Mass Graves of Aboriginal Children Cast a Pall on Canada Day

Tomorrow, Canada will be commemorating its 254th birthday. But a pall has been cast with the discovery of mass graves of Aboriginal children on the grounds of several shuttered residential schools. Last month, it was the unmarked graves of 215 Aboriginal children discovered in Kamloops, British Columbia. Last week, it was the unmarked graves of 751 Aboriginal children discovered in Marieval, Saskatchewan. Today, came the news of unmarked graves of 182 Aboriginal children discovered in Cranbrook, British Columbia. 

That's 1148 unmarked graves. The frightening thought is that this is only the beginning. Residential schools for Aboriginal children were run for nearly 100 years. I cannot begin to fathom how many more mass graves will be discovered. When one thinks of mass graves one tends to think of war torn countries like Iraq and Nigeria or a country full of civil strife like Mexico. Canada would not have to come to mind, but this has now changed.

The discovery of these mass graves naturally raise questions. Over how many decades did these children perish? Did Aboriginal children die in both the 1890s and the 1990s? Did they of malnutrition and neglect? Or were they murdered? Whatever the answers they will put a stain on Canada's reputation for many years to come. This mass graves of Aboriginal children will be to Canada what the enslavement of African-Americans is to the United States.

In some ways this doesn't come as a total surprise. Growing up in a Canadian community with a significant Aboriginal population, my peers spoke of First Nations people with contempt and disdain, the sort of contempt and disdain they would never dream of using against an African-American. No doubt my peers were taught to think this way by their parents and grandparents - the generations that oversaw these residential schools whose mission it was the "kill the Indian in the child." Evidently, they took that mission literally.

It has taken decades for the truth to come to the surface. It will take decades more for the agony of this truth to heal.