Image Credit: CFJC Today

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: One year after the eye-opening Tk’emlúps announcement, the truth should no longer be in question

May 27, 2022 | 11:41 AM

Support services are in place for residential school survivors and their families here.

WE HAVE HAD ONE YEAR TO DIGEST the earth-shaking announcement by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc about unmarked graves near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site.

The naysayers are starting to grow louder. In some respects, it’s amazing it has taken this long.

You hear the whispers growing to murmurs to shouts: “No bodies have been found,” they say. “It’s all theoretical until the remains are exhumed.”

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It’s a sad refrain and this is why.

One year ago, in a way, isn’t actually a major milestone. It’s only the time when one more method of inquiry confirmed what was already known about Le Estcwicwe´y (The Missing).

It was a confirmation, not a discovery.

How many generations of elders already spoke about the gravesites? How many told those stories to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

But it was only when modern science weighed in that we finally believed those stories.

Dr. Sarah Beaulieu said her ground-penetrating radar survey only found suspected gravesites, but her evidence placed atop the mountain of evidence already available should be sufficient to give us certainty.

Imagine if Tk’emlups had never commissioned Dr. Beaulieu.

We would have continued to deny the truth in those stories, wouldn’t we? We, meaning non-Indigenous people, would have continued our efforts to bury the past. We would have treated those first-hand accounts of the horrors of residential schools the same way we treat fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

Some would still like to do that, it seems.

The bodies of Le Estcwicwe´y will eventually be exhumed — but even then, there will be some who will be skeptical of the truth.

After all, it’s likely the exhumation will be hidden from the public and the media — a measure that would be completely understandable and appropriate considering the nature of the work being done.

Those doubters will move the goalposts further and further away, saying Indigenous nations are engaged in an effort to hoodwink or extort Canadians. Mark my words.

They will demand more and more evidence, thereby soothing their nagging consciences and putting off their obligation to engage in meaningful reconciliation.

The evidence is already staring us in the face. There are thousands of unmarked graves near residential school sites in Canada. Believe it. Say it.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.