The following piece, “Getting to the facts with residential schools,” was written by James C. McCrae, a former attorney general of the Province of Manitoba and a retired Canadian citizenship judge. It is re-posted here in its entirety with his kind permission.
It deals with one of the most important evidentiary issues surrounding the entire Indian Residential School enterprise, namely the contest between written historical facts recorded exactly when they occurred and oral reinterpretations of those same facts decades later by “knowledge keepers” with no firsthand knowledge about or experience with them.
Which is more credible? Is it the direct record of eyewitnesses and participants, including the written accounts of named indigenous people made about events exactly when they occurred, or the musings decades later of so-called “knowledge keepers,” none of whose identities is ever revealed?
Since these so called knowledge keepers are still alive why are we never informed about the sources, grounds, or authenticity of their knowings?
If these are not revealed, why should we accept them as true?
If we challenge any of this, why should we not fight back hard when we are immediately and speciously called racist genocide deniers?
My recollection about the issue of the demand for Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) by band members McRae carefully documents with reference to the Cross Lake, Manitoba, Indian Residential School (IRS) (St. Joseph’s) that operated from 1915 until 1969 is that overall there were no less that four appeals to re-build destroyed schools, re-open shuttered schools, and stop the closing of schools by the relevant indigenous communities. There are surely many more such appeals buried in the archives.
This, of course, does not include petitions by parents and others to allow children to attend already overcrowded boarded schools not to mention pleadings by mixed race Métis parents to allow their children to attend as well though they were not legally eligible to do so.
Overall, the REAL story of the IRSs has still barely been told, on the one hand, and what we have been told by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is full of omissions, distortions, exaggerations, and fabrications by actors and institutions determined to portray the IRSs in the worst possible light.
This is why McRae’s careful discussion of the REAL historical record is a must read for any objective observer.
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