Recently a respected former Manitoba Provincial Court judge, and acquaintance of mine, Judge Brian Giesbrecht, made a serious misstep.  I happen to know Judge Giesbrecht since we were both working as porters in the summer for the Canadian National Railway while we were attending University. We both went to Law School where he was a year ahead of me.

In an article in the Winnipeg Sun last week, Judge Giesbrecht severely criticized what he called a “firestorm” that resulted from the discovery of a mass gravesite where the remains of more than 200 people were discovered  in Kamloops on the school yard of the Indian Residential School. Many of the students there were from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. Some of the remains were of children as young as 3 years old. According to Judge Giesbrecht , “It’s also not clear that there was even anything sinister about the discovery.”

I would ask Judge Giesbrecht by what possible explanation that he could give, would this not be seen as sinister? Kelvin High School in Winnipeg is a school in Winnipeg that has been around for a long time. It was always largely populated by white students. What would happen if a mass gravesite were discovered there that contained the remains of more than 200 white children? I suspect there would be an unholy uproar demanding an explanation. Frankly I think the “firestorm” in Kamloops would be a modest flickering flame in comparison.

Judge Giesbrecht complained that the cost of the taking a look at all the possible grave sites in Canada would be “massively expensive.” Again if the families of the victims were white would it be so expensive? That is what the privileged always say about spending money for others. It is always too expensive. At the Kamloops residential school where this happened, the school authorities had not bothered to send bodies home to their families when children died. It was too expensive. Not only that, they often didn’t bother telling the families what happened. This is not an issue of cost. This is an issue of the privileged who just don’t care! They don’t see the pain of others.

Judge Giesbrecht also said this was just a matter of people willing to accept slanderous conspiracy theories about teachers and priests murdering students and secretly burying hundreds of children. First of all, no one to my knowledge  has suggested murder. People are concerned about neglect, lack of interest, and racial bias, not so much murder. No conspiracy theory is needed to be concerned when more than 200 unmarked graves were found. No conspiracy  theories are needed to raise alarms in such a case. After all how often do we find mass gravesites at white schools?

The belief that indigenous children were badly treated at such schools is not based on a conspiracy theory. It is based on the heroic uncontradicted testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the “TRC”) of hundreds of survivors from schools around the country. To suggest this did not happen is nothing short of willful blindness.

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission  reported, “the number of students who died at Canada’s residential schools is not likely ever to be known in full. The most serious gap in information arises from the incompleteness of the documentary record. Many records have simply been destroyed.” More than 4000 deaths of children from residential schools have been documented, but the real number is believed to be much higher. As Manny Jules, a former chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation where this site was found, and a survivor of that school, said on CBC radio, “As soon as the deaths at a school like the one in Kamloops started to rise the schools stop counting.” [

After making an exhaustive review of the available evidence (and not some conspiracy theory) the TRC concluded as follows about conditions at many of these schools:

“the death rates for Aboriginal children in residential schools were far higher than those experienced by members of the general Canadian population… until the 1950s Aboriginal children in residential schools died at a far higher rate than school-aged children in the general population. It is only in the 1950s that the residential school death rates declined to a level comparable to the general school age population. As late as the 1941-45 period, the Named and Unnamed Combined residential school death rate was 4.9 times higher than the general death rate. In the 1960s, even though the residential school death rates were much lower than their historic highs, they were still double those of the general school-aged population.”

Judge Giesbrecht ignored all these facts, and then dismissed their suffering this way: “There are many forgotten cemeteries in Canada. It is far more likely that the deaths simply reflected the sad reality of life back then.” Yes undeniably life was hard back then, but why was it so much harder for aboriginal children than white children? That is that is the question that Judge Giesbrecht dodges.

I will continue my analysis of Judge Giesbrecht’ article  in my next post.

For obvious reasons I have been thinking a lot about residential schools lately. I went through 4 years of a liberal arts education followed by 3 years of studying law and never once heard of residential schools. My ignorance was profound. It still runs pretty deep, but I have tried to make a small dip into it.

Actually, that was one of the reasons I started a blog a few years ago. I wanted to dissent from the omnipresent white supremacy in our society, even among educated people. Even among good, privileged people who were blind to the power of that privilege.

I remember the first time I heard of residential schools was when I heard an allegation in the news that a Catholic Priest sexually abused children at one of those schools. How horrible I thought. But I still did not get it. The issue went much beyond abuse, though that was bad. What was much worse was what these schools told us about us whites in Canadian society. What we learned about ourselves when it started to sink in was not pretty.

Then at a law conference I heard Justice Murray Sinclair a Manitoba Court of Queens Bench Judge and the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission speak out about Residential Schools. Frankly, I was shocked by what I had learned.

Then a few years later I read the executive summary of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Then my eyes were really opened. In that report all Canadians were urged to do their part to bring about reconciliation. Every Canadian should read that report. That should be homework for each of us who lives in Canada.

I don’t yet know what I can do to help bring about reconciliation. Chris and I even took a 4 session course at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on the subject of reconciliation. Recently I heard a talk on reconciliation given by Niigaan Sinclair the son of Justice Murray Sinclair, and a professor at the University of Manitoba, at an Alumni lectures series that Chris and I have been attending for about 5 years or more (the last couple virtually).

I asked him what I as an old white guy from Steinbach could do to help reconciliation. His answer was that the least I could do was to speak out. He pointed out that I could talk to people he could not talk to. My friends and relatives in other words. I as a white guy might get a couple of them to listen to me. If he knew me, he would not have been so confident about that. But I think he is right. Most of my friends and relatives I suspect don’t read his regular column on indigenous issues. None of them attended this course. Few of them will have read books on indigenous issues. Even less would read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. But most of them are good people. I can talk to them when I get the chance. They can get it and together we can make a small difference.

Of course, most of them have too much good sense to listen to me either, particularly in my blog. But there are a few. That is the least I can do. I liked that answer. I won’t solve this problem, but I hope to make a slight dent in some preconceptions. Therefore, that’s what I will do. I will speak out when I can, even if that bugs some people. So be it. I’ve been a pain before.

What can we do about reconciliation.

This past week we had shocking news in Canada. Shocking that is to those who have never read the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Reading that report is shocking. Every Canadian should do that. This week a mass grave site or burial ground was located adjacent to what used to be Canada’s largest Residential School in Kamloops B.C.

What do we do when we learn that 215 young children died going to schools where they were compelled to go? Children were taken away from their families to strange places often far away and where they were frequently abused. Many of them died there. They died in shocking numbers. The government knew that. It had been reported to them. And their deaths were never acknowledged. Never admitted. The bodies were simply buried. Often the parents were not even told their children had died. No one bothered to tell them. This is a stain on all of Canada. The world will watch how we react.

All of this is a product of racism that has not vanished.

I believe we have a duty to speak up against racism in our society. We must not look away. We must face it. It is real and it is here. I think at the very least we whites who have benefited from a system of racism that gave us a head start over non-whites must renounce that system, clearly, once and for all. This is no time to avoid the truth. This is time to face the truth publicly to let everyone know where we stand. As the Black Lives Matter movement keeps saying: Silence is violence. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know, silence can hurt. Standing by silently while others suffer injustice, particularly massive injustice, is nothing to be proud of. Once we know about it we had a duty to speak.