ‘missing’ children on their own initiative and at their own expense, why does Canada have a special interlocutor?

Why would a special interlocutor not reach out to independent researchers who, through careful vetting of public records, verified the names, cause of death, and place of burial of hundreds of children who formerly attended Indian Residential Schools?

And why would a special interlocutor reject help from an international organization as well?

A news story on November 1 revealed the Canadian government contacted the International Commission on Missing Persons without Kimberley Murray’s knowledge, asking for help “to potentially aid its response to the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools."

Murray’s reaction suggests that in her view, not only the ICMP, but the Canadian government itself, has no business interfering:

She said, “while the commission does valuable work, the fact the federal government had been in preliminary discussions with it raised some concerns because it’s unclear if the request for their involvement came from indigenous communities themselves,” which she says must lead the process.

“We have Section 5 constitutional sovereignty rights. It’s a little bit of a different approach that needs to happen with these investigations.”

“I would hope that if Canada is engaging in any kind of contract with the commission to do any kind of work that they would have discussed it with indigenous leadership and survivors.”

“How does their work incorporate indigenous law?”

Parenthetically, what exactly is “indigenous law” in this context? Are Canadians to suppose the hunter-gatherers encountered by early European explorers at first contact had “indigenous law” related to the finding of missing children and dealing with unmarked graves? Obviously, they did not.

The incorporation of alleged indigenous law is not the only stricture Murray imposed on the process. The RCMP are not to be allowed to do their job in investigating whether alleged unmarked graves are real or not:

Murray said, “it is critically important investigations into unmarked graves remain independent of the Canadian government.” “It’s the state police, the state government, that caused the problem that we’re currently trying to investigate our way out of.”

Murray has independently pursued outside expertise, including during the recent conference in Edmonton.

Murray’s overt and false claim “state police” “caused the problem” echoes TRC Chair Murray Sinclair’s earlier complaint to a Parliamentary Committee on June 3, 2021 about the conduct of the RCMP who'd opened a major investigation into the so-called discovery of “the remains of 215 children” at the Kamloops site.

Details are sketchy, but Sinclair’s complaint effectively ended the RCMP investigation. A year and-a-half later, no excavation has taken place, and there has been no substantiation of the Kamloops claim, but multiple “investigations” at several other former Indian residential school sites are now siphoning away taxpayer funds, regardless of the fact all the post-Kamloops sites are located in known former cemeteries.

With the considerable resources at her disposal, Kimberley Murray has so far provided no answers, and although she claims to be finding missing children and investigating unmarked graves, it appears her efforts are principally directed towards prohibiting any involvement on the part of the Canadian government, the RCMP, or international organizations such as the International Commission on Missing Persons on the specious grounds of “Section 5 constitutional sovereignty rights” and “indigenous law” (Section 5 refers to UNDRIP).

The adamant claim the government, the RCMP, and any other non-indigenous entity must play absolutely no role in the investigation of unmarked graves leads to a logical question.

Why is all non-indigenous participation being deliberately excluded from what under any other circumstance in which murders and secret burials were alleged, would be an open and transparent process fully involving the Canadian government and the RCMP?

Is this happening because the aboriginal industry, like a casino, wants to stay open indefinitely all day every day, so to speak, raking in taxpayer funds in the highly lucrative “investigation” of unmarked graves and the “missing” children it implies are buried in them?

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Thanks for reading. For more on this topic read - The Deception of the Aboriginal Industry - by James Pew (substack.com)