The False Claims of Indigenous Genocide

What is really happening is profit-making by the indigenous grievance business

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

By James Pew

This piece originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Western Standard Nov. 26.

The aboriginal industry has an unrelenting obsession with convincing Canadians a genocide against indigenous people occurred through the Indian Residential School system.

On October 27th, NDP MP Leah Gazan sponsored a motion “to recognize Indian Residential Schools as genocide.” It passed unanimously in the House of Commons.

Despite the lack of material evidence for such a claim, the mountains of evidence that paint an entirely different picture, and the track record of rent-seeking Aboriginal Industry deception and corruption, not one member of Parliament pushed back on the gross lack of substantiation regarding the highly specious accusations of the most horrendous crimes against humanity: genocide.

In response, the office of Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said residential schools are a part of a “shameful and racist colonial policy” that removed indigenous children from their families, denying them their language and culture.

But what really happened?

Several hundred years ago explorers from Europe arrived in what is now known as Canada and encountered indigenous hunter-gatherers. For the Europeans to settle in the area, a period of cooperation ensued. Never had an advanced civilization cooperated with an outside group of people where such a large gap in cultural development existed.

The gap did not cause much of an issue during the first hundred years of cooperation as the fur trade became a thriving Canadian industry. However, after the eventual decline of that industry, and other factors like the decline in natural stocks of buffalo, indigenous people struggled to adapt to changes in economic and environmental conditions. The gap in development became starkly apparent and even though few Canadians dare mention it, the struggle to reduce it continues today.

What happened after the fur trade?

Many indigenous people struggled to survive. They often received lifesaving aid from the Canadian government, in the form of food rations to prevent starvation, medical care, and eventually vaccinations and antibiotics which dramatically reduced deaths from communicable disease.

The government, far from having genocidal intentions, negotiated treaties with the indigenous people and set aside reserve lands for indigenous bands to build their communities. Included in the treaties were provisions that the indigenous receive a Western education provided by the Crown. This was specifically requested by indigenous leaders who understood it would be a good thing if their children received a modern education.

In fulfillment of a treaty obligation, the Canadian government built day schools on reserves large enough to justify them, and residential schools in remote locations to accommodate the many indigenous communities too small for their own day school.

Although it's repeated endlessly in the Canadian media that indigenous children were “ripped from their mothers' arms” and “forced to attend” Indian Residential schools, what really happened was that many indigenous parents petitioned the government to build more schools, or to continue the program after it had been announced it would be ended, as I wrote about in my piece, In 1959 Indigenous Leaders Wished To Expand The Indian Residential School System.

On Nov 19th, 1971, Saskatchewan’s Leader Post published an article: 'Chiefs Request School Be Kept.' The article reported “A resolution asking that the Marieval Residential School be kept open as long as the Indian people want it was passed by the chiefs and counsellors of eight Indian bands at a regional meeting held Thursday.”¹

Next, the Leader Post goes on to explain, “Various spokesmen said the pupils are generally children from broken homes, orphans or are from inadequate homes. There is a great need for the school and the need is increasing, rather than diminishing. Many of the children have no other place to stay, as many have only grandparents, who through lack of space, health or age are unable to look after them.”

When it is considered that Indian Residential schools were often staffed with as many as 50% indigenous employees, how is it possible not a single member of Parliament brought forward any evidence or argumentation that perhaps the environment created by the Indian Residential School system, while intended to educate and assimilate the indigenous, fell short of what a critical assessment would categorize as genocidal intent?

The more pressing question Canadians need answered is not “what happened” at Indian Residential Schools, but “what happened” in the decades after Indian Residential Schools when a new narrative emerged and grew more ghoulish and sensational by the year. With those answers should come follow-up questions related to the rent-seeking processes of the Aboriginal Industry, the steadily increasing levels of tax-payer funds forever being transferred to Canada’s indigenous, and how those processes and funds seem linked with the expansion, exaggeration and sensationalism behind indigenous activist claims of past wrongs in Canada.

While Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Murray Sinclair claims every single indigenous child during the history of IRS was separated from their families and “forced to attend,” what really happened was approximately one-third of indigenous children attended an IRS (with the overwhelming consent of parents), while another one-third attended day schools (meaning they went home to their families every day after school), and the remaining third went to no school (perhaps the biggest tragedy of all).

Of the one-third who attended a residential school, the majority were there for child welfare reasons. For years, there were waiting lists of parents desperate to get their children enrolled in a residential school, but spots were reserved first for abused, neglected and/or orphaned indigenous children. While it is possible some parents and children did not wish for IRS enrollment, the material evidence (mostly in the form of historical documents) illustrates this was not the case for the overwhelming majority of indigenous people who understandably desired their children receive a modern education.

Tenacious independent Canadian researcher Nina Green recently emailed journalists with a strong argument against the NDP motion.

Nina asks, “In this case, ‘what happened’ was a system put in place and maintained in place by the federal government of Canada, in other words, every Member of Parliament, Senator, and Governor-General in Canada’s illustrious history from 1867 to 1996, including Canada’s first indigenous MP and Senator, Len Marchand. Are all those thousands of people to be convicted of genocide because as the federal government of the day they were responsible for ‘what happened’?”

Will Canadians ever learn what really happened at Indian Residential Schools? Until a politician possesses the courage to challenge the Aboriginal Industry, and the propagating of false claims ceases to be so lucrative, Canadians can expect greater levels of sensational and fallacious narrative weaving around the history of indigenous relations.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read - Seeking the Truth About Residential Schools

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Below is downloadable PDF of the 1971 Leader Post article cited.

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The Leader Post Fri Nov 19 1971

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