Friends, we have an issue. Over the last several weeks, my website has been linked by several websites in Canada that are denying the atrocities committed at the residential schools across the countries. I will not link those sites here. They are trying to use my work to bolster their argument there are no ‘lost children’ from Indigenous families, that children were not mistreated, killed, and buried in secret.

These are facts we know from testimonies, records, and the results of countless archaeological investigations across Canada in recent years. You do not need to put a shovel in the ground to see the burials.

The post they are all citing is this one, “When is a grave no longer a grave?“, which I published on Feb 27, 2019. What I was discussing in the post was whether there was or could be a point that a grave is no longer considered to ‘be there’, which is absolutely up to the cultural groups to which the graves belong. Overall, folks I polled on twitter indicated that they believed that a grave is always a grave, regardless of if the state of decomposition. I agree. A burial is a burial in our (settler Canadian) culture, and even cenotaph sites where no body has ever been buried are revered with the same respect as burials. Do those Indigenous children not deserve the same care and respect?

If you found my work through one of these websites and agree with what they are saying, kindly do not come back.