 From The Conversation, this is Don't Call Me Resilient. I'm Vanita Srivastava. So what are you going to do, settler allies? Are you going to give us the land back, the political agency, to sort of begin anew? No, not really. A year ago, 215 Indigenous children's bodies were found in unmarked graves. They were detected on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Some were as young as three years old. Since then, hundreds more have been found. Across Canada and the U.S., communities reeled as more information was uncovered. Many felt pain and outrage. Some also experienced relief that their family members who had disappeared from residential schools were finally found. The Canadian government responded immediately, making promises to address historical wrongs. Today, close to one year later, we're taking a look back at what happened. The immediate response, shock and outcry, but also how none of that lasted, despite communities continuing to find children's bodies. An estimated 150,000 First Nation Inuit and Métis children attended residential schools. These schools were put in place by colonial governments with the goal of exterminating Indigenous histories, cultures and languages. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, they provided a conservative estimate that between 4,000 and 6,000 children died while in attendance. Are changes and reconciliation on the horizon? Has the government kept their promises to dedicate resources? These are some of the questions we explore on today's episode. Joining us is Veldin Coburn. He's an assistant professor in the Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is Anishnabe from Pickwocknagan and authored the conversation's first article following the Kamloops finding. No longer the disappeared. Also joining us is Don't Call Me Resilient producer Hailey Lewis. Hailey is Mick Skanyikahaka from the Bay of Quinty. She helped the conversation cover the story as it unfolded last year. And just before we get started, a warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find distressing. Thank you, Veldin and Hailey. Thank you so much for being here today. It's great to be here. Thank you. Veldin, you wrote the first piece for the conversation last year on this issue after the news broke. What was that like for you? So a little bit has to do with the politics of memory. Who and what gets memorialized in Canada, especially in colonial societies, in white supremacist societies, part of the national myth of Canada is being something that's a very youthful nation in comparison to the historic nations that are several millennia old, is that this was Terranolius, that it was empty land. No people were here. There were no nations. So there is still a segment that embraces the denialism that is still very firmly entrenched and invested in the ongoing lie of this being a place of no people like empty land itself. So what does it mean that they're elimination of indigenous peoples, especially the ones that inherit a nation? So the children, they're the ones that transmit it to the next generation. They inherit it from their ancestors and they become the stewards for the next. But you still grapple with the politics in the public domain of dealing with those who are coming to grips with the birth of this nation, the very ugly birthing pains, not quite the death of indigenous nations, can Canada accept the fact that it emerged out of the graves of the most vulnerable of indigenous children who are taken to be the terminal generation for their nations? Those are big questions still. It's an ugly history for the supposed bastion in the new world anyways, next door to the United States of the great liberal democracies. It came out of some very brutal and genocidal ugliness. That hasn't gone away for indigenous folks, but it may die out of the news cycle. But the politics of the memorialization is that for those particular children themselves, their families remembered, their nations remembered that they were somebody and that they were out to still find them. As hard as the perpetrators tried, they couldn't quite hide the facts. These were children that were lost to their families and communities that they were missing children. Right. And it's a testament to their siblings that are out there, so maybe seeing graves of their siblings from 70 years ago. So you may have somebody who's very elderly who said, I went to a residential school and I know I went with my brother or my sister. And within weeks they were gone and nobody knew what they were. Somebody held onto that memory for a long time, came back to the community, passed down to their children, said you would have had an uncle or you would have had an aunt. There are pictures of us when we are children and I'm going to find them. So the tenacity of them holding onto the effort to find the disappeared. This is one of the things that I learned from Hailey too, where she talks about the tenacity of communities and how the reason these children were found is because of the tenacity of people you're talking about. You mentioned something about the news cycle, Veldin, and one of the other things that I read last year was a story by Hailey and she said, you know, it's in the news cycle right now. It's in the national consciousness right now and there seems to be this outcry and outpouring of national grief and promises made right now. Hailey, I remember that when we talked about it, you predicted that nothing would actually ultimately come of it. I'm wondering about that prediction that you made last year and how you feel about it now. I feel like it makes me sound really pessimistic, but it's hard to not be pessimistic after decades of mistreatment and there being no relationship between the government and Indigenous folks. Yeah, and it was hard for me writing that last year to kind of grapple with it because I'm looking around and I'm seeing non-Indigenous folks being so upset by this news. It was something that the TRC had flagged years ago, but no one listened then, so it actually takes this concrete evidence, so to speak, for people to be upset by it and that is so infuriating and I had people coming out of the woodworks, you know, asking me how they could be proper allies or if I could educate them on residential schools and that is not my story to tell. That is not my expertise. I'm fully honest about who I am and where I come from, like I'm a Ganyungahaga woman on my father's side from the Bay of Quinte and Tainanega, but like my mother's white, I grew up off reserve. I don't understand the nuances of many things. I can talk to some things, but not to others. It was exhausting having, you know, so many people come out of the woodworks and just ask basically for my guidance and I don't know. It wasn't the time and my prediction, it's come true, right? Everyone was really upset and there was an outpouring of communal grief and I was like, is this going to be the thing that changes it for everyone? Like is this finally going to be it? And for a little while after the news broke and, you know, news continued to break along the same vein, it seemed like maybe it was and then, you know, summer came to an end, uptick a little bit more with the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day at the end of September and then it pretty well petered off and Indigenous children continued to be found. There were some found as late as last week so it's this national grief that was allegedly felt by Adity Wan just feels a little bit performative and I know I'm sounding extraordinarily pessimistic. Well, I guess the question is why do you think people's interests have waned and why do you think people no longer care? Maybe we can ask Velden what he thinks. Well, I think it goes to a little bit of the points that Haley raises and I share almost all of her pessimism as well is that maybe our pain is something to be consumed or like the voyeurism or the fetishism, mostly the voyeurism of Indigenous pain so you do have that performative ally ship sort of is that I was reading and watching a lecture by Slavoj Žižek, for example, and he said in this sort of time where you have people who are acknowledging what their ancestors did especially so white liberals themselves is that they like to embrace sort of humiliation and it feels good for them sort of is that we were so bad but they don't really do anything about it and they re-center themselves in discussions by saying not quite making themselves the victims but attracting attention for themselves saying we really don't deserve this world look what we did to the Indigenous peoples and then go about their day because they put in their little bit of performance there seems to be this economy of desire built around the pleasure in observing Indigenous pain and they're not going to do anything afterwards you know it's still sort of the symbolic work that doesn't really change the material existence of our lives so to settler allies are you going to give us the land back are you going to go and just say you know what this government is illegitimate we're going to reconstruct or reinvest the Indigenous nations and their populace with the political agency to sort of begin anew reinstall their governments and let them govern over their people and territory of which some people would be absorbed as citizens no not really supposed ally because their allyship is a signal out towards others of how great they are and righteous and virtuous they may be something that you said Valden at the beginning of our conversation about people who are old enough to really have felt the trauma they remember having a sibling and then not knowing what happened I'm sure that is a lifelong trauma that stays with you and generationally as well from your perspectives from both of you what sort of impact has the past you had on Indigenous communities what types of impacts has this had Haley do you want to start I think it's impacted a lot of people differently it's worth acknowledging that a lot of people have this monolithic view of Indigenous people in Canada and there are so many communities and so many even diverse folks within those communities that reactions are quite different there was definitely a lot of collective pain even from Indigenous folks not directly involved in it you are directly involved in it in some way or another I remember pretty soon after it happened because I live in Ottawa walking to Parliament Hill and bringing my partner and we were just standing by the memorial where community members had erected a way to honour the kids and there were these like little tiny crocs I don't know what about the little tiny crocs just like brought both like me and my partner to tears it's just so sad seeing all those shoes lined up they really contextualized just how many children we lost I think as horrible as this may sound it did bring community together too folks are trying to help each other out with searches so it did bring people together but through a lot of pain and I think there was hope that this was going to be something that insight had changed again the pessimist in me is not surprised that it hasn't I would say something along the same lines too it had more internal effects and it wasn't something I necessarily like there was an outpouring that we need other people to share although there was that as I said before a little bit that voyeurism that they're watching the Indigenous people go through sort of their pain and suffering internally like I saw it in my own community too because we have our own story about one of the boys that he went to the Mushel so the Mohawk Institute in Brantford he died on his way home evading police with his brother so his siblings are still alive we had a little walk for Joey Commanda him and his brother Rocky Commanda were I think 13 and 11 when they ran away from the Mushel and they were coming to Pickwocknagon which is several hundred kilometers away so on day two of their walk and they're in the train yards at night in between Burlington and Oakville and Joey Commanda was hit by a train running away from the police as they were trying to chase them so they were sort of like on the lam identified as people that had to be taken back to the Mohawk Institute and we have the stories and there was a lot of discussion and we still sort of memorialized Joey Commanda, some of the bridges around our community even in the little towns they tied ribbons like 215 although as Haley pointed out like even after last spring there were numbers of institutions that were discovered to have evidence of mass disposal sites all these people had lied for so long and said no nobody died at these places there's no graves but I did have a brother like I'm not crazy or I had a sister, yeah and I could see them once a day down the hall but I never saw them again looking at census records even like my community where we only had a few hundred if you lose a couple dozen kids a year to these institutions some of them don't come home like that's still a significant proportion of our community I mean one is significant two is significant one is too many like when we're talking on the moral calculus and this is the absurdity of it there is the denialism of broader Canadian society is like why don't you bat an eye at the idea that the schools that you set up for us had large graves like even just why didn't you even just send the children home you know so the article that you spoke to earlier that I had written you know was that ambiguous loss that people endure is not knowing people you're talking about and then you'd go one step further you're talking about children right the most vulnerable right it was almost like a factory for death or the production of non-indigenous people so you go in you're going to destroy you either culturally but there's a good chance that you'll also be destroyed in your physical being too so some of the statistics and this was at the height of the worst times is that the probability of dying in Indian residential schools was one out of 24 whereas in World War I it was one out of 25 so you're looking at it is like it was more deadly this most deadliest period well then one of the things that you talked about is this ambiguity of loss and not having the ability to memorialize the death of your loved ones the TRC final report includes a section that's dedicated to the missing children could you talk about these calls what actions do these calls ask for and I guess the second part of that question is where is the Canadian government on these calls that's the thing it's been almost seven years now since the TRC released its final report and they've completed depending on the sources that you look at allegedly around 13 of the 94 so that's where they stand they did complete several after last year's event but none of them were related the low hanging fruits like the establishing the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation I think maybe those were a real generous offering when the olive branch was extended to the other side and saying let's reconcile and then the government said well we can do all these but we can't do these other we're never going to really tell you the same thing goes with say the churches that were involved so I think a lot of the blame rests on the Catholic Church we got some voice burst from the delegation that went to the Vatican recently of what may happen and there's the invitation from the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops to finally come and a lot of these elderly survivors may never see a pope on soil prepared or at least gesturing towards the sorrel and reconciliation but there's a burden upon them because they collected the records and the reporting to whatever provincial or national agencies that collect these vital statistics so you have to provide the death reports and if these children are in your care where did you bury them a lot to answer for they ran most of the residential schools if I'm not mistaken right over 60% of the federal residential schools were run by the Catholic Church so the pope is it worth mentioning the apology air quotes that happened in early April he did say quote I am so sorry and quote yes but that was it it wasn't taking institutional responsibility and you know he wasn't explicitly saying what he was sorry for he didn't say what he was sorry for he just said I'm so sorry I'm so sorry that was it you're right it was not the institutional matter it was just like there happened to be some people affiliated with us some bad eggs it just feels like the apology that you know that someone makes to placate you a brief interruption in this pod say that since recording this episode the Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will visit Canada in late July those who exercised authority which you know if you're looking at the law would attract corporate liability if they were directors or managers like if they were management and these people basically were so people from priests and above or those that were in their employees the legal obligations that if a child dies in your care they just willy-nilly dispose them in the back and not really tell anyone there was reporting requirements that were also a matter of statutory responsibility all these these calls to action that say we need a comprehensive record of these lives because these children they didn't grow up to leave as much of a legacy they did live in the memory of families and communities they're not going to be forgotten they have a social afterlife that they live on through us and we want to cultivate that for them the barrier right now is being held up by these people that profess to have a special connection to God themselves that's also the absurdity in the paradox that people can't quite get their mind around I think there's about 13 million Catholics in Canada so if that has such a prominent place in their life wouldn't it shake the legitimacy that also an institution that was capable of letting people die producing the conditions for their unnatural death then in some cases outright homicide do you think that that is a tiny step towards reconciliation that somewhat apology you're talking to two pessimists right yeah as much as I'm a pessimist I do think it meant something to a fair number of people and that's something that's important to acknowledge is that him saying I'm sorry did kind of I guess close a door for some folks and it's important to acknowledge that that is an emotion that was felt if I don't want the apology that's fine other people do then maybe it wasn't for me I don't have a whole lot of directs and I don't have any personal experience in residential schools it wasn't a full-throated apology in any sense it might have just been an expression of sorrow really it was a little bit better than what he said last time which was I feel a closeness to them and it was resoundly mocked but there are those adherents to the faith there are still some that find themselves in the flock that said well the words of this person even if they are just a sliver of remorse is enough so even a few words that matter to other people might because these are things that money will never heal I hear what you're saying money will never heal but there is a lot of wealth there I mean there are those that are still suing the catholic church the sainah and it's an Indian residential school in Fort Albany they didn't settle through the Indian residential school settlement agreements I think they opted out and to pursue a different class action and that's the really stomach-churning place that had the abuses that if any of the listeners right now want to cover their ears it had the electric chair that was used for entertainment purposes put a little indigenous kid into the electric chair and as a reported run shocks through the body for the entertainment of visiting dignitaries there were several criminal charges and convictions in the 90s for the investigation for members of the clergy that were there including nuns and then when children there were forced to eat their own vomit and the federal governments actually arguing a court in their submissions that although really bad it didn't cause lasting harm that's the argument that the federal government has taken in this matter it's still a sad legacy you mentioned the Indian residential school the compensation process earlier and I think for people who are listening who aren't aware of it it basically functioned off of the point system and survivors had to categorize the abuses that they suffered and they were awarded points so yeah having to be given points and then points equating to compensation just a retraumatic process that yeah I think it's something that a lot of Canadians don't know about I'm just wondering listening to both of you talk on a personal level how do you deal with all of it on a personal level what are some of your methods I have some distance like it's not in great proximity to my immediate life I don't know what it's like to be beaten in a residential school we do have the discussions because quite a few of them the older folks had gone to residential schools and they're in a more senior kind of generations too so and they talk about it and I don't want to be one of those people who take up their experience because I do find that a little bit unseemly myself as those people who try to represent themselves as the victims of something that didn't happen but you still see some of the malaise and social enemy in our communities from where I came from nobody really wore it on their sleeve they keep their chin up but they know like a lot of things happened if foreclosed on a lot of opportunities in life people just said you know I'm leaving school so they never went off to even finish high school to do things that held higher esteem in white settler society it sort of passes on because the greatest predictor of your education is your parents education and also sort of your socioeconomic outcomes as your parents you happen to be sitting with two people who have graduate level education we are still the exception I come from a large family I have like 12 siblings I'm the only one that went to university you can still see some of the issues around that resonate from how do you destroy a nation you go after the children you go after the ones that will be those that transmitted culture you can really disrupt a nation and a community for generations to come it's similar for me no one in my immediate family attended residential schools so I can't speak to that experience the way I guess this news or these events have impacted me would be through work and wanting to prioritize community when the news came up last year I was like okay we need to get Indigenous folks as hard as it was for a lot of Indigenous folks to write about it the first voices that we need to hear are Indigenous people and I even wrote for Refinery 29 myself immediately after it happened and I was briefly on CTV2 just talking about it the way that I saw it as my role as a journalist was to it was possible for me to take the burden away from some of those folks who were more directly impacted and like carry that weight right away you know we had some even residential school survivors right for us last year and you read the comment section and you just want to go to bat for those folks and fight for them and alongside them too because I think there's a lot of this commentary and journalism where you speak up for those who can't speak for themselves I'm like no you uplift people's voices you create space so that they can it's also part of the community we all know of someone we all know a few people so it was like the person who lives down the street from my grandmother lost their kids to indeed residential schools there's a lot of those stories I'm playing in the backyard and it's sort of like the ghosts of young children that are there it's like there should have been other kids around here I want to ask one last question Belden I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about your book coming out you did talk about allies and a disappointment or a skepticism I'm wondering if you see hope what do you want to see for the future I mean speaking of allies the book that I wrote co-authored and co-edited with Dave Thomas Professor of Political Science at Mount Allison University he's somebody who I believe is a true ally just because his involvement with communities and actually having like stared down the police before in the past you know so sometimes when I'm like who's an ally would they come out into the front line and stare down the RCMP with us or would they be the ones that would be the keyboard warriors so I write and this is sort of you know more of the heartbreak story that's close to us is that so I have siblings from Gracie Narrows and I had like a young sister who died age five and I was age six so we have a mixed Ojibwe Algonquin family and to see the death of a child I was basically born in a condition where mercury poisoning from the life in Gracie Narrows when they were born was with a great deal of physical say deformities and stuff like that that their life would be quite precarious because of organized capital What do you hope to see in the future I think a full accounting of that knowing a mother who's lost a child like you never want to actually see that for the mothers I know there's many that have long since passed away and some of the siblings who are getting up in age even if they have you know said to their children and their children may be adults now and they may have grandchildren so you can imagine somebody who's 70 or 80s who lost siblings at residential schools who didn't come home with them and they've told their children and now their grandchildren knows like my grandmother has been looking their entire life for this sibling and so some of them take it up for themselves say like you know that person lives on through me and that's the social afterlife that some people have and it's like you know we're going to do it we're going to finally find out and in what other ways they want to dignify the passing you mentioned earlier should they zoom in and give them a proper burial because some of them they might not even have had the proper Catholic rights at least they were disposed of they weren't given the headstone they probably weren't given a funeral mass or what not perhaps their family wants to exhume their remains and give them a proper burial within their own community according to their own customs and traditions whatever they want for the disappeared to be relocated or located and given a dignified final place in the hearts and minds of those that will carry them on forward how about you Haley do you have any last things that you would like to say about what you hope for in the future there's a big laundry list or dream list of stuff I would love to see happen but the pessimist in me always takes over but the one thing that I have no doubt that will happen is that community will keep fighting Velden and Haley Velden you're like a friend of the pod you're welcome anytime and Haley it's been a pleasure to speak with you in this way differently thank you both so much for being here today thanks it's always a pleasure here's hoping change happens that's it for this edition of don't call me resilient a big thank you to Haley Lewis and Velden Coburn for taking the time today I'd love to hear what you're thinking after that conversation I'm on twitter at writevenita that's at W R I T E V I N I T A don't forget to tag our producers at conversationca use the hashtag don't call me resilient for additional research and resources go to theconversation.com to check out our show notes on this episode if you like what you heard today please tell a friend or leave a review on whatever podcast app you're using don't call me resilient is a production of the conversation Canada this podcast was produced with the grant for journalism innovation from the social sciences and humanities research council of Canada the series is produced and hosted by me beneath the Srivastava the co-producer on this episode is Haley Lewis Vaishnavi Dandekar is our associate producer Fulleran Odenayo is our contributing producer Lija Navarro is our sound editor Jennifer Morose is our consulting producer and Reza Daya is our original sound designer Lisa Verano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of the conversation Canada and if you're wondering who wrote and performed the music we use on the pod that's the amazing Zaki Ibrahim the track is called Something in the Water