No, Saskatchewan murders weren't a residential school echo

The horrific stabbing spree that left 10 people dead on the James Smith Cree Indian Reserve and in the nearby village of Weldon, Saskatchewan, on Sunday, September 4 was a tragedy that will always be painfully felt by the affected family members and their communities. This was one of the deadliest mass killings in Canada’s history, and the deadliest ever in modern history on aboriginal land.

Why did it happen?

Many Indigenous activists had a quick explanation: the murders were a combined result of indigenous colonialism, a phenomenon that ended when our country became the sovereign Dominion of Canada in 1867 — 155 years ago — and the federal “forced” attendance of indigenous children at Indian Residential Schools, the last one of which closed down in 1997, 25 years ago.

The lightly edited opinion piece on the other side of the paywall written by yours truly and published on September 20, 2022 strongly contests this assertion with lots of countervailing evidence.

To read it, if you are not yet a paid subscriber only requires paying a mere $5.00 to instantly jump over the paywall, a decision that is also instantly reversible if you regret doing so.