Make sorry meaningful

The bodies of 215 children in unmarked graves has tarnished Canada’s reputation. It certainly does not fit our goal to be a country of “peace, order, and good government.”

Kamloops Residential School recorded only 51 student deaths. If the burial ground is where all the students that died there are buried, that means 164 children died without proper records being kept.

Chief Harvey Mcleod of the Upper Nicola Band who attended Kamloops Indian Residential School told CTV News that when schoolmates disappeared, they were simply never spoken of again.

“I just remember that they were here one day and they were gone the next,” he said.

Someone dug the graves. Someone put the bodies in the graves. But apparently no one bothered to record the deaths of these children. Recording deaths is a grim task, but it is essential, it is kindness, it is one of the most basic dignities we can give to a human being. Murderers are given reduced sentences if they reveal where they left the body. In wartime, great efforts are made to identify and bury not only your own dead, but also the dead enemy.

These children, these families, didn’t get that.

Unrecorded deaths of children in the care of a church means that people of faith (or those pretending to have faith) failed to follow even the most basic instructions found in the Christian Bible (Matthew 7:12 and 22:39,) of doing unto others, and loving others, as we love ourselves. As Charles Adler said, the people who did this took Christ out of Christian.

The official apology for residential schools in 2008 was done on behalf of the government and was a huge step in the right direction.

I think this discovery of 215 unmarked graves has the potential for each of us, no matter the kind of Canadian we are, to realize more fully what was apologized for. Maybe residential schools and the Indian Act are why Canadians are famous for saying “sorry.”

We just didn’t know what we were sorry for until now.

If we walk with our Indigenous neighbours and communities that are grieving this discovery without judgment or defensiveness, if we are willing to address this and hold people accountable, Canada has an opportunity to mature as a country.

Ignoring violence, disorder, and the damage that can occur from bad government is something to be sorry for.

It is time to make “sorry” meaningful by truthfully, accountably, and honestly coming to terms with our government’s dealings with Indigenous Canadians.

Peace, order and good government is a worthy mission statement for a country and we need to work toward that ideal.