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Terry Glavin: The Kamloops 'graves' and the poisoned chalice of 'reconciliation'

Genuine victims of residential schools have lost the most over false claims of a 'mass grave'

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On the last weekend in May, 2021, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an order to lower the flags on Parliament Hill, and on the Monday he ordered the flags to be lowered on all federal buildings across Canada. It was an extraordinary, unprecedented exercise arising from a shocking claim reported around the world that the bodies of 215 children had been discovered in a mass grave at a long-shuttered Roman Catholic Indian residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia.

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The flags remained at half-mast for more than five months during a national paroxysm of hysteria, bigotry, rioting and bedlam, punctuated by reports of similarly gruesome discoveries at residential schools across the country, each accompanied by maudlin expressions of shock and dismay uttered by Trudeau and his ministers. It was all part of what was consistently reported as a “long overdue reckoning” with Canada’s dismal residential schools legacy.

Terry Glavin: The Kamloops 'graves' and the poisoned chalice of 'reconciliation' Back to video

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Canada Day celebrations were cancelled in several cities and towns or replaced by street demonstrations proclaiming Canada’s disgrace as an illegitimate, genocidal colonial settler state. Statues of John A. Macdonald, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth, Egerton Ryerson, Joseph Hugonard, James Cook and other historical figures were toppled by mobs or formally removed by local officials in Charlottetown, Winnipeg, Toronto, Kingston, Hamilton and Victoria.

Dozens of churches were desecrated and vandalized, and several were burned to the ground. Before the year was over the RCMP reported a 260 per cent spike in anti-Catholic hate crimes and Statistics Canada noted “the highest number of hate crimes targeting a religion since comparable data have been recorded.” Trudeau called the frenzies “unacceptable” but understandable: “The anger is real.”

Michael Higgins: Put the Kamloops narrative to rest

Tom Flanagan: Still no bodies 5 years after Kamloops 'mass burial site' was announced

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It was the incitement that was real

If the anger was real, it was incited by the Trudeau government and by headlines like these.

New York Times, May 28, 2021: “‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada.” Washington Post, June 24, 2021: “Hundreds of Graves Found at Former Residential School for Indigenous Children in Canada.” CBC, June 30, 2021. “182 Unmarked Graves Discovered Near Residential School in B.C.’s Interior, First Nation Says.” The Guardian, UK, July 13: “A First Nations community in western Canada has announced the discovery of at least 160 unmarked graves close to a former residential school.”

None of these stories were true. In the case of the Kamloops horror story, more than 50 officers had been assigned to the Native Indian Residential Schools Task Force, which carried out an eight-year investigation that concluded in 2003. “Each of these allegations were thoroughly investigated by both the Task Force and the applicable Sub-Division Major Crime Unit. Not one of these allegations has ever been substantiated, much less proven.”

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