Talk:Canadian Indian residential school gravesites

Article scope

I believe much of the conflict around this article can be explained by the fundamentally different conceptions of its scope held by different editors.

In my view, it is uncontroversial that students died whilst attending these institutions, and were buried either in graveyards on the grounds, or in local cemeteries. That fact is simply not notable, or at least not notable enough for a standalone article.

What is notable, and what spawned this article in 2021, was the purported discovery of thousands of never-marked graves across Canada at the sites of former IRS. These discoveries caused an uproar.

I believe we should be clear that this article covers unmarked child graves of the kind reported upon at Kamloops in 2021. Otherwise, this article will essentially just list graveyards and former graveyards across Canada. Riposte97 (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

• The previous lead was a lot more clear that it was talking about unmarked graves and provided more context as to their notability from the body; and there's clearly enough coverage to make it notable. I think we should probably broadly revert the lead back to the old version and work from there. --Aquillion (talk) 17:07, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I've started to try to focus things, starting with the Background section. Happy to discuss any of those changes. Will move on to the rest tomorrow. Riposte97 (talk) 12:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Riposte97 You really need to self-revert these changes which severely harm the WP:NPOV of the article. I would but I am on mobile until to

tomorrow and the app doesn't handle multi-edit reverts well. please stop and build consensus for such dramatic reductions of the weight given to the truth and reconciliation commission. Simonm223 (talk) 13:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Someone beat me to it. Will discuss below. Riposte97 (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Changes reverted

I have reverted the recent mass removals of content by Riposte97 which did not have consensus and which removed large amounts of relevant, properly sourced, and in scope content, and I have also restored the lede prior to their similar mass deletions from it last week. This article is about gravesites at Canadian Indian Residential Schools, both known and unmarked/undiscovered/suspected, and controversy about the ways in which there came to be children's graves at residential schools in the first place. It is not only about the controversy over the discoveries since 2021, and never has been. Deleting the known history of IRS burials does not make the article "more neutral", it just erases relevant history and background. Please discuss your proposed changes, and note that consensus means discussing your proposed changes and coming to an agreement among all editors with significant viewpoints, not ignoring opposing viewpoints and plowing on in spite of disagreement. Riposte97, it has become quite clear that you are repeatedly trying to remove neutral information and add inappropriately sourced opinions downplaying the significance of these events, as evidenced quite clearly by your repeated attempts to force in an inappropriately-sourced and provably false narrative that there are no bodies (e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4]) and removing sources that don't conform with that false statement. If you do not stop this, I will seek to have you banned from the topic. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• I for one thought Riposte97's edits were a significant improvement and a thoroughly decent good-faith attempt at implementing the discussions we've had on this page, and completely reject your characterisation of their work on this article. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 15:07, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

  Starting a thread on revamping the page back to a less neutral form on the day of a Canadian long weekend, when most interested editors are likely not on Wikipedia, then taking no responses over two and a half days as carte blanche to begin said less-neutral edits is not best practice. Simonm223 (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

  We've had a few discussions which can be used to inform the direction of this article going forward. Reverting to a version of the article I think we all agree is deeply flawed is not productive. Riposte97's edits are a step in the right direction, and in my view made the article substantially more neutral by removing shoddily-sourced material and tightening up the exposition. They don't need to be perfect on the first pass. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 03:29, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  I vehemently disagree. Simonm223 (talk) 13:50, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: threats of that nature are rarely justified, and are not at all appropriate in this instance. My edits of yesterday deliberately didn't touch the issue of whether bodies had actually been found. All I did was remove poorly sourced, inaccurate, and irrelevant material from the 'background' section. I believe I left its core claims intact - for example, that the T&RC called the system a cultural genocide. In any case, I will review the edits I made one-by-one and post them here for discussion. Riposte97 (talk) 22:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Background section

A series of threads to determine consensus on changing this section. Riposte97 (talk) 06:04, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraphs 1 and 2 - These paragraphs currently read:

A network of boarding schools for Indigenous children was funded by the Canadian government, and administered by Catholic and Anglican churches across the country. It was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children and forcefully assimilate them into the colonial Canadian culture.

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation determined in 2015 that the explicit government policy of the forced assimilation amounted to cultural genocide, years before the unmarked graves were confirmed nationwide, but the confirmation of deaths set off a wave of grief in the survivors and forced the rest of the nation to acknowledge the enduring wrongs of its colonial past.

I propose changing that to:

The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding and day schools for Indigenous children funded by the Canadian government, and administered by Catholic and Anglican churches across the country. It was created to remove and isolate Indigenous children and forcefully assimilate them into Canadian society, in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015 called a 'cultural genocide.'

This change preserves all the core claims, but makes them more concise. It notably changes 'colonial Canadian culture' to 'Canadian society'. I think that reads as less POV. It also omits the phrase 'the confirmation of deaths set off a wave of grief in the survivors and forced the rest of the nation to acknowledge the enduring wrongs of its colonial past'. Whatever one thinks about the accuracy and neutrality of that phrase (and I have some questions) it clearly belongs in a different section. It is not background. Riposte97 (talk) 06:08, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraphs 3 and 4 - These paragraphs currently read:

The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. Many Indigenous children died at residential schools, mostly from disease or fire. Peter Bryce, chief medical officer for Indian affairs, reported in 1907 that up to a quarter of all children who attended residential schools died. He reviewed tuberculosis cases and estimated that the mortality rate at these schools was more than eighteen times the rate of school-aged Canadians in general. Anti-tuberculosis antibiotics became widely used in the 1950s, which led to a decline in the incidence of the disease. Children died in huge numbers in the residential school system for over a century "and those who had the power to prevent these deaths did little to stop it."The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either.

Few school cemeteries are explicitly documented, but given when the schools operated and how long, most likely had a cemetery. Some were once officially associated with a school but then were overgrown and abandoned after the school closed, while others may have been unmarked burial sites even when the school was in operation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report confirmed ir had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, but chairman Murray Sinclair estimated total deaths were more realistically between 6,000 to 25,000.

I propose changing that to:

The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report confirmed it had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, mostly from disease. The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either. Murray Siclair, who chaired the Commission, speculated that the true number of deaths could be anywhere between 6,000 and 25,000. Some of the students who died at the schools were buried in graveyards on the school grounds, or nearby.

This change removes a lot of redundant information and imprecise wording. It also removes a paraquote attributed to Peter Bryce, sourced to an opinion piece in The Walrus. Given the earlier contentiousness of relying on the Spiked opinion piece, it might be productive to agree to leave opinion pieces and polemics aside for the time being. More importantly, however, the one-quarter death rate quoted is contradicted by the National Post story cited in that same paragraph. Therefore, even if the quote merely refers to a particular year (which is not made clear), it conflicts with a better source.

My proposal also cuts away the lengthy detour into tuberculosis. The tuberculosis points do not provide any context either to the overall mortality rate in the schools, nor into the operation of the schools across time.

Finally, I cut much of the discussion about cemeteries in the fourth paragraph. The first sentence in that paragraph is attributed to a really unusual unpublished source. It also seems to contradict several other sources, which claim that local Indigenous people often well knew where school dead were buried. The claim that some graveyards were unmarked from their inception is unsourced, and enormously contentious, as it might imply that deaths were hidden. I do retain the estimate of Mr. Murray, as this is clearly relevant. Riposte97 (talk) 06:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Paragraph 5 - Currently reads:

An effort to fully document the children who never returned home from the schools remains ongoing. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 1,953 children, 477 of whom require additional investigation and an additional 1,242  known to have died but whose names are not yet known. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) conducted further review of the records added an additional 471 students to the memorial. This number was expected to climb as additional work was conducted. In total the register contains information about 4,126 children. It contains only the names of students who attended schools covered by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) and does not include students who died while attending day schools or other non-IRSSA schools.

I propose cutting this entirely. It has gone through several revisions, but currently it adds very little to the core attempts to estimate/quantify the number of deaths at the schools. It uses confusing POV language - 'never came home' when 'died' is apparently meant, even though never came home != died. It makes reference to some kind of memorial, which is not explained. It makes reference to a 'register' which is similarly not explained. The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement should probably have its own paragraph later in the article. Riposte97 (talk) 06:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support changes to paragraphs 1–2, and 3–4 with qualifications (undecided on paragraph 5) – However, the statement "The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either." should be retained in some form, as it is uncontroversial, well-sourced, and important context. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 06:40, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  Happy to reinsert that. Done in bold above. Riposte97 (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  You're trying to trim back the information about the genocide and you put genocide in scare quotes in the proposed revision. To start. Simonm223 (talk) 12:06, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose all proposed edits These would represent systematic damage to the WP:NPOV of the article. Simonm223 (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Simonm223: Would you mind explaining what in my proposed edits is POV? Riposte97 (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose totally Any removal of tuberculosis is a complete whitewash. Knowingly/forcefully sending kids to schools with known pre-existing outbreaks, causing huge numbers of preventable deaths, is probably the biggest single cause of preventable deaths. This is absolutely massive. Children didn't just die of disease they died of *preventable* disease (preventable by the people in charge at the time, with the knowledge possessed at the time). Lots of people died from TB and other diseases in the past. There wouldn't have been anything special about it, except for the fact it was preventable. --Rob (talk) 02:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  Hmm well perhaps we can add a new paragraph about tuberculosis - my proposal can be built upon after all. However, we'd need some RS that say the TB deaths were preventable. If you can find that, I’m happy to draft up a new TB paragraph to slot in. Riposte97 (talk) 03:40, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  There isn't any serious scholarly debate. TB is infectious, if you put lots of people together, close to each other, with poor sanitary conditions, and some have TB, others will catch it. The RS's have been prevelent, since at least 1907. In 2021 [Lena Faust, a PhD student at the McGill International TB Centre in Montreal, and Courtney Heffernan, manager of the Tuberculosis Program Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Alberta reiterated this point here. There's a CBC story about research. There has been a mountain of research, substantial litigation, settlements, and the TRC findings. There's this story of how unpasteurized milk, often produced on site, was the source of TB in some residential schools. Another easily preventable cause. The government and church's have actually acknowledged fault in all of this. I've given a tiny sampling of available sources, based on quick Google searches. Frankly, I don't think any body in Canada, acting in good faith, making the slightest effort to be informed, doesn't know this already. --Rob (talk) 04:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Rob Thanks for finding those. Perhaps my good faith can be salvaged by the fact that I am not in Canada. I live in Australia.

  Again, I am not opposed to inserting a paragraph about the poor management of TB in the early 20th century. Regarding the sources you have pulled together, the first is very high quality. It seems to lay most of the blame at a lack of public and institutional awareness about TB outbreaks. The second is a little less sound in my eyes. It's appears to be a news story reporting on an op-ed. I don't think I've ever seen that before, and I don't think I approve. The CBC story is reporting on unpublished research, but seems to be pretty good. The milk article relates only to one school, so lets leave that aside for now.

  How would you feel about revising paragraph 3/4 to:

  The residential school system ran for over 120 years; the last school closed in 1997. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report confirmed it had found records of 3,201 deaths at the schools, mostly from disease. Particularly deadly was tuberculosis, of which there were repeated outbreaks in the early 20th Century. In the close confines of the residential school dormitories, conditions were ideal for the spread of the disease. The Bureau of Indian affairs made a policy decision not to return the children's bodies to their families, citing cost, and frequently didn't notify them of their deaths either. Murray Siclair, who chaired the Commission, speculated that the true number of deaths could be anywhere between 6,000 and 25,000. Some of the students who died at the schools were buried in graveyards on the school grounds, or nearby.

  Or some variation? Do you have any objections to the rest of the proposal? Riposte97 (talk) 09:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  You seem to be going out of your way to imply the TB deaths were just a thing that happened. If the article is to be changed, it should be made to make much clearer how deaths were caused by intentional decisions. I gathered the first few Google hits, we can find more. The links aren't to stellar sources, but reference sources. I don't personally have a copy of the 1907 report on paper, or any of the other government reports, or court cases, so I just post some links to point to their existence. I'd be fine with digging up ever more sources, properly citing the original sources, if you had *any* reliable sources refuting complicity in deaths (not just TB deaths), but you have none. You just have a general desire to downplay it.--Rob (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  I’m not really sure where that's coming from. I'm trying to work with you here, not trying to 'downplay' anything - least of all the deaths of children. However, I’m clearly missing something. What is it you want to see in the article? Do you want it to say the TB deaths were negligent? That they were murder? I don't understand what 'complicity' means in this context.

  I also want to note that TB seems to be a huge cause of net mortality, but that it's relatively limited in time, compared with the life of the institutions. Is a standalone TB section implying that the gravesites are primarily associated with the TB epidemics of the 1900s-1930s? Riposte97 (talk) 13:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps we could add "and schools were often under-resourced and could not effectively prevent or treat outbreaks." or something to that effect? I agree that the weight put on tuberculosis should be appropriate to the time period and severity, but I'm not particularly well-versed in the details of either of those aspects of the issue. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

  I'm going to move ahead, taking the above suggestions on board. If any editors want to expand or tweak the TB parts, I'd welcome them building off the above. Riposte97 (talk) 03:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Riposte97: Do not move ahead. There has been significant opposition to the proposed changes. I suggest you refrain from further altering the article without substantial consensus. If you need further opposes in order to see lack of consensus in favor of your changes, let me add my two cents: I oppose. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Pbritti I have taken the constructive comments of opposers into account with the edit. Happy to further revise things. Is there anything in particular which you or others find objectionable in what I have added? If we can agree, at least, that it's an improved foundation to what was there before, then we can build off it. Riposte97 (talk) 03:49, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  Apologies, Riposte97, I've been at an all-day event. Specifically, I'm very concerned regarding the shortened content about mortality rates, which you removed on the grounds of redundancy. This concern is partially for the sake of maximizing readily accessible information and partially due to the previously raised concerns that removing that content could minimize those relevant details. Minimization of those details, particularly in light of the concerns also previously expressed about sources that promoted misleading narratives denying or downplaying the mortality rates, is something I don't want to support. Thanks for being open to discussing this. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  No need at all to apologise. Are you referring to the quotes of Dr. Bryce that were formerly in paragraph 3? By my understanding, those comments referred to TB outbreaks in the early 20th century. Perhaps per Rob's comments above we can craft a paragraph integrating those? Riposte97 (talk) 12:50, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Thivierr: In your remarks you focus on the proposed removal/shortening of tuberculosis-related material. What do you make of the proposed refinements to the lead, since neither version refers to tuberculosis? 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Investigation sections

I propose, as a first step, combining these sections under a new heading. Since they in any case seem to just list the various schools where gravesites have been present, there is little utility to keeping them separate imo. I also think this section should kick off with a paragraph explaining that there is an effort to rediscover and redocument gravesites/graveyards which have been lost to history. That paragraph could perhaps also touch on how these efforts massively ramped up in 2021, with renewed media attention generated by a GPR survey at Kamloops. Riposte97 (talk) 03:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

It might also help to organise the subheadings by province. I will attempt to do that. In the meantime, I am going to remove the unsourced content at the start of the first investigations section and the table - it adds zero. If anyone reverts, please reply to this comment. Riposte97 (talk) 08:11, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

No. Stop making massive changes to this article that weaken the language and narrative around the genocide prior to positive consensus being built. Simonm223 (talk) 12:13, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@Simonm223: which parts of what I cut do you want to retain? Riposte97 (talk) 21:55, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@Riposte97 All pending thorough discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 00:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

IE: before you enact cuts bring them here, individually, and build consensus. Simonm223 (talk) 00:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Editors don't have a right to impose a total prohibition on editing, and then refuse to actually engage in the process they're demanding. You haven't made any comments on the changes other than "no, don't do anything". That's not productive or helpful and dare I say your reversions are actually just becoming disruptive. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 22:46, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@5225C Hardly. the cuts being made violate WP:NPOV by softening description of a genocide. It isn’t disruptive to prevent such POV changes and ask for discussion and consensus building at talk before enacting massive revisions.Simonm223 (talk) 00:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

No, not "hardly". This article is about gravesites, not a genocide. You've asked for discussion, but you haven't engaged in it. Only Pbritti and I have given substantive comments on Riposte97's proposals. There is no mechanism by which an editor can entirely block changes to an article or demand that every change from an arbitrarily chosen version require explicit consensus. That's a claim at WP:OWNership. Either the editors who have problems with the cleanup start actually engaging with the discussions they've asked Riposte97 to start, or we progress to dispute resolution. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:47, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Frankly I find the extent of Riposte's changes overwhelming and don't have sufficient time to devote to just one article to go through thousands of bites of cuts rapidly. The reason for the urgency to cut seems unclear. That is why I want Riposte to bring up these revisions in an orderly manner so they can be properly reviewed. Finally this article is about gravesites that are material evidence of a genocide so your claims that this article is not about genocide are incorrect. Simonm223 (talk) 13:33, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

So far, I have only removed a paragraph with zero citations and a table, the information in which is repeated elsewhere. Reverting changes because you don't have time to properly review them is disruptive. Riposte97 (talk) 21:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

If you don't have the capacity/desire to familiarise yourself and weigh in on the proposed changes, then you probably ought not to be reverting them. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 02:41, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Simonm223: I have now removed the unsourced paragraph and the table. If you have an objection to that, please explain it here. Riposte97 (talk) 21:40, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Investigation contents

I have now arranged this section by province/territory. The next step is to try to rationalise the entries using the latest RS. I will also try to draft a header paragraph which lays out the relevant context. Riposte97 (talk) 10:05, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 June 2024

Ump29 (talk) 16:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC) Indian is now considered a racist term towards the Indigenous people. Please use the term (Indigenous)

Not done: it's used in the title of the article to refer to the WP:COMMONNAME. M.Bitton (talk) 17:05, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@M.Bitton: It is a racist and colonialist term that was used in the legislation that set up the school system and therefore it persists in the historiography. It is in fact considered extremely racist in Canada. People here gasped when I mentioned the French and Indian War once. (turns out that that's the American name, and the name of the war in Canada is something else). Since this is about the racist school system with the racist name, we are probably stuck with it in the title, but the IP is correct. The commonname in Canada is "Indigenous". We can go full RfC on this if necessary, but let's not do that. I am asking you to take another look at this. Elinruby (talk) 09:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I understand, but there are many colonial terms that are used as common names in Wikipedia and it's not really my call to change them. You're more than welcome to start a WP:RM. M.Bitton (talk) 11:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

M.Bitton I see your point but I am not sure you see mine. The commonname shouldn't be something that will get you punched. And is the OP even talking about the title of the article? I've been removing it from the body. In any event, I thank you for the second look. And if you are reading the request as applying to the article title you are probably right that there should be an RM. Elinruby (talk) 18:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby: the edit request wasn't clear and I assumed that they are referring to both (they are connected after all). As for the common names, it's not unusual for some people to take offence at some of them and if they feel strongly about them, then RM is probably the best way forward. M.Bitton (talk) 18:48, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

not really worried about the title as it is somewhat defensible given the administrative history. Or more accurately I am more worried about other things. Thanks for looking. Elinruby (talk) 18:51, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Aha the instances of the word "Indian" have gone from zero to 87 in the past few weeks. This has been managed by removing Indigenous names and reorganizing the article as a list of schools for which the colonial name is used. And saying "Bureau of Indian Affairs" as often as possible. Go team Wikipedia. Elinruby (talk) 19:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

I have added the standard note we use across all these articles.... We got to make sure researchers can actually research the topic. Moxy🍁 00:29, 19 June 2024 (UTC)