The former Kamloops Indian Residential School on the south riverbank of the South Thompson River in Kamloops, B.C.Alison Boulier/The Globe and Mail
Two things can be true, at the same time. Five years after the startling announcement that there were hundreds of possible unmarked graves near a residential school in Kamloops, B.C., there has been no public confirmation of the discovery of any human remains. That is reality, one reality.
Another is this: 3,200 Indigenous children, at least, died at residential schools, according to the 2015 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Residential school students died at a rate far higher than children in the rest of Canada – a negligence so deep-rooted that it came “within unpleasant nearness” of manslaughter, according to a government official in the early 1900s.
Many students were physically abused or sexually abused. And all were the target of a systemic effort by the Canadian government, over decades, to snatch them from their homes and families, and to eradicate their culture and heritage. That, too, is reality, a damning reality.
But those two realities cannot be used to negate the other.
That there have been no human remains found at Kamloops does not mean children did not die there. It does not mean that crimes were not committed against children, crimes that were inexcusable. A contention otherwise is denialism, and it is morally repugnant.
But the converse is also true. The fact of the crimes committed against Indigenous children at residential schools over many decades does not automatically validate claims that hundreds of students were dumped into unmarked graves in Kamloops and other residential schools. That is an extraordinary assertion, one that requires proof.
That should have been the starting point for the media in May, 2021, when the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation first issued a press release announcing the “confirmation of the remains of 215 children of the Kamloops Indian Residential School” through the use of ground-penetrating radar that identified subterranean anomalies.
The media, including The Globe and Mail, did not initially scrutinize, much less challenge, that assertion. The initial headlines and stories in the media simply stated as fact that the remains of 215 children had been found. Many of those early stories, including in this newspaper, made reference to “mass graves” (a historically fraught phrase that does not appear in the Tk’emlúps 2021 press release).
Perhaps it will be proven, some day, that there are hundreds of unmarked graves at Kamloops. But it was not proven to be true in May, 2021. It is not proven to be true today.
To those who deny the reality of residential schools: History isn’t yours to rewrite
The media changed the description of what had been discovered at Kamloops through the summer of 2021 to possible or probable graves, particularly after an expert working on the Kamloops site made clear the limitations of ground-penetrating radar. Indeed, by February, 2026, the band itself issued a press release referring only to “potential burials.”
That evolution in language does not erase the initial failure of journalism. The lesson of 2021 should be: assertions about residential schools should be listened to carefully, and then, just as carefully, held up to scrutiny.
Politicians also helped to fuel public perceptions that the bodies of hundreds of children had been found. John Horgan, then B.C. premier, called Kamloops “a tragedy of unimaginable proportions” in the wake of the initial announcement. Mr. Horgan had no way of knowing whether that was true.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau made much more dramatic pronouncements that were also not founded in fact. Three days after the Tk’emlúps announcement, Mr. Trudeau ordered that the Canadian flag be flown at half-mast at all federal buildings “to honour the 215 children whose lives were taken at the former Kamloops residential school.”
Like Mr. Horgan, the former prime minister had no factual basis for that and other similar statements. Unlike Mr. Horgan, who died in 2024, Mr. Trudeau still has the opportunity to set the record straight. He has not; neither has the current Liberal government. Nor has Ottawa provided clarity on how the hundreds of millions of dollars sent to First Nations to establish whether the soil anomalies are human remains have been spent. Canadians are owed an explanation.
First Nations are owed a greater debt. Lasting reconciliation between Indigenous communities and the rest of Canada has barely begun. But that reconciliation must be founded on the truth, wherever it leads.