CV NEWS FEED // The Canadian government has stopped funding investigations of mass graves at Catholic and Christian residential schools. Inquiries have found no unmarked graves.
The Catholic Herald reported March 3 that the government began searching for bodies three years ago at the cost of $216.5 million (Canadian dollars, about $150 million US dollars), adding that after the search “not a single set of human remains” has been found in a series of excavations on various residential school sites.
“The government has now quietly withdrawn funding for the investigating committee and will disband it at the end of this month,” the Herald noted.
The allegations of unmarked mass graves sparked numerous arson attacks against Catholic churches in Canada. As CatholicVote previously reported, 85 churches were burned after the initial accusations.
According to the Daily Wire, the investigations began when Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Native American community of tribes Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation, formerly known as Kamloops Indian Band, announced in May 2021 that anthropologist Sarah Beaulieu allegedly found the unmarked remains of 200 children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
However, Beaulieu had used radar, and when the area was excavated, as CatholicVote reported, in May 2024, no remains were found.
Casimir has since distanced Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation from the initial allegations.
Jacques Rouillard, professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Montreal, wrote in The Dorchester Review on Jan. 11, 2022, that the preliminary report was “based on depressions and abnormalities in the soil of an apple orchard near the school – not on exhumed remains.”
The National Review recently called the mass graves scare “one of the most disgraceful moral panics in modern history.”
The outlet also noted that Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau endorsed some of the attacks on Catholic churches in a speech given July 2, 2021, that was supposed to condemn the church burnings.
“It’s real, and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we are all becoming more aware of,” Trudeau stated.
Later in the speech, he added, “People have gone decades and even generations living with intergenerational trauma, with outcomes and institutional racism that has created extreme difficulties for Indigenous peoples across this country that are also the legacy of residential schools.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, Pope Francis formally apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for the alleged events, which some commentators, such as Mary Margaret Olohan, argued was due to pressure from Trudeau.
TRACKER: OVER 400 ATTACKS ON U.S. CATHOLIC CHURCHES SINCE MAY 2020
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