Legislature walkout follows MLA question on residential school narrative
A visiting delegation from the Métis Nation British Columbia walked out of the B.C. legislature on Monday after a question from OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie.
A visiting delegation from the Métis Nation British Columbia walked out of the B.C. legislature on Monday after a question from OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie on the issue of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
“For four years, the Kamloops Indian Band has been pretending to have found the remains of 215 murdered children, perpetuating the worst lie in Canadian history,” Brodie said during Question Period at the B.C. Legislature.
The Métis delegation left the public gallery “in disgust,” said Patrick Harriott, the organization’s acting vice-president.
“It felt incredibly disrespectful,” Harriott said in an interview. “We have relatives that went to residential schools that witnessed these things. Denying those statements ignores the intergenerational trauma that’s still being carried.”
One delegate was even “physically triggered” by the exchange, according to a story from The Tyee.
Brodie’s statement and language, while “triggering” to some of the Métis Nation delegation in attendance, is technically accurate.
To date, no “murdered children” have ever been found in relation to the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
The Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc nation initially announced, back in May 2021, that ground-penetrating radar indicated 215 missing children at the site.
The number was later revised to 200 potential burial sites, and no human remains have been recovered to date.
At the time of Casinir’s announcement, politicians, media, and former prime minister Justin Trudeau seized on the announcement and affirmed stories of “mass unmarked graves” and “burials of missing children.”
Subsequently, more than $12 million provided to the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation for work related to the 2021 announcement of 215 “unmarked graves” largely went toward consultants, administration and communications rather than archaeological excavation.
Documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter through the Access to Information Act show that federal officials questioned what archaeological or forensic work was underway, noting that families had requested exhumation and DNA testing.
The records, released only after an order from Information Commissioner Carolyn Maynard, censored nearly all details surrounding the $12.1 million.
The department said in one book-keeping entry called Community Support Funding Envelope that the First Nation hired 25 consultants to “provide advice and support to the Chief and Council” and paid publicists to develop “communications strategies.”
In the legislature, B.C. NDP Attorney General Niki Sharma condemned Brodie’s remarks as “denialism.”
“I find myself at a loss for words when this member raises what is a very painful and shameful line of denialism for residential schools,” Sharma said. “We stand on the side of survivors who are searching for the truth.”
As previously reported by True North, at least 123 Christian churches across Canada were vandalized, desecrated, or burned to the ground following the announcement of alleged and still unproven “unmarked graves” at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021.