Image by Ken Favrholdt from this article he wrote on the history of the Kamloops Indian Residential School This has not been an easy thing to confront about Canada’s history, that this country was founded upon acts of genocide against indigenous peoples. In 2015 the TRC was really the first official body to declare that Canada’s colonial policies amounted to cultural genocide, and four years later the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children came out and finally said it: …the information and testimonies collected by the National Inquiry provide seriousreasons to believe that Canada’s past and …

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The great shadow of North American history I think is that settlers know deep down that we don’t belong here. The idea of “settling” the west was predicated on the continent being cleansed of its original inhabitants. This happened in a number of ways. There was outright murder perpetuated by war, disease and neglect. There were treaties which ripped people from their territories and bound the loyalties of indigenous people to the Crown rather than their own laws. There was the residential school system which had as its goal the “education” and “civilization” of indigenous children such that they would …

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