Can we discuss those unmarked graves? Expert panel counters the uncritical media narrative about residential schools

In the early years of the residential school system - around the 1890s - approximately one-third of children died before their fifth birthday, retired Manitoba provincial court judge Brian Giesbrecht pointed out. "Death in that time - the death of a child - was not an unusual thing," he noted.

Child mortality at residential schools was not due to mass murder and genocidal intent, he contends, but rather the sad reality that children were susceptible to infectious diseases that were rampant across society during this time. 

Read more >