Since the May 2021 announcement by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir that ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology had located the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, Canada has been embroiled in difficult attempts to come to terms with claims of mass graves, murder and genocide. 

Though Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kúkpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir has stepped back on her 2021 claims of 215 bodies found in graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS), now referring to them as "anomalies," she said investigations to date still lead to the belief they are "unmarked burials."

Skeptics of the “mass graves” narrative took notice of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Ttes) First Nation’s recent statement commemorating the discovery of “215 anomalies” at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School on May 27, 2021.

The $7.9 million allocated to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation for “field work” at the alleged site of 215 unmarked graves in Kamloops, B.C. is only a small portion of the $110 million allocated to Indigenous communities to help them search and document burial sites at former residential schools. 

Following an exhaustive investigation, retired Superior Court of Quebec Justice André Denis concluded French priest Joannès Rivoire was guilty of sexually assaulting five minors in Naujaat, Nunavut, between 1968 and 1970, and one in Arviat and Whale Cove, Nunavut, between 1974 and 1979.

Those who are sincerely looking for proof that Indigenous children died in residential schools and were buried in unmarked graves should have attended the March 5-7 National Knowledge Sharing Event on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials in Regina.

Calgary’s emeritus Bishop Fred Henry has been named one of the world’s “Top 10 people of 2023” by Inside the Vatican magazine for challenging the consensus on graves at former Indian residential schools.

Residential school history gets a new lease on life, but will today’s culture accept it?

The absence of human remains following excavations at Manitoba’s former Pine Creek Indian Residential school has attracted international attention in the form of a highly critical article in the New York Post.

Fourteen anomalies discovered by ground-penetrating radar in a Manitoba church basement are not human remains, an excavation has discovered.

The contemporary political and cultural mood demands recall of what would normally be a blinding statement of the obvious in a liberal democracy: expression is not automatically endorsement.

As he lay in a Calgary hospital bed in late July, retired Bishop Fred Henry summoned the energy to publicly break the silence around what he considers the prevailing “lie” about missing Indian residential school children.

Canada’s Catholic hierarchy is being reminded why even the “Lord” backed down in a contretemps with Calgary’s Bishop Emeritus Fred Henry. At the very least, they will learn again that His Grace is not for turning.

Whatever else the Holy Father’s summer visit to Canada produced, hard data show he created fertile ground on which the process of Indigenous-non Indigenous reconciliation can ably proceed.

Whether Pope Francis proves correct that the Indian residential school system constituted “genocide,” he erred three times during the concluding media conference for his otherwise near-flawless penitential pilgrimage across Canada.