This is exceedingly tragic to learn. Unmarked graves of 600 children have been found in Canada. Second finding. The First?

What is really horrible is at one of the schools the graves were marked at first but then the church or the school had the names taking off the graves - guess they figured people would forget about what they did that way. Cheers and happy weekend!

You could google 'Indian residential school construction Canada' where there are various websites explaining the mismanagement by Canadian government and by the various churches which were supposed to run these schools.

A bit of a horror story in many cases.

There are two other horrifying aspects to this.

The schools were established to "assimilate" the indigenous people into being fully "Canadian"; thus defining them as not actually the true "Canadians".

The removal of grave markers maight be linked to the policy of not returning the dead to their families - perhaps because to do so would raise the awkward question of why so many children were dying.

' ' '

Is it unique? NO: think of the...

 - Magdelan Laundries in Ireland (Church-owned slave-labour institutions for fallen women. Of their children born there or taken in with their mothers, those many killed by the nuns' neglect and incompetence were interred in unmarked graves that have only recently been discovered),

 - Swiss anti-Romany pogrom of the 1940s-50s (slightly similar in intent and method to the Canadian scheme, though by kidnapping the children and fostering them with Church help, under new identities, to "approved" familes),

 - and even in my country, England, 1940s-early 60s transporting abroad of poor and/or illegitimate children to "new lives" in Canada or Australia. Most were routed through dreadful Vatican-run orphanages, to become cheap farm labour for their foster-parents. Ironically, one of the secular organisations helping this was the Dr. Barnardos children's rescue charity.

Most of those in charge of these schemes probably genuinely thought they were doing the right thing by the standards of their time, but never thought to monitor and question the results.

And whilst we have now learnt just how evil these plans were, it does make it rather uncomfortable to criticise the People's Republic of China for its anti-Uyghur drive.

Trudeau is trying to get the Pope to come to Canada and officially apologize.

Hundreds of babies buried in a mass, unmarked grave in Tuam, County Galway, Republic of Ireland, on the site of a "mother and baby home" that had been run by an order of Catholic nuns - the Bon Secours Sisters:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54693159

'Some 9,000 children died in Ireland's church-run homes for unwed mothers, a government report published on Tuesday found. This is equivalent to 15 percent of all children who were born or lived in the 18 institutions investigated over nearly 80 years.'
[...] The homes, many run by nuns and members of the Roman Catholic Church, operated in Ireland for most of the 20th century, with the last home closing as recently as 1998: 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/9-000-children-died-irish-mother-baby-homes-report-finds-n1253862

Hundreds of children buried in a mass, unmarked grave at the site of Marieval Indian Residential School [located on the Cowessess 73 reserve in Marieval, Saskatchewan, Canada - Wikipedia] which operated from 1899 to 1997. [The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, was the Catholic organization that operated this school, along with 48 others - Wikipedia.] It is reported the graves were marked at one time, but that the Roman Catholic Church that operated the school had removed the markers:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/1009784025/hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-found-at-another-indigenous-school-in-canada

The remains of 215 children were found last month buried in unmarked graves at a (second) former residential school [Kamloops, about 160 miles northeast of Vancouver, Canada], one of more than 150 institutions in a defunct system that for well over a century forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into Canadian society. The school where the remains were found is in Kamloops, about 160 miles northeast of Vancouver. The institution, the biggest residential school in Canada, operated under the auspices of the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969: 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/canada-pressured-find-all-unmarked-indigenous-graves-after-children-s-n1269456

182 unmarked graves have been discovered at a (third) Indigenous residential school in Canada at the former St Eugene's Mission School near Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, where the Catholic Church operated a school on behalf of the federal government from 1912 until the early 1970s:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/another-182-unmarked-graves-have-been-found-at-a-third-indigenous-school-site-in-canada

Heading: "Disappearances of Canada's indigenous women remain unsolved, decades on".
'Over the past 30 years, over 1,000 indigenous women have been killed or reported missing in Canada, often last seen or found along a 720-kilometre section of road nicknamed the Highway of Tears.': 
https://www.france24.com/en/20180702-focus-canada-indigenous-women-unsolved-disappearances-highway-tears-national-inquiry


The Republic of Ireland, Canada, and the Vatican, are sovereign states. Is it not time for these states to be made to take responsibility for such crimes, and be prosecuted for genocide and crimes against humanity?


This post was edited by Robert at July 2, 2021 6:07 AM MDT