By MADALAINE ELHABBAL | CATHOLIC VOTE
According to the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations in Canada, no human remains have been discovered at the site of an alleged “mass grave” at the Indian Residential School in Kamloops in British Columbia.
Kamloops is about a 14-hour car drive southeast from Hyder, its closest community to Alaska.
On May 27, 2021, the Tkʼemlúps te Secwepemc First Nation claimed they had discovered the “heartbreaking truth” regarding the Catholic-run residential school after a ground-penetrating radar allegedly uncovered a mass grave of 215 children.
Three years, $7.9 million, and at least 85 destroyed historic Catholic churches later, no human remains have been discovered, according to a May 9 report from Western Standard.
Department spokesperson Carolane Gratton stated in the report that the department had allocated the $7.9 million to uncovering the bodies, and confirmed that no progress had been made.
Both Gratton and the First Nation tribe have declined to disclose how the funds were spent.
“The discovery of 215 children’s graves at the Kamloops Residential School site in 2021 prompted an international outcry. However, no remains have been recovered since then. In response, the government lowered the Peace Tower flag for 161 days, allocated $3.1 million for a national Residential Schools Student Death Register, and earmarked $238.8 million for a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund, expiring in 2025,” the Western Standard reported.
In an op-ed published in The Federalist on May 10, John Daniel Davidson described the situation as “a hoax” and “a modern-day libel against Christians” that resulted in the widespread destruction of historic Catholic churches across Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says, however, that “What happened decades ago isn’t part of our history, it is an irrefutable part of our present.”
Read the story at Catholic Vote.
Read the story at the Western Standard.
Similarly last year, after extensive excavation, no evidence of human remains were found on the grounds of a Manitoba residential school for Indians that had been run by Catholic nuns.
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