Hanaguma

Undeniably so. The people who did it should be punished. In fact, the Canadian government is trying to extradite one of the Oblate brothers from France now to face criminal charges. But the French won't allow his extradition. I think he should face the music. As for the schools, they were a tragic example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". Progressive (for their time) do-gooders who thought they could reshape society in their own special image.

...which was tragic, but over the course of the century plus the schools were in operation was fortunately not common. Perhaps you dont know a lot about Canadian history, but life was quite harsh in the western part of the country in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Diseases and sickness took a lot of people, especially the young and the old. The Residential Schools were no different, and often worse.

From the University of Manitoba NCTR; https://web.archive.org/web/20160420012021/http://umanitoba.ca/centres/nctr/overview.html By the 1930s, there were over 70 federally funded, Church-run residential schools in operation in all parts of the country. By then, approximately one-third of school-aged Indigenous children were attending Residential Schools. Eventually more than 150,000 students would pass through the system. Over approximately130 years, nearly 140 residential schools were part of the federally funded and administered system.

It cheapens the word and is effectively meaningless. Serves only to inflame but not inform. And did not happen in Canada. Assimilation, yes, it was the policy of the day a century ago for ALL non-Anglos.

First of all, the article neglected to mention exactly WHICH sites contained the graves. Assuming they are the ones from the summer of 2021, there were 4 in total. The Kamloops one I already wrote about. No evidence of graves or human remains has yet been discovered. The other three? They were community cemeteries which had fallen into neglect over the years. Local people knew about them- nothing to do with any secret burials or the like. They were Catholic cemeteries used by everyone. Here is what Lloyd Lerat, who actually attended the school in the town, had to say about the largest such site: "We've always known these were there," said Lerat of the unmarked graves. He said the idea that the graves were primarily of children who attended the school took on a life of its own. "It's just the fact that the media picked up on unmarked graves, and the story actually created itself from there because that's how it happens," Lerat said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/marieval-cemetery-graves-1.6106563

Again with the whole "graves" nonsense. The only places graves have been discovered are at cemeteries. These were community cemeteries, not secret burial grounds run by satanic priests. People in those communities have known about them for decades- they were for the entire community, not just the schools. The "ground zero" case of secret graves, in Kamloops BC, is still under investigation. The local native group has yet to allow any actual scientific work to be undertaken. Also again, nobody is denying that crimes and abuse happened in the schools. But there is no evidence of a genocidal conspiracy between the Catholic Church and the Canadian government to systematically kill all the aboriginal people. It was policy that was thought to be effective in civilizing the children (as people said at the time) and also fulfill Canada's treaty obligations with various native groups. Today we know better about the deep problems such a policy brings. That is why it was stopped.

Or you could read another paper, which says; "Cultural genocide cannot, at least directly, be considered an established or accepted legal concept, either under treaty law or customary international law." https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1353009/FULLTEXT01.pdf You are failing to see the role of the grievance industry, as has existed in Canada for 30 years, in muddying the waters of what actually happened. And also in trying to create a feeling of guilt amongst the Canadian public that they need not feel.

There is no such thing as "cultural genocide". By definition, a genocide means trying to eliminate a group of people from the human gene pool- gene+homicide = genocide. The term is just a sneaky way to get the word "genocide" into the conversation. Many Canadians for their part play along in ecstatic self-flagellation. It feels good for morally insecure people to feel bad about something. There WAS a policy of assimilation, which today we know is wrong and horrid. At the time, not so much. It is all too easy to look at the past from a position of smug moral superiority and sneer. I am glad that your "personal favorite" is the lack of evidence of any human remains. One would think that evidence was crucial to determinine such serious crimes. There is no denialism. Just a simple request for evidence and an honest accounting of what happened. These are deep and complex issues that deserve to be treated as such. "Church bad, Indians good" doesn't do justice to the situation.

You are doing the right thing, keep it up! A lot of people used to follow the One Language, One Parent rule for raising kids. That is, each parent speaks their native language to the child. But that ignores the influence of environment. If you are in Thailand, everything around you is in Thai- school, TV, friends, etc. So English gets a bit pushed back. You are using the MLaH system- Minority Language at Home. Both parents use the non-local language with the children as much as possible. This helps a lot. Especially when the parents use the non-local language when communicating with each other. Your kid(s) will see the two of you using English, so this will make English seem valuable and worth knowing. We did the same with my son (bilingual English/Japanese). It worked out very well for him. He grew up in Japan with all the advantages of good education here, and stlil learned English to a native speaker level.

Have you really read my posts though? If so, you would have read; "There was criminal behavior by a minority of those entrusted with caring for the children. Those people need to be named, shamed, and prosecuted. " or "Yes there was abuse at the schools, which is despicable. Unfortunately, we now know that the priesthood as a profession attracts both the best and the worst of men. In those cases, the victims need to be compensated and the criminals punished/shamed. " or "Nobody denies that there were abuses, and that people 100 years ago didn't understand how psychologically damaging it could be to remove children from their communities and put them in schools like this."

Typical Trudeau, can't miss an opportunity to pander and virture signal. This has been going on for 30 years now, getting more and more hysterical as time goes on. It never fails. "There is much more that needs to be done" or "this is only the first step towards..." are the catchphrases of the perpetually victimized. But it was easily predictable. The rent seekers in the indigenous industry are reluctant to let their cash cow get away. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in play for the lawyers and consultants and media people. The Canadian government has already pledged $40 Billion (with a "B")- what more do they want?

Because nothing has been done yet. And the native band in question has been very coy and secretive about the whole situation for more than a year. THere has been nothing stopping them from starting to investigate except their own reluctance. The cynic in me says that they have made the political decision that the legend of 200 plus missing children is far more profitable than taking a chance on learning the truth. What if nothing is found? That is a risk they are very unwilling to take. Imagine the same situation but not involving native people. Someone suspects that a local park is the site of more than 200 possible murder victims. A radar survey suggests that there just might be something there. What would happen next? Certainly not a one year delay.

True, but the report will only be based on the radar survey. Nothing will be actually done in the suspected burieal sites other than that. And the article clearly states that the survey cannot detect organic matter, so (sorry to be graphic) unless a body was buried recently, it is almost impossible to detect. At least without doing some excavation of the site, which the local native community has resisted up to now.

Yes they have, but those are not what is in the news today. Those seem to be almost accidental incidents. In the past year, there have been numerous discoveries. None of them, to my knowledge, have undergone any kind of forensic examination. All rely on radar data plus local anecdotes. Like Pegman, I am from the Great White North. I do watch the media from home and there haven't been any stories about actual evidence being collected.

This is one of the few advantages of being Canadian. Lottery winnings are not taxed. Neither are inheritances. Neither are casino winnings.

It has been more than a year since the 'discovery' and not one shovel full of earth has been moved. Nobody knows if they are graves. Nobody knows who (if anyone) is buried there. Certainly nobody knows that children are buried there. If, God forbid, the story is true, then there needs to be a criminal investigation. No more faffing about with "knowledge keepers" and lurid tales. And certainly no waiting a year. Just imagine if it was suspected that more than 200 people were secretly buried under the football field of a regular high school. Do you think the police would sit on their hands for a year and do nothing?

CNN is wrong. The radar found anomalies in the ground. They could be anything. The radar isnt sensitive enough to do anything other than that. If you read the story they cover their asses by saying "potential graves", then go on to say that many were actually discovered in a known community cemetery. Hardly surprising. You can find cemeteries all over Canada where the markers have deteriorated, fallen, were destroyed by wind and rain, etc. Again, a community cemetery. Not a secret burial site at a school. The story goes on to incorrectly say that they confirmed that the remains of 215 children were found at another site in Kamloops British Columbia. Utter horse hockey. No graves were found, no remains were exhumed, the story is being pushed to further the victimisation narrative of the native people. There has never been any serious investigation done. Here is an article on the subject; https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/kamloops-mass-grave-debunked-biggest-fake-news-in-canada/ The insinuation is that the staff of the schools secretly murdered children, or abused them to death. Then the evil nuns and fathers secretly buried their victims just feet from their schools, in unmarked graves. All pure fantasy. Nobody denies that there were abuses, and that people 100 years ago didn't understand how psychologically damaging it could be to remove children from their communities and put them in schools like this. But all too often the message is one of deliberate harm, when it was actually ignorance and well intentioned negligence.

And the lawyers will get rich. This has been happening for 30 years in Canada. The commissions, discussions, working groups, effectively drain away huge amounts of money. And native communities that actually need support don't get it. There is an entire industry built on servicing this grievance mongering, and it is horrid. The so-called "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" was interested in neither. It was instead a cathartic process that encouraged emotion and drama at the expense of evidence and statistic.

Yes there was abuse at the schools, which is despicable. Unfortunately, we now know that the priesthood as a profession attracts both the best and the worst of men. In those cases, the victims need to be compensated and the criminals punished/shamed. The schools themselves were poorly funded, especially in the beginning, and the federal government contracted the Church to run them as the government didnt have the necessary capacity to do so. Churches already existed across the country (both Catholic and Anglican) so they were the natural choice for the program. As an aside, both my wife and my son attended Catholic schools and the staff were exemplary. We aren't Catholic ourselves but the schools had well earned reputations for quality education. The "unmarked graves" have not yet been proven to exist. A few unmarked cemeteries have been found around some schools, but they were known in the communities for generations. Problem was they fell into disuse and disrepair. They were community cemeteries where all were buried, not secret places where evil school staff hid their victims. Other places have had ground penetrating radar passed through, but no evidence of anything has been found. And curiously the local native communities don't seem to be in any hurry to conduct forensic investigations. Your image of roving bands of priests ripping screaming children from wailing mothers is not accurate. Given the small number of priests and the vastness of the Canadian north, it just isn't realistic. It is a great image for publicity purposes, but that is all. Maybe a few cases but certainly not the norm.

At the original Kamloops site, the answer is no. There are "consultations" with "elders" and "keepers of knowledge" in the community, but no actual forensic action. Unfortunately but as I suspect you know, unsurprisingly, the media ran with the story and embellished it without waiting for evidence.

Don't need to "try again". At the time, that was considered best practice for education. Same thing happened to the thousands of immigrant kids in Canada. They weren't allowed to speak their native tongues in school and were forced to learn Canadian values. Of course, today we know better. Plus, there is no evidence that they were all forced. Many attended voluntarily, many were 'forced' by their parents and families, etc. At this time, school attendence was made compulsory for ALL children in Canada, ot just natives. The image of evil priests ripping crying children from their parents' arms seems to be a fantasy. To the extent that children were forced into school attendance, there were often extenuating circumstances.

The stats are divided between "born outside the US" and "undocumented". https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/immigration-and-agriculture/#:~:text=As recently as 2019%2C almost,(27.3 percent) were undocumented.

I have no trouble punishing the employers. Also punishing the illegals. Only makes sense.

According to this article, about 12% of overall farm costs are due to labour costs. This rises to nearly 40% for tree fruits and nuts (they are the highest). https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/#:~:text=According to data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture%2C wages,fruit and tree nut operations. Now, assuming that illegals make up 40% of all farm labour, such as in California, we can do a bit of math. Let's assume that illegal workers make only half of what legal workers do. If they are replaced with legal workers, cost will rise by: Illegal workers make up 40% of the 40% labor cost. So 16%. Now, if double that to hire people, that would be a 16% increase in total cost. And that is for the most labor intensive crops (apples, nuts, etc). Cost of food rises by 16% for the end consumer. On a regular farm wiere labor is 12% of total cost, it would mean an increase of ... OK, assume 40% of workers areillegal, that means 4.8% of the cost is illegal labor. So again, the cost of farm goods would rise by about 5%. Not much to pay in order for legal residents to work, and to help Americans.

Well, there was a $40 billion settlement by the Canadian government.... is that massive enough?