Talk:Canadian Indian residential school gravesites

Article overhaul

This article is an absolute mess.

It was created in 2021 in response to media allegations that CIRS' had concealed huge numbers of child deaths by burying children on the grounds. It fails to properly explain that claim, nor the subsequent institutional responses and investigations.

Many of the cited sources are either not RS, or do not say what the article claims.

As a first step, I will remove all incited content from the lead, with a more in-depth overhaul to follow. Riposte97 (talk) 04:25, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Keep in mind that material in the lede does not have to be sourced, and often isn't, if it is sourced in the article body. _signed, Willondon (talk) 14:55, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Most of the 'suspected unmarked graves' in the article table simply relate to graves in old cemeteries which have not been maintained. The table seems to conflate that issue with graves that were never marked, or burials which were concealed. The sources cited do not bear this out. Riposte97 (talk) 04:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

A good “first step” would be to include “hoax” in the article title, as that is what this is. But you “truth tellers” are obsessed with maintaining this lie as long as possible in the hopes that more hate crimes are caused by it. 76.183.153.14 (talk) 03:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

It would have to actually be a hoax for that. "I don't like it"/"It makes me uncomfortable" ≠ "hoax". - Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 03:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Title change

Two years on, it appears that the graves were in fact not graves, and there have been no remains discovered in the previous radar-scanned anomalies. Given that sources now either state that it was a false panic, or have remained silent on the subject, the title should probably be changed.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/first-nations-graves DenverCoder19 (talk) 04:56, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

• I'd be inclined to WP:TNT the whole thing and start again. As you've said, it's increasingly clear that the situation was inflamed by sensationalist media and the reality is vastly different from what those early reports claimed. The scope of this article needs to be reconsidered to include, potentially, knowledge of gravesites and unmarked graves pre-2021, the 2021 media release that got the media's attention, the media reaction, protests and Church attacks as a result, the outcomes of the few digs, the cultural/legal impacts, and then the current re-examination of the media frenzy. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 05:07, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

  Probably a good idea. I've had a proper look over the rest of the article, and the talk archives. This article started (and should remain) about the 'discovery' of mass graves at Canadian schools, and the ensuing moral panic/media firestorm. We should resist scope creep to any graveyard at any school or church at which schoolchildren might have been buried in the past, which parts of this article attempt to conflate with the core claim. Riposte97 (talk) 08:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

  • • The problem we have is sources deemed reliable by Wikipedia (e.g. CBC) have never acknowledged their errors. What you're saying may fit the facts, but they don't fit the usable sources. National Post is an outlier. CBC has admitted "the radar does not find human remains", but hasn't gone back and explicitly state they were previously wrong when declaring thousands were "found". So, if we were a newspaper doing our own research and analysis, I'd agree with your proposal. But, we're not. Residential school gravesites, starting with Kamloops Indian Residential School is the biggest story, by far this century in Canada, and it's still widely accepted by most Wikipedia-deemed-reliable sources, to be true. Also, the current version of the article doesn't contain false hoods, and doesn't actually say there were bodies found. So, we've actually done as good as you can with the sources given. We can avoid repeating known falsehoods, but we can't refute falsehoods without a consensus of reliable sources. --Rob (talk) 12:54, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

      On the contrary, subsequent reporting (from Spiked and elsewhere) has directly refuted the gravesite claims. Besides, no reason we can't make the scope of this article more explicitly about those gravesites supposedly discovered in 2021. Riposte97 (talk) 04:16, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

      So, if you're talking about this spiked piece, that's more of an editorial opinion, and filled with grotesque errors. The author took a wild leap from saying graves weren't found in the alleged sites (true), to saying there weren't many deaths (false). There's enormous evidence that large numbers of indigenous children died at and/or because of residential schools. Federal reporting of over a hundred years span verified policies of government led to many preventable deaths (e.g. sending kids to schools with known disease outbreaks). Ironically, if bodies had been found at the residential schools that wouldn't have proven anything. We've always known many kids died at residential school and the location of the bodies (at the school, church, or local community) doesn't tell us why they died. That comes from historical records of the time. --Rob (talk) 02:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      You have pivoted smoothly from saying that we need to cite RS even for obviously true claims, to saying that we need to discard an on-topic RS because it makes what you claim are untrue claims.

      Feel free to link us to the 'historical records of the time' (or a reliable secondary source), but I note that the Spiked article doesn't even say 'there weren't many deaths'. Riposte97 (talk) 03:40, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      Spiked is a pretty bad example in of itself and the only times I have seen such "elsewhere" reports are from New York Post and Daily Mail, which, if these generally make up the only other reports that have directly refuted gravesite claims, would be understandable as to why they would be generalized here as 'elsewhere' reports rather than directly named. I would even consider the National Post to sometimes be on the fence when it comes to more controversial topics. Are there more reliable sources that can be provided which directly refute the gravesite claims? Otherwise, I'm going to have to agree with Rob. B3251 (talk) 05:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      The National Post;

      https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-year-of-the-graves-how-the-worlds-media-got-it-wrong-on-residential-school-graves

      Times Now;

      https://www.timesnownews.com/world/canada/kamloops-indian-residential-school-in-british-columbia-mass-graves-no-bodies-found-despite-usd-8millionprobe-article-110042089

      and The Spectator Australia;

      https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/01/the-mystery-of-canadas-indigenous-mass-graves/

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rise-of-conspiracy-history/

      have all published on this.

      We are in a uniquely difficult situation here, as widespread initial reporting is slowly being directly challenged by subsequent reporting. That is still no reason to abrogate our responsibility. Perhaps a balanced article should simply acknowledge that there is conflict on the question. Riposte97 (talk) 12:42, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      These opinion pieces do not really present enough evidence to completely reorient the article. ~ Pbritti (talk) 12:58, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      The Times article is not an opinion piece.

      A book has also been published on the topic by the Dorchester Review - 'Grave Error'. Riposte97 (talk) 21:45, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

      These pieces in of itself still do not establish clear reliability. WP:SPECTATOR and NP both do not have clear consensus on reliability when it comes to controversial/opinion pieces and one could argue that neither does Times Now due to its direct relation to WP:TOI. For a topic as controversial as this, there needs to be more than just bottom-of-the-barrel (mostly) opinion pieces that do not have clear consensus on reliability in order to warrant such a massive change to the article. B3251 (talk) 00:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Riposte97, you said you want links to historical records and reliable sources. Well, you kindly provided a helpful link to the National Post the National Post which said:

On the subject of reckonings and anniversaries: it was exactly 100 years ago this year that Peter Henderson Bryce, the former medical inspector for the Department of Indian Affairs, published a shocking account of the federal government’s indifference to deaths from infectious diseases and heartless neglect in the Indian residential schools. The 24-page booklet was titled, “The Story of a National Crime: Being an Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada; The Wards of The Nation, Our Allies in the Revolutionary War, Our Brothers-in-Arms in the Great War.”

So, again, lets be clear, it's well established that Canada's residential school system was culpable in the death of many children, and this has been well established for over a hundred years. This is not a matter of opinion, where we can agree to disagree. These are established facts. Separate from the *fact* of the deaths, is the false claims that bodies were found at a bunch of residential schools in the last few years, by ground-penetrating radar. Just because these false claims were made, and widely broadcast, does not mean that the previously established facts can be denied. --Rob (talk) 01:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Not exactly sure what you mean - that seems like a non-sequitur. We are here to discuss a very specific issue. To wit, the gravesites supposedly discovered at Kamloops in 2021, and at other schools since. Please don't conflate that with other issues. Riposte97 (talk) 20:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Directly related to the issue of "Title Change", it seems entirely appropriate to change the title to something that incorporates two facts: 1) the gravesites are unmarked and 2) the "gravesites" are really "alleged gravesites". Incorporating (1) would distinguish the topic from long-known marked/documented gravesites that are not the subject of this article. Incorporating (2) would reflect the undisputed fact included in all reporting on this issue since 2021, namely that primary means of locating these sites does not recover human remains, and that human remains have not been recovered from these sites by other means.

I would therefore propose a tilte such as "Alleged unmarked gravesites at Canadian Indian residential schools". Such a title would accurate convey what was been true in this matter since day one, accurately conveys that the matter has not been fully proven either way up to the present day, and sufficiently distinguishes it from related matters that are not the subject of this article. Jstensberg (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

We have an article titled Resurrection of Jesus, that doesn't show bias that we think there was a resurrection. It shows how the topic is commonly referred to, both by believers and disbelievers. The current title of this article is the best representation of how the topic is commonly referred to in reliable sources. No title (of reasonable length) is going to convey everything that needs to be conveyed. A title is something somebody would search for in seeking information on the topic. Also, marked graves (that is graves which have always been marked) are actually part of the story. Specifically, at Cowessess, there was a graveyard where the graves were all marked, but over time, they have been grown over or "unmarked". Photos of Trudeau's visit to the graveyard, garnered a great deal of attention, and sometimes was presented as though he was visiting newly discovered graves, when he was really visiting a well known and established graveyard. You can't talk about unmarked graves without mentioning marked graves. Also, while no graves were found at the Kamploops and later cases that used GPR, there were in fact older cases where unmarked (at the time of discovery) graves were found, purely by accident (no GPR). So, basically, it makes no sense to get a super long restrictive title, that's actually too restrictive. --Rob (talk) 03:12, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Therein lies some of the problem, from my perspective. There is a conflation of all of those things in the article. I'm going to start a new thread to try to get consensus on the appropriate scope of this article as a first step. Riposte97 (talk) 05:49, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Opinion columns undue

The National Post opinion pages do not constitute a reliable source.See WP:NEWSORG Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (invited op-eds and letters to the editor from notable figures) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. Human interest reporting is generally not as reliable as news reporting, and may not be subject to the same rigorous standards of fact-checking and accuracy (see junk food news). When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint. If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact. Under what basis is this being defended for inclusion? Simonm223 (talk) 12:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

If you are referring to the media reporting section, it is properly attributed. Riposte97 (talk) 14:34, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm saying it's undue to put an opinion thing from National Post there, not that it isn't attributed. Simonm223 (talk) 14:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Well then I disagree. It is being used as a primary source of fact for the existence of the opinion it espouses. Riposte97 (talk) 23:27, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

What makes you think the NP article is opinion? It isn't marked as such and provides much more analysis than perspective. 15:43, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

undue regurgitation of old fake news

a series of suspicious fires were set at Catholic and Anglican churches

nope nope nope. Suspicions were voiced by click-bait websites, sure. Never ever substantiated. Poof. Substantiate this if you want it in the article, and it will probably still be undue for the lede. Elinruby (talk) 16:48, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Removed from article body: {{main|2021 Canadian church burnings}}

By July 4, 2021 nearly two dozen churches, including eight on First Nations territories, had been burned. Indigenous leaders, the prime minister, and provincial officials have condemned the suspected arsons.

Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, tweeted "burn it all down", and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs expressed "strong solidarity with (Harsha Walia) in condemning the brutally gruesome genocide of residential ‘school’ system by Canada and Church while crown stole FN land". Walia later advised Canadian media outlets through legal representation that she does not support arson and was speaking figuratively.

It would probably be worthwhile to link 2021 Canadian church fires as a see-also, though. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

These fires were broadly identified as arsons and directly tied to the residential school gravesites, see the CBC. Worth far, far more than a "see also". ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd say it was widely speculated that that was the case. If we do republish this we should omit the detail of Walia's tweet, it's already covered in the main article and it's out of balance here to only report a negative (as in supporting the fires) reaction; moreso because it was later retracted. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:59, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia covers retracted statements all the time, particularly if they are widely reported in reliable sourcing and appear to have a substantial impact. Given that a formal investigation by a leading news agency revealed a direct tie, I would say widely speculated is failing to give reliable sources due balance. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that source, I was going by how the other article described it, but you're right. I'm not concerned about Walia's reaction being retracted, only that it's calling out an incident with a living person with possibly insufficient context. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:08, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, how about we remove Walia's reaction? We can maybe discuss restoring it down the road, but there's a lot of work to be done to make this article "work" again after so much of it was muddled by POV editing. It's a distraction and the BLP concerns are valid enough for me to feel just a bit uneasy. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:11, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh–you already did that. Good work! Keep up the cleaning. My only two-cents was that the church burnings were a legit part of the whole thing and, for what it's worth, I think some reliable sources about genuine grave discoveries were removed by the POV editing earlier this month. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:13, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby: There's been an ongoing discussion. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:16, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby: Abusing relevance tags after falsely accusing someone of disseminating false news and refusing to engage in a talk page discussion is not conducive to improving the article. Given that the editor you're trying to engage with has already pinged you in a discussion you started, I feel like this is approaching uncivil. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Article scope

I believe much of the conflict around this article can be explained by the fundamentally different conceptions of its scope held by different editors.

In my view, it is uncontroversial that students died whilst attending these institutions, and were buried either in graveyards on the grounds, or in local cemeteries. That fact is simply not notable, or at least not notable enough for a standalone article.

What is notable, and what spawned this article in 2021, was the purported discovery of thousands of never-marked graves across Canada at the sites of former IRS. These discoveries caused an uproar.

I believe we should be clear that this article covers unmarked child graves of the kind reported upon at Kamloops in 2021. Otherwise, this article will essentially just list graveyards and former graveyards across Canada. Riposte97 (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• The previous lead was a lot more clear that it was talking about unmarked graves and provided more context as to their notability from the body; and there's clearly enough coverage to make it notable. I think we should probably broadly revert the lead back to the old version and work from there. --Aquillion (talk) 17:07, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I've started to try to focus things, starting with the Background section. Happy to discuss any of those changes. Will move on to the rest tomorrow. Riposte97 (talk) 12:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Riposte97 You really need to self-revert these changes which severely harm the WP:NPOV of the article. I would but I am on mobile until to

tomorrow and the app doesn't handle multi-edit reverts well. please stop and build consensus for such dramatic reductions of the weight given to the truth and reconciliation commission. Simonm223 (talk) 13:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Someone beat me to it. Will discuss below. Riposte97 (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Lead

@Ivanvector: how does the body contradict the final lead sentence? Riposte97 (talk) 13:29, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

In the table of suspected graves it describes the finding of the partial remains of a child in a grave at the Qu'Appelle residential school, sourced to [1]. The Spiked source that you provided, which is the successor of a magazine that was run out of business for denying the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, really shouldn't be used as a source for any information about anything described as a genocide. Ignoring that, it does not say that no bodies were found: it says that none were found in the five specific searches it names, which does not include Qu'Appelle. It also gives its unqualified opinion that "no evidence has been found to support the claims of a ‘genocide’", which is highly suspect given their known history of genocide denial. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:20, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• It also contradicts this source, which is obviously higher-quality: The discovery comes less than a month after the “unthinkable” discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children — some as young as three years old — in unmarked graves near the Kamloops Indian Residential School outside Kamloops, B.C.; I suspect that Spiked is playing around with the word "excavated" here to get their desired headline, but the key point is that the National Post unambiguously describes the discovery of the remains. We cannot use a weaker source like Spiked in a way that is intended to imply that they weren't actually discovered because they were detected with ground-penetrating radar rather than passing the Spiked author's arbitrary bar of having been excavated. --Aquillion (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Fully agree with Aquillion's appraisal here. I'm fairly certain that there's no justifying a description that suggests no additional graves were (re)discovered. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:26, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Unless I'm misunderstanding something in that source, "underground radar detection" is the method used, which is exactly the same claim that was used to "discover" bodies in the three sites now proven not to contain any. That's not really an announcement of a discovery, it's an announcement of a survey that's produced an estimate of what could be there. This is the exact problem we've been discussing for the last week or so. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 02:31, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I strongly concur Spiked is not a reliable source. It is in full fledged denialism. But, also, with regard to the above mention of this 2021 source, we have to take note of the exact timing of stories (from 2021 to 2024). The very first stories by the NYT and CBC were of "mass graves" found by GPR. That then soon became just graves found by GPR. Now, in 2024, the CBC says "However, the radar does not find human remains. It detects soil disturbances that are inconsistent with the surrounding area, which combined with community knowledge can help identify where there may potentially be unmarked graves.". That's a huge shift (given that all the reports of graves "found" by GPR). However, the CBC, and other mainstream media, never explicitly say "no graves were found" at 2021-now sites. Unfortunately, the situation is complicated, and nuanced, and no reliable source has done a comprehensive re-evaluation of what is, and isn't "found". Sources like "Spiked" try to take the errors in mainstream reporting, and use them to deny pretty much everything bad that happened in residential schools. So, there isn't any concise way of summing up the entire situation. --Rob (talk) 05:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

• Well that seems like a pretty concise summary of the situation to me. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 05:43, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

  Hmm. I take the point that Spiked is not the ideal source for this. I meant to get to finding a better alternative today, but have been snowed under. We are in an even more complicated position because it is totally uncontroversial that children died at these schools, and were buried either on the grounds and nearby. I don't believe Spiked takes issue with that, but that's beside the point. There were graves on IRS grounds, and in some cases were poorly maintained, burned down, or were allowed to grow over. That's uncontroversial. What distinguishes the claims made in 2021 (and makes them notable) is the allegations of mass graves and never-marked graves. That implies something very different about the circumstances in which the students died than had thitherto been understood. All of these discoveries were made by ground-penetrating radar. Even at the time, the anthropologists conducting these surveys were clear that anomalies were possibly or probably graves, but that only exhumation could confirm it. That is one reason why just calling the anomalies found 'discovered graves' is fraught. I understand that at one of the sites, a human jawbone has been found. However, the circumstances of that discovery are unclear to say the least. There was a source in this article which I removed, that said that those remains were found in a marked grave on a local farmer's land. I think we need to be clear that this article deals primarily with those suspected graves found in 2021, though it's probably appropriate to note that marked burials were common practice. I am not opposed to @Aquillion:'s suggestion in the above topic as a way to achieve this greater clarity. Should we just revert the whole article to the state it was in last week, and start over with our goals clearly defined? Riposte97 (talk) 09:57, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I said as much at RSN, but Spiked is so unreliable that if they told me it was raining, I'd stick my hand out from under the umbrella just to make sure. Especially when it comes to the issue of genocide; after all, Spiked is quite literally Living Marxism with a fresh coat of paint, and given LM was forced to shutter when its denial of the Bosnian genocide saw it on the receiving end of a libel suit, and the person who wrote the article that got LM sued is the editor of Spiked... yeah, it has no place on this article especially. Sceptre (talk) 17:48, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Changes reverted

I have reverted the recent mass removals of content by Riposte97 which did not have consensus and which removed large amounts of relevant, properly sourced, and in scope content, and I have also restored the lede prior to their similar mass deletions from it last week. This article is about gravesites at Canadian Indian Residential Schools, both known and unmarked/undiscovered/suspected, and controversy about the ways in which there came to be children's graves at residential schools in the first place. It is not only about the controversy over the discoveries since 2021, and never has been. Deleting the known history of IRS burials does not make the article "more neutral", it just erases relevant history and background. Please discuss your proposed changes, and note that consensus means discussing your proposed changes and coming to an agreement among all editors with significant viewpoints, not ignoring opposing viewpoints and plowing on in spite of disagreement. Riposte97, it has become quite clear that you are repeatedly trying to remove neutral information and add inappropriately sourced opinions downplaying the significance of these events, as evidenced quite clearly by your repeated attempts to force in an inappropriately-sourced and provably false narrative that there are no bodies (e.g. [2], [3], [4], [5]) and removing sources that don't conform with that false statement. If you do not stop this, I will seek to have you banned from the topic. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• I for one thought Riposte97's edits were a significant improvement and a thoroughly decent good-faith attempt at implementing the discussions we've had on this page, and completely reject your characterisation of their work on this article. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 15:07, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

  Starting a thread on revamping the page back to a less neutral form on the day of a Canadian long weekend, when most interested editors are likely not on Wikipedia, then taking no responses over two and a half days as carte blanche to begin said less-neutral edits is not best practice. Simonm223 (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

  We've had a few discussions which can be used to inform the direction of this article going forward. Reverting to a version of the article I think we all agree is deeply flawed is not productive. Riposte97's edits are a step in the right direction, and in my view made the article substantially more neutral by removing shoddily-sourced material and tightening up the exposition. They don't need to be perfect on the first pass. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 03:29, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  I vehemently disagree. Simonm223 (talk) 13:50, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: threats of that nature are rarely justified, and are not at all appropriate in this instance. My edits of yesterday deliberately didn't touch the issue of whether bodies had actually been found. All I did was remove poorly sourced, inaccurate, and irrelevant material from the 'background' section. I believe I left its core claims intact - for example, that the T&RC called the system a cultural genocide. In any case, I will review the edits I made one-by-one and post them here for discussion. Riposte97 (talk) 22:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Background section

A series of threads to determine consensus on changing this section. Riposte97 (talk) 06:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraphs 1 and 2 - These paragraphs currently read:

A network of boarding schools for Indigenous children was funded by the Canadian government, and administered by Catholic and Anglican churches across the country. It was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children and forcefully assimilate them into the colonial Canadian culture.

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation determined in 2015 that the explicit government policy of the forced assimilation amounted to cultural genocide, years before the unmarked graves were confirmed nationwide, but the confirmation of deaths set off a wave of grief in the survivors and forced the rest of the nation to acknowledge the enduring wrongs of its colonial past.

I propose changing that to:

The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding and day schools for Indigenous children funded by the Canadian government, and administered by Catholic and Anglican churches across the country. It was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children and forcefully assimilate them into Canadian society, in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015 called a 'cultural genocide.'

This change preserves all the core claims, but makes them more concise. It notably changes 'colonial Canadian culture' to 'Canadian society'. I think that reads as less POV. It also omits the phrase 'the confirmation of deaths set off a wave of grief in the survivors and forced the rest of the nation to acknowledge the enduring wrongs of its colonial past'. Whatever one thinks about the accuracy and neutrality of that phrase (and I have some questions) it clearly belongs in a different section. It is not background. Riposte97 (talk) 06:08, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraphs 3 and 4 - These paragraphs currently read:

The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. Many Indigenous children died at residential schools, mostly from disease or fire. Peter Bryce, chief medical officer for Indian affairs, reported in 1907 that up to a quarter of all children who attended residential schools died. He reviewed tuberculosis cases and estimated that the mortality rate at these schools was more than eighteen times the rate of school-aged Canadians in general. Anti-tuberculosis antibiotics became widely used in the 1950s, which led to a decline in the incidence of the disease. Children died in huge numbers in the residential school system for over a century "and those who had the power to prevent these deaths did little to stop it."The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either.

Few school cemeteries are explicitly documented, but given when the schools operated and how long, most likely had a cemetery. Some were once officially associated with a school but then were overgrown and abandoned after the school closed, while others may have been unmarked burial sites even when the school was in operation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report confirmed ir had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, but chairman Murray Sinclair estimated total deaths were more realistically between 6,000 to 25,000.

I propose changing that to:

The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report confirmed it had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, mostly from disease. The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either. Murray Siclair, who chaired the Commission, speculated that the true number of deaths could be anywhere between 6,000 and 25,000. Some of the students who died at the schools were buried in graveyards on the school grounds, or nearby.

This change removes a lot of redundant information and imprecise wording. It also removes a paraquote attributed to Peter Bryce, sourced to an opinion piece in The Walrus. Given the earlier contentiousness of relying on the Spiked opinion piece, it might be productive to agree to leave opinion pieces and polemics aside for the time being. More importantly, however, the one-quarter death rate quoted is contradicted by the National Post story cited in that same paragraph. Therefore, even if the quote merely refers to a particular year (which is not made clear), it conflicts with a better source.

My proposal also cuts away the lengthy detour into tuberculosis. The tuberculosis points do not provide any context either to the overall mortality rate in the schools, nor into the operation of the schools across time.

Finally, I cut much of the discussion about cemeteries in the fourth paragraph. The first sentence in that paragraph is attributed to a really unusual unpublished source. It also seems to contradict several other sources, which claim that local Indigenous people often well knew where school dead were buried. The claim that some graveyards were unmarked from their inception is unsourced, and enormously contentious, as it might imply that deaths were hidden. I do retain the estimate of Mr. Murray, as this is clearly relevant. Riposte97 (talk) 06:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraph 5 - Currently reads:

An effort to fully document the children who never returned home from the schools remains ongoing. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 1,953 children, 477 of whom require additional investigation and an additional 1,242  known to have died but whose names are not yet known. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) conducted further review of the records added an additional 471 students to the memorial. This number was expected to climb as additional work was conducted. In total the register contains information about 4,126 children. It contains only the names of students who attended schools covered by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) and does not include students who died while attending day schools or other non-IRSSA schools.

I propose cutting this entirely. It has gone through several revisions, but currently it adds very little to the core attempts to estimate/quantify the number of deaths at the schools. It uses confusing POV language - 'never came home' when 'died' is apparently meant, even though never came home != died. It makes reference to some kind of memorial, which is not explained. It makes reference to a 'register' which is similarly not explained. The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement should probably have its own paragraph later in the article. Riposte97 (talk) 06:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support changes to paragraphs 1–2, and 3–4 with qualifications (undecided on paragraph 5) – However, the statement "The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either." should be retained in some form, as it is uncontroversial, well-sourced, and important context. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 06:40, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  Happy to reinsert that. Done in bold above. Riposte97 (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  You're trying to trim back the information about the genocide and you put genocide in scare quotes in the proposed revision. To start. Simonm223 (talk) 12:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose all proposed edits These would represent systematic damage to the WP:NPOV of the article. Simonm223 (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Simonm223: Would you mind explaining what in my proposed edits is POV? Riposte97 (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose totally Any removal of tuberculosis is a complete whitewash. Knowingly/forcefully sending kids to schools with known pre-existing outbreaks, causing huge numbers of preventable deaths, is probably the biggest single cause of preventable deaths. This is absolutely massive. Children didn't just die of disease they died of *preventable* disease (preventable by the people in charge at the time, with the knowledge possessed at the time). Lots of people died from TB and other diseases in the past. There wouldn't have been anything special about it, except for the fact it was preventable. --Rob (talk) 02:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  Hmm well perhaps we can add a new paragraph about tuberculosis - my proposal can be built upon after all. However, we'd need some RS that say the TB deaths were preventable. If you can find that, I’m happy to draft up a new TB paragraph to slot in. Riposte97 (talk) 03:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  There isn't any serious scholarly debate. TB is infectious, if you put lots of people together, close to each other, with poor sanitary conditions, and some have TB, others will catch it. The RS's have been prevelent, since at least 1907. In 2021 [Lena Faust, a PhD student at the McGill International TB Centre in Montreal, and Courtney Heffernan, manager of the Tuberculosis Program Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Alberta reiterated this point here. There's a CBC story about research. There has been a mountain of research, substantial litigation, settlements, and the TRC findings. There's this story of how unpasteurized milk, often produced on site, was the source of TB in some residential schools. Another easily preventable cause. The government and church's have actually acknowledged fault in all of this. I've given a tiny sampling of available sources, based on quick Google searches. Frankly, I don't think any body in Canada, acting in good faith, making the slightest effort to be informed, doesn't know this already. --Rob (talk) 04:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Rob Thanks for finding those. Perhaps my good faith can be salvaged by the fact that I am not in Canada. I live in Australia.

  Again, I am not opposed to inserting a paragraph about the poor management of TB in the early 20th century. Regarding the sources you have pulled together, the first is very high quality. It seems to lay most of the blame at a lack of public and institutional awareness about TB outbreaks. The second is a little less sound in my eyes. It's appears to be a news story reporting on an op-ed. I don't think I've ever seen that before, and I don't think I approve. The CBC story is reporting on unpublished research, but seems to be pretty good. The milk article relates only to one school, so lets leave that aside for now.

  How would you feel about revising paragraph 3/4 to:

  The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report confirmed it had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, mostly from disease. Particularly deadly was tuberculosis, of which there were repeated outbreaks in the early 20th Century. In the close confines of the residential school dormitories, conditions were ideal for the spread of the disease. The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either. Murray Siclair, who chaired the Commission, speculated that the true number of deaths could be anywhere between 6,000 and 25,000. Some of the students who died at the schools were buried in graveyards on the school grounds, or nearby.

  Or some variation? Do you have any objections to the rest of the proposal? Riposte97 (talk) 09:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  You seem to be going out of your way to imply the TB deaths were just a thing that happened. If the article is to be changed, it should be made to make much clearer how deaths were caused by intentional decisions. I gathered the first few Google hits, we can find more. The links aren't to stellar sources, but reference sources. I don't personally have a copy of the 1907 report on paper, or any of the other government reports, or court cases, so I just post some links to point to their existence. I'd be fine with digging up ever more sources, properly citing the original sources, if you had *any* reliable sources refuting complicity in deaths (not just TB deaths), but you have none. You just have a general desire to downplay it.--Rob (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  I’m not really sure where that's coming from. I'm trying to work with you here, not trying to 'downplay' anything - least of all the deaths of children. However, I’m clearly missing something. What is it you want to see in the article? Do you want it to say the TB deaths were negligent? That they were murder? I don't understand what 'complicity' means in this context.

  I also want to note that TB seems to be a huge cause of net mortality, but that it's relatively limited in time, compared with the life of the institutions. Is a standalone TB section implying that the gravesites are primarily associated with the TB epidemics of the 1900s-1930s? Riposte97 (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps we could add "and schools were often under-resourced and could not effectively prevent or treat outbreaks." or something to that effect? I agree that the weight put on tuberculosis should be appropriate to the time period and severity, but I'm not particularly well-versed in the details of either of those aspects of the issue. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Thivierr: In your remarks you focus on the proposed removal/shortening of tuberculosis-related material. What do you make of the proposed refinements to the lead, since neither version refers to tuberculosis? 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)