Dear Editor,

With all due respect to Sandra Barber of Luskville, I am wondering what exactly is her point? Many knowledgeable people have written on the subject of residential schools in Canada and the discoveries of small bodies in graveyards near these schools. In fact, there is an entire report from The Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the subject. Terry Glavin is just one among many. Glavin’s essay has, however, been criticized by his peers for playing with words and selectively choosing what information to include.

Glavin’s theory rests on a quote from a CBC article of July 20, 2021 (he did not interview the source of the quote directly) in which Cowesses Chief Cadmus Delorme stated “This is a Roman Catholic grave site. It’s not a residential school grave site.” He fails to mention that Delorme went on to say in the same article “oral history suggests that up to 75 per cent of those interred at the cemetery are believed to be children who attended Marieval Residential School.” As Robert Jago, who has written a thoughtful response in Canadaland, June 6, 2022, puts it “The supposed error of fact, on which Glavin’s story rests, is the difference between calling something a “residential-school grave site” versus calling it a grave site at a residential school, with residential-school children in it.” A convoluted nuance that in no way contradicts the truth that a great many Indigenous children died and were buried at residential schools.

Even the National Post, the paper where Glavin’s essay was published, felt the need to comment further on Glavin’s article. Stating on June 14, 2022, “The crowded, unsanitary and unsafe conditions of the (residential) schools ensured disease spread rampantly and that they were prone to fires. Students were malnourished and were subject to corporal punishment. Thousands of sexual predators took advantage of the schools, with an estimated 70 per cent of students in some institutions suffering sexual abuse. Erasing Indigenous language and culture was the primary aim of these schools, a particularly insidious goal, especially once attendance became mandatory. Nothing in columnist Glavin’s 5,500-word essay, The Year of the Graves, published by the National Post at the end of May, disputes this history or seeks to diminish it.”

So what is the point of Barber’s letter? Is she disputing that children died, in large numbers, at Canada’s residential schools? Does she feel that the editorial somehow missed something? For me, the editorial nailed exactly how I was feeling about celebrating Canada’s birthday while we have so much to come to terms with about how Indigenous people have been treated in this land.

Sheila McCrindle

Luskville, Que.