Canada squandered approximately $8 million in an endeavour to uncover the purported “heartbreaking truth” behind the mass graves or unmarked graves at the Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia. However, the outcome of this extensive effort revealed a surprising twist – there were no bodies recovered at all, rendering the entire scandal a hoax.
Carolane Gratton from the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations disclosed that substantial funding was utilized for various activities such as fieldwork, records searches, and securing the school grounds. Despite these efforts, no human remains have been unearthed as reported by the Western Standard.
The controversy erupted in 2021 when the First Nation announced the discovery of 215 children’s graves on the school premises, sparking widespread international condemnation of Canada and its residential school system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even visited the site with a teddy bear in a symbolic gesture of compassion, declaring, “What happened decades ago isn’t part of our history, it is an irrefutable part of our present.”
However, the revelation that there were no remains cast a shadow over the entire narrative. Moreover, the allocation of the substantial funds remains shrouded in mystery.
In 2021, Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the Tk’Emlups Te Secwe’Pemc, expressed profound sorrow, stating, “An unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented.” She emphasised the community’s knowledge of the issue, which they sought to validate. Efforts were made to correlate documentation from old archives and engage in dialogue with local communities to reconcile government records.
By 2022, doubts about the existence of a “mass unmarked grave” emerged as no evidence supporting the claim had surfaced despite extensive funding and research efforts. A spokesperson for Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc confirmed the absence of remains and the lack of excavation activities.
Jacques Rouillard, a professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal, questioned the absence of any discovered bodies after months of scrutiny and condemnation. He queried, “Where are the remains of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School?”