Reconciliation or Misallocation

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the millions already to the band to recover suspected children’s graves as part of the Liberal government’s reconciliation efforts were instead spent to pay publicists and consultants.

The Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations even tried to conceal the financial records under the Access To Information Act.

These funds began flowing soon after the May 27, 2021, announcement by band Chief Rosanne Casimir that “… with the help of a ground penetrating radar [GPR] specialist, the stark truth of … the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School…. We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify.”

Not only has Chief Casimir refused to document the contents of this “knowing” or to release the GPR findings as she initially promised. She even failed to mention that GPR is only reliable when employed in known and named cemeteries.

The original assertion that 215 remains were found was soon temporarily revised to 200 “potential burials” when it was discovered that previous archeological work had been done in the same area that easily could have been misinterpreted as burial remains.

This was accompanied by a statement from Casimir that the remains were not found in a “mass grave,” as initially reported by many media houses. But Casimir herself later retracted this correction at an Assembly of First Nations Annual General Assembly.

This retraction may help explain why no attempt has been made to recover any human remains.

Indeed, whether to dig or not has been one of the most fraught questions surrounding the issue of unmarked graves at residential schools. No consensus has emerged among former Kamloops boarding school students, with some seeing exhumation as a process that could help lay victims properly to rest, while others wanted them left undisturbed.

The band’s leadership upheld the lack of excavation even though “14 major families within the community made it known to Casimir early on that an excavation of the orchard site should begin as soon as possible,” according to investigative journalist Terry Glavin.

None of the many unknowns about the alleged burials, especially the absence of any human remains, prevented funds from flowing to the band based on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2021 pledge to “make amends” for past injustices with unspecified compensation.

“The department is ready to flow funds,” said a 2021 staff email at the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations. “Timelines are for Tk’emlups to determine. Needs can shift even if they haven’t figured everything out and the conversation is ongoing. There is no deadline.”

Funding is now in overdrive even though the band began officially referring to the 215 GPR hits as “anomalies” – soil disturbances of unknown origin – rather than confirmed graves in May 2024, three years after their original announcement.

The Kamloops Indian Band has received more than $12.1 million in funding for field work and recovery of burial remains. None of this money has been spent on physical recovery.

The Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations questioned the Kamloops group on what “archaeological and forensic work” was underway.

“We are not seeking to intervene in this matter but are trying to understand the approach,” wrote Mandy McCarthy, acting director general with the department, who questioned whether “you have all the information you need to advance exhumation protocols and DNA testing.”

The department censored all details of what became of the $12.1 million. However, the First Nations Health Authority that transferred $2.3 million in federal funding to Kamloops Band organizers did itemize partial expenses for nine months.

Costs included $37,500 for “marketing and communications,” $54,000 in travel, $100,000 as six month’s pay for two trauma counsellors, and $405,000 in “administrative costs,” including speaking fees and tent rentals. None involved fieldwork to identify graves.

In a censored bookkeeping entry Community Support Funding Envelope, the department said the band hired 25 unknown consultants to “provide advice and support to the Chief and Council” and paid publicists to develop “communications strategies.”

Some $532,000 was paid for security, while other funds were proposed for public works projects, construction and operation of a Healing Centre, a new museum, and funding for an Elder’s Lodge, a nursing home for Indigenous pensioners.

Access To Information records show that proceeds from the graves fund were spent on publicists and consultants. The First Nation also budgeted $3,292,318 to build a monument at the Residential School with Department of Canadian Heritage grants.

The community also requested funding to modernize Indian Residential School buildings for its use. The property was transferred to the band in 1978. The cost of renovations was $40 million, according to documents.

“Annual operating costs are $700,000 plus Tk’emlups spends an average $1 million annually over the last five years on basic upgrades: electric, plumbing, painting, etcetera,” said a staff memo. “A full retrofit to bring buildings up to current health and safety code standards is estimated at $40 million.”

“Tk’emlups has borne the cost of these colonial buildings,” said the memo. “The community has inherited them, and the costs should not be on the shoulders of the community.”

Records show the Kamloops Indian Residential School operated from 1890 to 1978, during which there were no verified accounts of students murdered at or missing from the school. According to a department memo, it grew to a campus of 15 buildings, including a swimming pool and sawmill, student dormitories, and facilities for sports and music programs, including an all-girls’ troupe that went on an international tour in 1964.

Despite all the spending on non-burial issues, in May 2022, Chief Casimir described her band’s approach to the site as an ongoing “exhumation to memorialization process,” which would involve finding evidence of remains and linking them to the students’ home communities.

On June 26, 2024, Casimir repeated that the investigation is still ongoing, but the steps are being kept confidential to preserve the investigation’s integrity.

The Blacklock’s Reporter revelations suggest little or nothing except perhaps some archival work has been done on the excavation or forensic side of her band-led investigation.

Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology, University of Manitoba, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.