Elder, Elder, Who's got the Elder?

(NANAIMO, Vancouver Island) - Our original elders were all wiped out by the smallpox wars. They died first, and with them, all of our real traditions. What survives today from our old ways? I'll tell you: nothing.
- Siem Maquinna, Earl George of the Ahousahts, to the author, Port Alberni, May 1995

All of the data indicates that nations at war suffering mortality rates exceeding 25% are permanently traumatized and destroyed, for they are incapable of ever recovering their pre-war integrity. They become for all practical purposes ghost societies.
- United States Air Force Manual on War and Counter-Insurgency, Washington, spring 1983

We've created a completely new Indian society and we're the new leaders of it. It's a done deal.
- Wendy Grant-John, government Indian and "chief" of the Musqueam Tribal Council, April 2006

Indigenous nationhood, like Democracy or Christianity, is a wonderful idea; and wonderfully absent, in practice.

None of us have ever actually experienced these ideals - and yet how passionately we pretend to. In truth, we settle for cheap facsimiles of these visions that our various rulers convince us are the Real Deal. And sadly, we've believed their lie for so long that even now we teach it to one another, and to our children.

Let me leave aside the matter of Democracy, and Christianity, since I'm sure my gentle readers will need little convincing that marking ten ballots in one's lifetime and sitting in boredom in a church pew for an hour doesn't amount to much of anything. But I expect I'll have tougher sledding when it comes to tackling the fallacy of Indigenous nationhood.

Putting aside political correctness and liberal white guilt - and how hard it is to do so! - if we are to remain on the path of truth and political realism and not slide into murky rhetorical swamps, we must see things as they are and not as we want them to be. And the hard historical truth is that all genuine indigenous nations were historically uprooted and expunged by European colonialism within a few generations of contact.

On average, more than 90% of the indigenous people and their nations in the western hemisphere were eventually exterminated by European weapons and diseases, starting with the oldest people, the learned, and the carriers of tradition and authority. The butchery began in 1492 in the Caribbean and ended around 1910 on Canada's west coast.

Killing off ninety percent of a people means, effectively, killing off all of a people. Recovery and continuity is impossible, especially after the children of the remnant populaces endure the massive brainwashing and cultural re-cloning fondly called Christian Education.

What remains today in the wake of this worst massacre in human history are not even pale imitations of those original nations, but something altogether new: namely, "ab-original" societies, manufactured by the conquering powers of church and state. For ab-original means, according to any dictionary, not of the original group.

In none of the hundreds of native groups I've worked with over the decades have more than a handful of people known even a smattering of their original languages; nor do they practice their traditional ways, since those ways are gone.

None of them can live off the land, or practice ceremonies and rituals going back centuries. Their attitudes and hopes are the same as everybody else. They all flock into the same malls, buy the same pointless things, and poison their kids at the same fast food dumps as the "whites". And most of them pay taxes and vote and call themselves Canadians.

But what's most important, most of these aboriginals acknowledge that their traditional nation is dead and gone.

There are rare exceptions. But native men and women who aren't caught up in the money-chasing game of aboriginal politics are the first to admit that they are not indigenous, and know nothing of who they are, and were. These people are denied the financial rewards that come to Professional Indians in the political, legal and academic worlds who posture as "First Nations" - a term created by the Canadian government - and who say all the right phrases and wear all the right regalia.

The vast majority of natives who don't play the Professional Indian game are invisible to the rest of us. I only began to see and come to know them when I became an outcast from my own culture and began to share their alienation. The Professional Indians, contrarily, are the only ones that you are allowed to see.

After all, upon whom has your attention been riveted by the corporate media for many weeks now other than "Chief" Theresa Spence, the $85,000 a year pseudo-hunger striker who is the poster-person of the government-launched dissent-funneling operation known as Idle No More?

Of course, this kind of fraud is nothing new. Conquerors always create their own version of the ones they've destroyed. The same thing happened to my former people in the Gaelic Highlands after English bayonets and schools wiped us out after 1745. The British aristocracy invented the kilt and other Scottish niceties in their ab-original version of what they had destroyed. And they put into power the same kind of puppet chieftains like Ms. Spence who posture in Canada under the banner of the impotent "Assembly of First Nations" (AFN).

It's all part of the deadly symbiosis set up when one culture exterminates another: the conquerors keep tokens of their victims around for their reassurance and consciences; and strangely, over time, they and their conquered learn to depend on and identify with each other.

In truth, that's because a colonized people are no longer a people, but an appendage - that's the Latin meaning of "colon" - of the bigger Body Politic of the Conquerors. The remnant ab-originals depend on that Body for their very life and identity. Ask any AFN chief what he or she would do without a pay cheque from Ottawa. Ask Theresa Spence.

In Canada, as in America, the Pale Eaters - otherwise known as white people, since Assimilation means to eat someone - keep chewing up and swallowing ever more of the colonized peoples. They do so literally, by grabbing their children, their future, their lands and resources, and symbolically, by making the colonized perform for them to assuage their guilt and maintain the lie that Genocide didn't really happen in their country.

That fact strikes home to me with a vengeance whenever the AFN puppets open their mouths and the dead words of the Pale Eaters drop out.

But back to the realists: the mostly poor and dying authentic Indians who are honest about the fact that they have been killed and stripped of everything.

The hundreds of such people whom I work and live with never speak of their traditions, or of "the Elders", or of "Protocol", or any of the other Indigenously Correct terms thrown about in the Professional Indian world. They don't exclude "whites" from their ranks in a false pride of being better, or demand more money from the government. Nor do they cozy up to the christian churches that killed their people and blabber about "healing and reconciliation" with such criminals.

On the contrary, the realists know what is true and they speak about it, which is why they, and not the Professional Indians, have been the ones to occupy churches, and demand that the guilty face judgement and return the bodies of the children they murdered. It has been these unassimilated refugees from a lost world who have forced the Canadian Genocide onto the world stage, while the Professional Indians cower and equivocate and avoid everything until the television cameras show up.

There is no authentic Indian leadership in Canada; how can there be, after all, in the wake of such a cunning arrangement? And so the AFN and other cardboard creations are collapsing, having zero credibility, starting with young native men and women. And that's why the AFN has had to desperately create publicity stunts like Idle No More, to salvage themselves and the Pale Eaters who for now fund them.

But all is not lost. True Tragedy, taught the classical Greeks, is but the other side of Farce. And in the case at hand, the farce is best expressed in the game of Who's Got the Elder that seems to preoccupy all the Professional Indians and their loyal Caucasian wannabees in these last days of collapsing illusions and slipping masks.

Who's Got the Elder is rampant these days. For instance, last year, when I was asked by some of the Mohawk people around Brantford to help them locate the mass graves of the kids who were murdered by the Anglican Church at the local "residential school", I was immediately immersed in the game.

Nobody in the three permanent factions among the Grand River Mohawks could agree on exactly who was an "Elder", since they all had different definitions of the word.

To some of them, it meant "clan mother"; but day by day those who called themselves clan mothers would change, depending on who happened to show up to meetings and who bore a grudge against whom. To others, only certain families were the "true hereditary elders", but nobody could agree on who those families were. I became confused, very quickly: as confused as all the Mohawks seemed to be.

Most of our gatherings at the Kanata Centre in Brantford were devoted not to the practical job of finding and bringing home the remains of the buried children, but arguing over what they called the "protocol" of how to proceed. But again, there were a dozen different definitions of what protocol actually was. As you'd guess, after a week or so of such endless verbosity, the original purpose of why we had gathered quickly became lost.

I hope you understand that I'm not picking on the Mohawks. To their credit, they have gone further than any other group in trying to bring the forensic evidence of the genocide they faced into the light of day. And naturally, the government operatives and divide and conquer experts were on hand quickly to scuttle everything and discredit me and the project.

But that wasn't the problem, ultimately. The Mohawks simply got caught up in their own rhetoric and thought they were something they actually aren't: just like the rest of us.

The indigenous nations that we all once were have vanished, chewed up by a corporate global machine, and we stand now in need of a new definition that embraces our collective humanity and the natural law that has always been our true bedrock.

We, humanity, are in a final war for survival. But as long as we cling to all the false divisions and labels imposed on us by the rulers, we'll remain what we are: appendages of a thing that is killing our children, our souls, and our world. And we will all go under, regardless of our political correctness.

Who is an Elder, anyway? I guess we all become one, eventually. And I suppose that I am an Elder, now, after more than twenty years of struggle. But I don't need anybody to tell me that I am

A Canadian clergyman, Kevin Annett has for nearly twenty years led the movement to bring to light and prosecute atrocities in Christian “Indian residential schools”, and win justice for survivors. Expelled in 1995 from his former United Church of Canada for exposing murders in that church’s Indian residential schools, and persecuted and blacklisted for his efforts, Kevin is now an award-winning film maker, author, social activist and public lecturer who works with victims of church violence and genocide all over the world. In 2009, he helped to establish the five-nation International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State, which is seeking to indict church and government leaders for crimes against humanity.

As a result of Kevin’s tireless efforts on behalf of native people, the Canadian government was forced to issue a public “apology” and reparations program concerning Indian residential schools, in July of 2008. In giving him the name Eagle Strong Voice in 2007, Anishinabe elder Louis Daniels declared, “Kevin Annett is doing what few of his people have done, and that is to speak about the crimes they committed against many of our nations and their children. He has earned a place forever in our hearts and history. He is a brave and prophetic man. I ask everyone to welcome him and heed his voice.” And scholar Noam Chomsky wrote in 2006, “Kevin Annett is more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many of those who have received it.”

Watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on his website www.hiddenfromhistory.org

"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba

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Leslee July 27, 2013 8:29 pm (Pacific time)

I have noticed several times that people who defend Kevin say he has no income. If he doesn't have any income, why does Amazon.com have a price tag on his books? Love and Death in the Valley is $15.75, Unrepentant: Disrobing the Emperor is $15.25, Something called Neraskayavshiesya is $33.66. The only thing without a price tag was Hidden from History - only because it isn't available. Did Amazon.com steal these books and are keeping all of the money for themselves? My email is lc2525@hotmail.com Somebody tell me!

Ken Bear Chief January 15, 2013 3:56 pm (Pacific time)

"But what's most important, most of these aboriginals acknowledge that their traditional nation is dead and gone. - Kevin Annett" What is so apparent to me is that Kevin Annett now attacks the First Nations with open disdain for their culture, traditions, and because they have the attempt to eradicate them by mass extermination, and a plan of genocide against the survivors. Yes, nearly 90% of all First Nations and Native Americans were eliminated by the turn of the 20th Century, but those survivors were strong enough, couragious enough, and resourceful enough to not only survive but to retain all that they were. Yes they evolved politically, but many retained their language, and time honored customs, traditions, and religious practices. Kevin Annett does not want to recognize this and choses to disparage the aboriginals because many, like the Mohawks who have come into contact with him have discovered that he is a fraud and con artist. Since so many, like myself, have come out publicly to discredit him, he now strikes out like a blinded snake at anyone and everyone. He is a shameless con man with no integrity, or honesty whatsoever. Just go on line, and go elsewhere than his websites and posts, and actually do some diligent research about him, and you too will discover the truth about Kevin Annett.

Editor: Kevin's sincerity is historical record, what you say makes no sense when compared to the facts. I sense that you resent a white person being involved in this work, is it not most important to work together? What do you expect to achieve by tearing down the strongest advocate? Is it all ego with you Ken? I'm a white guy who helps Burmese Muslims and Sri Lankan Tamils. Am I wrong? Hell no.

Bill Annett January 10, 2013 6:28 am (Pacific time)

Flyin' Phil Fontaine also kissed the Pope's ring and accepted his "sorrow." The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has spent $68 million in taxpayers' money and has produced 115 pages of lukewarm crap, not naming, blaming or indicting any of the criminals still at large. Kevin Annett, at zeroo (that's 0)cost to the public, has produced three books, an award-winning feature film and 20 years of research on the subject, basesd on the testimony of hundreds of survivors and victims. Since the perps will never indict themselves, and the Government is the leading perp, Kevin has moved internationally and formed a seven-nation Tribunal Into The Crimes of Church and State, followed by an International Common Law Court currently proceeding to present evidence and indict perpetrators. Phil Fontained currently has a lucrative PR job in Ottawa.

More, Researching the story January 9, 2013 11:01 pm (Pacific time)

Phil Fontaine (head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is one of the first to speak candidly about the prevalence of the abuse at government-funded, church-run residential schools) speaks of his abuse as a yongster, in this video. http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/parties-leaders/phil-fontaine-native-diplomat-and-dealmaker/shocking-testimony-of-sexual-abuse.html

Oh, excuse me, I meant to clarify January 9, 2013 6:05 pm (Pacific time)

I am "metis", not Canadian Metis, I use the word to explain my European, Altai -kizhi, Arctic, Uralic, Finnic, Norse ++ DNA. I do not pretend to have any thing to say about the atrocities of forced assimilation. However, everyone should have freedom to find healing within and enjoy their family ties, and victimhood is no way to live. My children are more DNA diverse than , as they have Chinese, Filipino and Spanish ancestry, from their father. WE are all HUMAN. That's what I say. Forgiveness is the way to peace. Sharing is the way to prosperity.

I am not with the United Church not January 9, 2013 5:47 pm (Pacific time)

I live in Washington state and have posted here for several years on many topics. I posted the other posts, with more reseach. I am Metis,and I have a right to post here too, as long as the Editor allows this venue, and I have not attacked anyone. Here are some quotes from the report: PAges 47 to 51 of the 124 page Report found at http://www.attendancemarketing.com/~attmk/TRC_jd/ResSchoolHistory_2012_02_24_Webposting.pdf

QUOTES: "In 1896 an Indian agent said the behaviour of a
teacher at the Red Deer school “would not be tolerated in
a white school for a single day in any part of Canada.” The
agent was so alarmed by the teacher’s behaviour that he
kept a boy out of the school for fear he would be abused."
In 1914 a court in Brantford fined the principal of the
Mohawk Institute $400 for confining two runaway girls in
a cell for two days, and whipping one of them.

These were not isolated events. A nurse found boys
chained to benches for punishment at the Crowfoot
school in 1921,168 and at the Ahousaht school in the 1930s,
an inspector reported that each member of the staff carried
a strap.169 At the Calgary school, all the students were
put on bread and water in the early twentieth century
when a laundress’s moccasins disappeared (only to be
found under a pile of magazines in her room a few days
later). In 1934 a group of boys stole some money from a cashbox
at the Shubenacadie school in Nova Scotia. Following
a school investigation, nineteen boys were flogged with
a seven-thonged strap made from harness leather. Most
were then put on a bread-and-water diet for three days. A
judicial inquiry, appointed in response to parental complaints,
excused the principal’s behaviour, even though,
months later, many of the boys still bore bruises on their
backs.

Harsh discipline prompted children to run away, often
at great risk to themselves. The coroner investigating the
deaths of four boys who ran away from the Lejac school in
British Columbia in 1937 called for an end to the school’s
“excessive corporal punishment.”

Runaways were subject to punishment and humiliation.
In 1907 the principal of the Crowstand school in
Saskatchewan caught a group of runaway boys, tied their
hands together, and forced them to run behind his buggy
back to the school. Runaways from St. George’s in British
Columbia were chained together and forced to run back
to school ahead of the principal. In other cases, runaways
were shackled to their beds. In 1941 a boy who had run
away from the Gordon’s school in Saskatchewan, for fear
of the principal, died of exposure.

Upon their return, runaways often had their heads
shaved. At the Shubenacadie school, girls checked at
mealtimes to see if their brothers or cousins had been
punished. According to Isabelle Knockwood, “You should
have seen the look on the faces of the sisters and cousins
of the boys who walked in that refectory with bald heads.
It was awful having to watch them holding back the tears
and the hurt of not being able to help—or even talk to
them.”176 Raphael Ironstand recalled the shame of those
whose heads had been shaved for speaking Cree in the
1950s. “Even though they wore scarves and toques to hide
their heads, the tears were streaming down their faces.
They were so embarrassed, they kept their heads bowed
and eyes looking at the floor.

Bedwetting was treated cruelly. In 1907 a boy who had
been beaten for bedwetting ran away from the Norway
House school. According to an Indian Affairs official, his
feet were badly frozen, and it might have been necessary
to amputate some toes. Abraham Ruben had terrible
nightmares on his first night at the Grollier Hall Residence
in Inuvik. In the morning, he found he had wet his bed.
When a nun discovered what he had done, Ruben said
she slapped him in the face, and called him “a dirty pig.”

Mabel James’s saddest memory of St. Michael’s school
“was to watch my cousin Mary and others get a spanking
because of wetting the bed. They stood in line for a
spanking with a hairbrush. They held their bundle of wet
sheets under their arm.” These punishments continued
through the system’s history. One boy recalled that when
he came to the Kamloops school in 1969, “I started wetting
the bed. What was really bad about it was I couldn’t
stop. I wanted to. I tried everything. They would take our
sheets and wrap them around our heads and make us
walk past all the other kids.”

There are also many accounts of teachers striking
students with rulers and pointers in the classroom. One
Métis student from Alberta was daydreaming when “I was
brought to my senses with a yardstick smashed across
my back, just right about where my shoulders are.”182 At
St. Philip’s School in Fort George, Quebec, a frail-looking
teacher was adept at rousing inattentive students with a
quick rap on the knuckles with her ruler. At Kamloops,
Janie Marchand recalled how a beloved teacher was
replaced with one who “was mean, you couldn’t do anything,
she’d whack you. Oh, she always had a little stick.

Ear pulling was another common form of discipline;
according to a former Shubenacadie student, “Jesus! I
used to hate them earpulls—your ear would feel like it
was going to pop off—it would hurt right in the centre
core. They used to like to pull ears and twist.” In 1912 at
Round Lake school, the principal’s wife, who was working
as the matron, struck a girl so hard in the ear she was
knocked to the floor. A church investigation concluded
that neither the principal nor his wife could control their
tempers.

For much of the period the schools operated, the federal
government did not provide clear direction on discipline.
By the 1930s, when a principal wrote to Indian
Affairs looking for such direction, the department was
forced to admit that while it had issued a circular on discipline
several years earlier, it could not find a current
copy of it. On occasion, Indian Affairs officials thought
their superiors were not prepared to take on the churches
when principals were found to be using too much force.

In 1919, when a boy who ran away from the Anglican
Old Sun school was shackled to his bed and beaten with
a horsewhip until his back bled, Indian Commissioner
W.A. Graham tried, without success, to have the principal
fired. In 1924 no action was taken when the Indian
agent reported that a boy at the Anglican school in The
Pas had been beaten “black from neck to his buttocks.”189
The lack of support from Ottawa led Graham to complain
that there was no point in reporting abuses since the
department was too willing to accept whatever excuses
the principals offered up.

In the 1940s, discipline at the Brandon school was a
constant source of complaint. On one occasion, four girls
froze their feet in an attempt to escape the school. Parents
in Saskatchewan, alarmed by reports of harsh discipline
at the school, stopped sending their children there in
protest. When the department sent out an inspector to
discover why children kept on running away from the
school, the principal prevented him from speaking to
staff members in private, and allowed him to speak only
to handpicked students. An Indian Affairs inspector eventually
concluded that the principal was an aggressive,
aloof disciplinarian. Even as the complaints continued to
pile up, the principal, who had been the subject of complaints
when he was principal of the Mount Elgin school,
remained in office until 1955—when the church simply
transferred him to a new school.

Such policy as existed was usually reactive. In 1947 a
serious beating given to a student at the Morley school
in Alberta led Indian Affairs to issue a policy directive on
corporal punishment, which set out the type of strap that
could be used, the number of blows that could be administered
(no more than four per hand for students over
fourteen), who could strap students, and a requirement
that punishment be recorded.

This new policy did not prevent continued abuses. In
1953 two boys who ran away from the Birtle school were
beaten badly. The Indian Affairs inspector of schools
thought the principal had overstepped his bounds, but
his behaviour was excused on the grounds that he had
to make an example of the boys, since they had been
caught running away. A decade later, the principal at
Cecilia Jeffrey school in northwestern Ontario was locking
runaways in a room with only a mattress, taking away
all their clothing (save their underwear), and putting
them on a bread-and-milk diet. Students such as Pearl
Achneepineskum have strong memories of corporal punishment
at Cecilia Jeffrey during this period: “I knew the
strap, because a man strapped me with the same one
across my bare buttocks ten times because I made a noise
after the lights were out.

Abuse: “I felt so dirty.”
In October 1990, Phil Fontaine, the Grand Chief of the
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, called for a national inquiry
into the residential school system. His call garnered
national attention, particularly because he spoke of the
sexual abuse he had experienced as a student at the Fort
Alexander school in Manitoba. When asked how extensive
that abuse had been, he replied, “If we took an example,
my Grade 3 class, if there were twenty boys in this particular
class, every single one of the twenty would have experienced
what I experienced.” Chief Fontaine also spoke
of the physical abuse many students had undergone, and
the way the schools deprived children of their culture.
Most tellingly, he spoke of how that abuse had had lasting
impacts on his life and the lives of all other former
students. His coming forward, he hoped, would make it
easier for others to talk about their experiences.

Aboriginal people had been raising concerns about
residential schools since the Canadian government and
the leading Christian churches of the day established
the schools in the nineteenth century. However, until
Chief Fontaine spoke out, that criticism largely had been
ignored. His statement also gave support to an Aboriginal
movement for justice that had been building since the
1980s. In 1994 the Assembly of First Nations released
Breaking the Silence: An Interpretive Study of Residential
School Impact and Healing as Illustrated by the Stories of
First Nation Individuals. Starting in the mid-1990s, former students began making legal claims for compensation
for abuse experienced while they were at the schools.
By 2002 over 12,000 former students had filed claims.

Douglas Benson January 9, 2013 5:02 pm (Pacific time)

Wow Bill, that got anonymous [hes been here a while ]and the rest of the government shills out of the woodwork fast. At first I thought it was your response but some stupid appology with no accountability didn't seem to fit. I've been following the fight over sovereignty of the native land,assimilation ,the pipeline and resistance to the tribal council's government butt boys for a while . Thats why I was surprised at Bills stab at the silent no more movement I was under the impression that they were interconected with the action camp somehow. As you said dont bet your homestead that there will be any accountability for past acts or current abuses without direct action on a large scale by the people. Anywho keep up the good work ,and give em hell. I have some reading to do . Peace to you. Douglas Benson

Bill Annett January 9, 2013 2:37 pm (Pacific time)

I see the TRC and the United Church of Canada are drenching the comments section with their revelations, which are in the same categoiry as the Prime Minister's milksop "apology" in June 2008. He appears to apologize for something that sounds like a Sunday School picnic gone wrong. Not once do any of them mention the sodomy, rape, medical experimentation and murder of upwards of 50,000 children who never graduated from 121 charnel houses across Canada. They succeed only in lulling the Canadian public back to sleep, confident that the "Indian problem" of yesteryear has been taken care of. It continues today, all of the sickening child-trafficking, disappearing women and one-way rides emanating from the skidrows of Canadian cities.

Bill Annett January 9, 2013 2:28 pm (Pacific time)

A further point, Doug. No one is criticizing the idea of a movement such as "Idle No More," regardless of its origin. Kevin never met a demonstration he didn't like, and that goes for me, old bastard that I am. It's just that the seeming objective of trashing Bill C-45 is fine, but the fact is that it is only a formalized statement of what the "Crown" and the Federal Government have been able to do already for the past 300 years. The medieval Indian Act should be abolished, the "Crown" along with it, and a new era should begin with the 1.3 million natives living above the 49th Parallel and the 30 million "white" Canadians living side by side, as was intended by the original Two-Row Wampum Treaty of 1613, within a Canadian Republic. Don't bet your homestead on it happening any time soon. But it's worth idling over nevertheless. And in the process, the white man's creation of "elected" AFN chiefs should be abolished at the same time.

Bill Annett January 9, 2013 2:18 pm (Pacific time)

Doug, there are four websites listed above following Kevin's biog. You can start educating yourself about the situation in Canada by reading them. They include what happened to Reverend Kevin Annett, summarizing the 400 pages of research he compiled over a 20 year period, and the full link to his award-winning feature film "Unrepentant." His book "Disrobing The Emperor," and the earlier "Love and Death In The Valley," are both available on amazon at a fraction of their original price. If you will re-read his article above, you will understand the true nature of traditional native people and their government payrolled AFN chiefs in Canada today.If you want to learn more, email me at bilko23@gmail.com.

Researching the story January 9, 2013 1:03 pm (Pacific time)

Intro to the report { http://www.attendancemarketing.com/~attmk/TRC_jd/ResSchoolHistory_2012_02_24_Webposting.pdf }: December 31, 2011
The Parties of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
To the Parties,
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is pleased to submit this Report on the
history, purpose, operation, and supervision of the residential school system, the effect and
consequences of the system, and its ongoing legacy, as required by the Commission’s mandate.
This Report was prepared in compliance with the Commission’s obligation to prepare such a Report
at the two-year point of its mandate. However, it has had to have been written without a review of
government and church documents, as the Commission has experienced significant delays in the
collection and receipt of those documents. In addition, the gathering of statements from survivors
and those otherwise involved in the schools is ongoing. The Commission anticipates that once an
analysis of those documents and statements has been compiled, more historical information will
become available. Based on that and its ongoing research, the Commission will be submitting a
fuller and more detailed report, along with a complete set of recommendations, at the completion
of its full five-year mandate.
Yours respectfully,
Justice Murray Sinclair
Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Anonymous January 9, 2013 1:01 pm (Pacific time)

The "They Came for the Children" report is in the public domain. Anyone may, without charge or request for permission, reproduce all or part of this report. 2012 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
1500-360 Main Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3C 3Z3
Telephone: (204) 984-5885
Toll Free: 1-888-872-5554 (1-888-TRC-5554)
Fax: (204) 984-5915
Email: info@trc.ca
Website: www.trc.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
They came for the children : Canada, Aboriginal peoples, and residential schools.

Researching the story January 9, 2013 12:56 pm (Pacific time)

http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/policies/1998/a623

1998 {a Partial Quote}: "As Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada's First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry.To those individuals who were physically, sexually, and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused.We know that many within our church will still not understand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this horrendous period in Canadian history. But the truth is, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors, and therefore, we must also bear their burdens....We are in the midst of a long and painful journey as we reflect on the cries that we did not or would not hear, and how we have behaved as a church. As we travel this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation, and healing, we commit ourselves to work toward ensuring that we will never again use our power as a church to hurt others with attitudes of racial and spiritual superiority. We pray that you will hear the sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living out of our apology in our actions in the future. The Right Rev. Bill Phipps, Moderator of The United Church of Canada"
http://www.united-church.ca/aboriginal/schools/faq/agreement

Douglas Benson January 9, 2013 8:35 am (Pacific time)

I just asked why the stab at those that are taking direct action Bill. I seemed like he doesnt support them. I support them ,I gave to the Unis'tot'en group and if I could get into Canada I would be honored to physically support them as well [pesky little legal trouble in my youth prevents that ]. I do think that assimilation matters but working with what you have is important too. If you think I have no bruises you are dead wrong . Organizing is about A.E.O.[agitate ,educate ,organize] Now that I've agitated you ,educate me. I want to learn. There are very few Americans who even know about the native struggle in Canada and the current fights both within and without the native community. A while back I got a survey call about the new terminal they want to build here. When they got to the part where they said the national tribal council supports this I called bullshit. The survey taker was caught off gaurd when I demonstrated that I knew of the fight and the survey ended .That pesky internet ,LOL. Anywho I was just saying that fighting against those taking action is counterproductive, you should be assimilating them back into the tribe [at least those that arent bought and paid for to betray ]. Peace Douglas Benson

Bill Annett January 8, 2013 2:14 pm (Pacific time)

My son does not criticize the people, he points out the truth of payroll Indians (the AFN chiefs) who serve the agenda of the source of their munificent income - the Federal colonial government. Nor does he pontificate. He has simply laid his livelihood, his family and his life on the line for 20 years figting impossible odds for truth and justice for indigenous people everywhere. The pipeline "fight" should be for all of us, not just natives. You may not think assimilation matters, but that's exactly what native people are striving to resist, even though it is a stacked deck against them, as Kevin points out. Show me YOUR emotional, financial and physical bruises, sonny, before you criticize Reverend Kevin Annett.

Douglas Benson January 8, 2013 12:45 pm (Pacific time)

You have some pretty strong words for the Idle no more crowd . While you pontificate they are fighting the pipeline and others that destroy the lands. I dont care how assimulated they have become fighting for the land is as native as its going to get . Can you explain your stab at the Unis'tot'en actions and others ? Peace Douglas Benson

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