The bodies of more than 1,110 Indigenous children have been found in unmarked burial sites on the grounds of old residential schools in Canada. In late May, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation announced that ground penetrating radar had discovered the first mass graves near Kamloops, British Columbia. More bodies have since been discovered by the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan province, and at St. Eugene’s Mission School at the Ktunaxa Nation in British Columbia. More sites are likely to be discovered: just three out of hundreds of old schools have been investigated.
The residential school system operated from the 1870s to 1996. It was part of a broader federal policy to assimilate First Nations people into the dominant Canadian culture, mirroring Australia’s system of missions and reserves. The schools were established by the federal and provincial governments, but most were run by the Catholic and Anglican churches. 
In 2015, the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf">final report</a> of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (established in 2008 after successful litigation by residential school survivors) concluded that the system was a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/residential-schools-amounted-to-cultural-genocide-says-report/article24740605/">program of cultural genocide</a>. Students were beaten if they spoke their native language, and schools were overcrowded with poor sanitation and heating. Tuberculosis was rife. In one school, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/natives-died-in-droves-as-ottawa-ignored-warnings/article4309756/">the death rate reached 69 percent</a>, according to a report by Department of Indian Affairs Chief Medical Officer Peter Bryce. Many students also suffered sexual abuse at the hands of teachers and administrators.
It has long been suspected that the graves existed. Oral histories of residential school survivors recorded stories of children as young as six being woken in the night to dig graves. A juvenile rib bone and tooth were also found near the Kamloops school twenty years ago. The Missing Children project—an initiative of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—has documented more than 4,100 deaths in residential schools, almost certainly an underestimation.
Reactions to the recent revelations have ranged from pitiful to inspiring. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to shift the blame from the federal government to church authorities, requesting the pope visit Canada to offer an official apology—something the Vatican has refused to do. The federal government was also quick to deflect anger by establishing a national day of truth and reconciliation.
For many people, symbolism was not enough. Activists at Ryerson University in Toronto <a href="https://marxist.ca/article/mass-campaign-to-bring-down-egerton-ryerson-statue">were already campaigning</a> to change the name of the university and to remove a statue of Egerton Ryerson—one of the architects of the residential school system. On 6 June, a protest of thousands finally tore down the statue. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, protesters covered the Catholic cathedral in red handprints and wrote “We were children” on the door. Five churches in British Columbia have been burned to the ground. 
On Canada Day, the national holiday on 1 July, protest actions were organised across the country. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, demonstrators toppled statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. Ten churches in Calgary, Alberta, were again marked with red handprints. Elsewhere in the province, another church was burned down.
The protests <a href="https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/06/24/this-time-may-be-different-pollsters-track-record-shift-in-core-public-attitudes-and-find-a-moral-imperative-to-do-something-after-indigenous-childrens-rem/303196">galvanised public support</a> for Indigenous struggles in a way that greater knowledge of colonial crimes, on its own, has not. <a href="https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/images/NIHM2021/Residential_Schools_June_2021_National_Report_EN_TC.pdf">Recent polling</a> by Abacus Data shows that at least 50 percent of respondents in all age groups are angry about the treatment of Indigenous people in residential schools and a majority agree that the school system was an act of genocide.
<a href="https://innovativeresearch.ca/indigenous-issues-this-time-looks-different/">Another poll</a>, by Innovative Research, found a dramatic increase in the number of people paying attention to Indigenous issues and struggle. Seventy-five percent said that they had read or heard about Indigenous issues. In the previous five times (between 2007 and 2015) that this survey was conducted, only once was the proportion above 50 percent. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of people agreeing that Indigenous Canadians deserve compensation for colonialism. A similar shift in public opinion did not occur following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the release of other, similar, reports. 
Arguably the shift in opinions is the cumulative result of recent Indigenous protest movements. These include the <a href="https://redflag.org.au/index.php/node/7031">struggles of the Wet’suwet’en</a> in British Columbia against a gas pipeline, the occupation at <a href="https://ricochet.media/en/3373/a-community-that-wont-back-down-the-battle-at-land-back-lane">1492 Landback Lane</a> in Ontario, where the Six Nations attempted to stop a housing development on their land, ongoing <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/mikmaw-treaty-rights-reconciliation-and-the-rule-of-law">battles over fishing rights</a> in Nova Scotia, where the Mi’kmaq are defending treaty rights against white fishermen, and a blockade in the Arctic Archipelago, where Inuit hunters, with the support of some of the mine workers, are attempting to <a href="https://marxist.ca/article/baffinland-solidarity-between-miners-and-inuit-blockade-is-the-way-forward">stop the expansion of an iron ore mine</a>.
Shifting attitudes alone won’t end the oppression of First Nations peoples, but they indicate the potential for broad solidarity movements. While protest actions have subsided since the initial discoveries of burial sites, more graves being discovered will likely result in more waves of protest.

Simpson Bulliman

Mass graves and burning churches in Canada

When people think of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), they often picture the epitomical red-coated “Mountie” on horseback, a silly anachronism in the modern world. This perception – as with so many relating to Canada – is a deliberate projection to mask the true, insidious nature of the state’s institutions. In the past weeks, police actions have shattered the quaint image.
Enforcing a court-ordered injunction granting the Coastal GasLink company access to unceded land of the Wet’suwet’en Nation (People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River, in north-western British Columbia), officers on 10 February attacked a barricade near a camp of the Unist’ot’en, a Wet’suwet’en clan who have been occupying the area where several energy pipelines will pass. In a dawn raid, armed with semi-automatic rifles and wearing ballistic vests, police cleared the road and detained several Unist’ot’en matriarchs and other land defenders before allowing workers to dismantle the barricade. It was the culmination of days of raids on the camp.
The assault continued the following day, the RCMP raiding a local checkpoint and making more arrests before hereditary chiefs and their supporters blockaded the road, temporarily preventing officers from leaving Wet’suwet’en land. The invasion follows violent raids last year and earlier in the month, and a long period of intimidation and siege. Police established an “exclusion zone” (which now covers almost all Wet’suwet’en territory) and barred First Nations people from entering their own land.
The territory lies in the path of the proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will carry natural gas from northern Alberta, across the mountains and down to the port at Kitimat. The area’s status as an unceded territory means that the Wet’suwet’en retain exclusive rights to the use of land never covered by a treaty. <a href="https://thenarwhal.ca/industry-government-pushed-to-abolish-aboriginal-title-at-issue-in-wetsuweten-stand-off-docs-reveal/">An article</a> in the Narwhal, a Canadian magazine, notes that, since the ruling, the extraction industry and the British Columbia provincial government have pushed for the complete surrender of Aboriginal title. The present struggle over the Coast GasLink is the latest front in this ongoing campaign.
The response to the police invasion was swift. Only a few months after a nationwide rail strike brought Canada to its knees, trains once again sit idle, collecting snow. Indigenous and environmental activists are occupying railways and have forced Via Rail, the country’s intercity service, to shut down the entire network. Canadian National, a freight carrier, has ceased most of its operations as well. Even before the latest assault, while the RCMP was patrolling and intimidating land defenders, dozens of solidarity actions had begun. Supporters in Vancouver blockaded the largest port in the harbour city for four days. The local branch of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union came to the demonstrators with a message of support and union members refused to cross the picket, causing the entire port to shut down.
Blockades and disruptions have spread. Ports, highways, railways and bridges across Canada have been shut down. The largest disruptions have been in eastern Canada. The main railway through the Saint Lawrence Valley linking Toronto with Ottawa and Montreal has been blockaded on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. The largest rail yards in the country have also been picketed by activists, severing Canada’s rail links to the United States. Protesters have also targeted government and politicians’ offices. Indigenous youth and other protesters have blockaded the front entrance to the British Columbia legislature and activists picketed the home and driveway of the premier.
There is nevertheless a split within the Wet’suwet’en leadership over whether to support the pipeline. Elected band councils, the governing powers of which are codified in federal law, support the pipeline and signed an agreement allowing CGL to use Wet’suwet’en land. But the Wet’suwet’en also have a system of matrilineal clans and houses, each with its own hereditary chiefs who oversee the use of their unceded territory. While two chiefs support the pipeline, the others don’t because of concerns about environmental damage and the effect it will have on their ability to use the land. But the disagreement does not boil down to supporters of the pipeline being corporate stooges whose opinions should be disregarded. Many Indigenous people think that the pipeline and other resource extractive industries operating on their land will increase the prosperity of and economic opportunities for their communities.
On the same day as the assault on the Unist’ot’en Camp, various “grassroots” organisations established and bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry began an advertising campaign to discredit the First Nations land defenders. Op-eds and articles are being vomited out by both conservative and moderate pundits, variously attacking the protesters and calling for “civility” and “the rule of law”. But people aren’t having it. Canadians are fucking angry – especially young Canadians. They’re angry about the police, they’re angry about colonialism, they’re angry about environmental destruction and they’re angry at the government.
Under the immense pressure, there are cracks within the government. The Indigenous services minister in Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberal Party denounced his party’s “regressive policies”. In an emergency session of the House of Commons, the Liberals also came under attack from the New Democratic Party, which accused it of breaking international laws concerning the rights of indigenous peoples, and of pandering to the demands of the extraction industry. On the government’s right, the opposition Conservative Party lamented the lack of police response to the “illegal” protest action and the impact it is having on the economy. 
The blockades and protests have been sustained for almost two weeks. Many local community members have been supportive, bringing food, supplies and reinforcements. Several unions have issued statements denouncing the raids and backing the demonstrators, but beyond the longshore workers in Vancouver, this hasn’t amounted to tangible action. The strategy of disruption and the issues of land rights and ecology present new challenges, sharpening sectional interests within the working class. The gulf between workers in resource extraction and their associated industries and those who are struggling to end colonialism and climate change will be difficult to overcome.
It’s unclear whether the blockades can be sustained long term. But given the extent of disruption and the quick victory by rail strikers late last year, the logistics network has proven to be a vulnerable target. Currently, 60 freighters are waiting outside Vancouver Harbour, held up by the protests. Canadian National, one of the most profitable companies in the country, has been forced to shut down all services in eastern Canada. The US-Canadian border has been closed in several locations by protesters.
There are no better words than those from a <a href="http://unistoten.camp/unistoten-matriarchs-arrested-stand-with-unistoten-now/">recent post</a> on the Unist’ot’en Camp website: “These arrests don’t intimidate us. Police enforcement doesn’t intimidate us. Colonial court orders don’t intimidate us. Men in suits and their money don’t intimidate us. We are still here. We will always be there. This is not over.”

Canada’s mass movement for land rights and environmental protection

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian in early August commented that the sight of Sydney’s homeless camping out in Martin Place made her feel “completely uncomfortable”.
It’s only right that Berejiklian feel discomfort after the many things the NSW government has done during her short reign to make the rest of us uncomfortable.
Berejiklian has appointed a hard “pro-life” politician to the women’s portfolio, readying a renewed attack on abortion rights. Her government is overseeing cuts to Sydney trains on the western line, with peak hour services to and from Penrith set to be cut by a quarter by next year, only worsening what is already the most crowded rail line for commuters.
Most poignantly, however, her government has continued the tradition of being run by property developers. The NSW Land Registry, which collates and manages titles and deeds, has been leased for 35 years (effectively privatised) to a consortium of financial and property concerns, paving the way for Sydney and wider NSW property prices to rise even higher under its monopoly.
Berejiklian’s government has also continued the campaign against public housing and public buildings. The Powerhouse Museum is being moved to Parramatta, and its valuable Ultimo location has been earmarked for luxury apartments.
This is not to mention the long efforts to remove the public housing tenants from Millers Point and the historic Sirius building at the Rocks, as well as historical sites in central Newcastle – all to make way for developers.
There are more than 90,000 empty residential dwellings in Sydney. It would be entirely possible for every homeless person in NSW to be housed in these vacant homes.
Berejiklian might feel uncomfortable having to walk past homeless people. Any decent person should find it uncomfortable that developers and investors are sitting on unused property while others are sleeping rough.

Mass graves and burning churches in Canada

Canada’s mass movement for land rights and environmental protection

Gladys Berejiklian makes us uncomfortable

Other Media

Shop

Conferences

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us