So.
Another 751 unmarked graves were found at a Saskatchewan residential school.
Seven hundred fifty one.
This school, The Marieval Indian Residential School, operated from 1899 to 1997.
It was one of the last residential schools to close in Canada. One of more than 130.
In case you didn’t know, residential schools were created to “cleanse” the people of Canada. These schools operated from 1831, when the Mohawk Institute Residential School opened, to 1996, when residential schools were finally outlawed.
That is 166 years of cultural genocide.
An estimated 150 000 children attended these schools, and an estimated 6 000 children died at these schools (current records of death are incomplete)
These children were beaten, sexually abused, even experimented on. They were treated like prisoners, like they were sub-human.
A child’s likelihood of dying in a residential school was one in twenty-five. In comparison, a Canadian World War 2 soldier’s odds of dying were one in twenty-six.
I am not Indigenous. I cannot pretend to know how painful this may be. But what I can do is speak out. This inhumane treatment of citizens of Canada must be condemned.
The government of Canada, and The Catholic Church, must. make. reparations.
