Aboriginal Issues

Trudeau government says pope’s apology to Indigenous not enough

QUEBEC CITY (AP) — The Canadian government made clear Wednesday that Pope Francis’ apology to Indigenous peoples for abuses in the country’s church-run residential schools didn’t go far enough, suggesting that reconciliation over the fraught history is still very much a work in progress.

The official government reaction came as Francis arrived in Quebec City for meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Mary Simon at her Quebec residence, the hilltop Citadelle fortress, on the second leg of Francis’ week-long visit to Canada.

The government’s criticisms echo those of some survivors and concern Francis’ omission of any reference to the sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous children in the schools, as well as his original reluctance to name the Catholic Church as an institution bearing responsibility.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Catholic Church

Jesuit diaries reveal the love Indigenous Canadian tribes had for the missionaries and Catholicism

In contrast to the insistence of some Christians today that certain pagan superstitions ought to be accepted in the name of inculturation — such as the “smudging” ceremony of “purification” practiced by native tribes in North America, in which the Pope will take part — the first indigenous converts to Christianity in Canada not only embraced the Catholic Faith wholeheartedly, abandoning all superstitions, but they esteemed the Jesuit missionaries so much that they entreated them to remain with their tribes when the missionaries were considering a return to safety in the French settlements.

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by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Canada, Catholic Church, history, History - distortion of

Pope’s apology doesn’t acknowledge church’s role as ‘co-author’ of dark chapter: Murray Sinclair

The former Manitoba senator who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada says there’s a “deep hole” in the apology issued by Pope Francis Monday for the role Catholics played in Canada’s residential school system.

Murray Sinclair says the historic apology, although meaningful to many residential school survivors and their families, fell short of Call to Action 58 in the final report.

It specifically called on the Pope to issue an apology “for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues

US “Journalists” continue to spread “Mass Graves” lie

From the Daily Beast…

ROME—Pope Francis will arrive in Canada on Sunday to ask for atonement for the hasty burial of hundreds of Indigenous children—as young as 3—who died in the Catholic Church’s care from the 19th century to the 1970s.

The trip is a product of the 2021 discovery of an unmarked grave containing the remains of some 215 Indigenous children who died in a Catholic residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. Around 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from families to be “retrained” in Christian beliefs in the 19th century in a practice that carried on for decades.

There’s really no excuse for this nonsense. No graves, no bodies, no nothing but a twisted narrative.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Journalists", Aboriginal Issues, Canada, Fake News, WTF?

Unmarked Graves: Money or Justice?

July 2021: The scene is a live CBC broadcast from the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ontario, where, similar to earlier claims in Kamloops, British Columbia, clandestine graves of missing Indigenous children are said to be located. From the teddy-bear-lined steps, reporter Bobby Hristova somberly states, “In terms of the search, we heard Chief Mark Hill say, ‘No Money. No response.’”

In a letter addressed to the Ontario Premier’s office, Chief Hill explains that the $400,000 annual grant secured from the Ontario government, later increased to $700,000 over a three-year period, “falls short and is not commensurate with Ontario’s role in operating the school.” The search for secret catacombs of Indigenous children is a growing Canadian industry, which repeatedly broadcasts that current funding increases are not enough for the “children to be brought home.”

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by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Canada, history, History - distortion of, Revisionist History

Where is Pope Francis going, and who is he meeting, during his 6-day visit to Canada?

Pope Francis is set to arrive in Canada on Sunday for a six-day tour, marking the first papal visit to the country in 20 years.

The pope is scheduled to travel to Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit, where he will meet with Indigenous leaders and residential school survivors. He is expected to deliver an apology for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system.

I wonder if he’ll bless the fake graves?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Pope Francis

A Media-Fueled Social Panic Over Unmarked Graves

Not a single body has been unearthed. But Canadians wouldn’t know it from the false information reported in The New York Times.

“The discovery of unmarked graves at a former Residential School in [the province of British Columbia] and the countrywide awakening it set off have been chosen as Canada’s news story of the year by editors in newsrooms across the country,” reported the CBC last December. It was an apt choice—though not necessarily for the reasons described by the author.  

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Canada

The truth about Canada’s Indian graves

The indigenous industry is thriving off fake news

On 27 May 2021, the Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc — a First Nations government in British Columbia — announced that ground penetrating radar (GPR) had located the remains of 215 “missing children”. These were allegedly “undocumented deaths” from the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which had closed 52 years ago.

The young anthropologist who conducted the GPR search later added a note of caution: only a forensic investigation could confirm that these were indeed burials. But a moral panic had already been unleashed. Politicians and the media immediately seized on the first announcement, and “burials of missing children” was the storyline that ricocheted around Canada and much of the world. Meanwhile, several other First Nations that had at one time hosted residential schools hired their own anthropologists armed with GPR and announced similar discoveries. Weeks later, almost exactly a year ago, in June 2021, the Cowessess First Nation announced the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of another former residential school in Saskatchewan.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Fake News

Record spending isn’t helping Canada’s Indigenous people

If spending more on Indigenous issues led to actual improvements in the lives of Indigenous people, then their lives would be much better by now.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals came to power in 2015, federal spending on Indigenous issues was $11.4 billion annually.

According to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s latest budget, it’s estimated at $27.4 billion this year — an increase in nominal dollars (not accounting for inflation) of 140% in seven years.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Federal government tables bill to create national reconciliation oversight body

Seven years after Honourary Chief Wilton Littlechild of the Maskwacis Cree Nation helped pen a recommendation calling for the creation of a national reconciliation oversight body, the federal government is finally moving to make it a reality.

It tabled Bill C-29 in the House of Commons on Wednesday, which would establish an independent, non-partisan council that would report annually to Parliament on the state of reconciliation and make recommendations to all levels of government and Canadian society.

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by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, Indigenous

Residential school survivors call on Pope to acknowledge unmarked graves

“There’s a lot of denial happening about us finding graves across the country,” said survivor Ted Quewezance, the group’s co-chair.

“It’s about truth telling … We based our decision on that ground penetrating radar, on the elders, the oral history of the elders and we never expected to find anything, but we did.”

They want the Pope to acknowledge imaginary graves. I bet he cancels his visit.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAboriginal Issues, WTF?