in World News Trudeau gov’t offering course for all employees on residential school ‘denialism’
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The session is being offered despite the recent lack of discovery of human remains at a residential school blamed for placing indigenous children in unmarked graves.
(LifeSiteNews) — Canadian public servants are set to attend a course to combat residential school “denialism” despite a recent excavation at an alleged “unmarked graves” site finding no human remains.
On September 29, the Canadian government is offering a session entitled “Addressing Residential School Denialism and Embodying Reconciliation” for all public servants in the country.
“Held in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, this event serves to address and disarm denialist misinformation and acknowledge the tragic history of residential schools,” the session description reads. “Speakers will share their thoughts, insights, experiences and suggestions on how to embody reconciliation in honor of Survivors.”
“Participants will come away with a better understanding to current challenges in addressing the ongoing impacts of colonial history and learn ways to help advance reconciliation and support Survivors,” it continued.
The two-hour session will be given online to “all public servants at all levels,” which includes all government workers, both federal and provincial.
The course is being offered in the wake of a recent excavation conducted at Pine Creek Residential School in Manitoba, one of the schools accused of placing indigenous children in unmarked graves after ground-penetrating radar detected 14 disturbances in the soil on the former school’s property. Countering the narrative, however, the four-week long excavation turned up no “conclusive evidence” of human remains.
The former Pine Creek Residential School was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969 – the site is now home to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church.
Residential schools in Canada
Canada’s Residential School system was a structure of boarding schools funded by the Canadian government that ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.
Canadian indigenous residential schools, although run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and setup by the federal government at the time.
While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the past wrongs led to anti-Catholic sentiment, which exploded in the summer of 2021 after the discovery of 215 so-called “unmarked” graves in Kamloops, British Columbia.