09/30/2026
Today is Orange Shirt Day, and this year we are feeling like truth and reconciliation is headed in reverse. We see Rebel news selling hate filled shirts and making profit from it. We see white supremacist groups gathering asking where are the bones. We see the comments sections blowing up with hate filled comments we have not seen in years.
So let's talk about it.
First, the proof was never only in the ground. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified about 3,200 children who died at residential schools, and said the real number is higher. In 1945, kids in these schools were dying at nearly five times the rate of other Canadian children. Those numbers came from the government's and churches' own records and have been confirmed as evidence.
Just last September, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation verified another 1,143 names of Children.
Unequivally THERE HAVE BEEN REMAINS OF FIRST NATION CHILDREN FOUND AT RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS.
Muscowequan, Saskatchewan: in 1992, construction crews accidentally uncovered the remains of nearly 20 children.
Dunbow Industrial School, Alberta: riverbank erosion exposed 34 graves, which were exhumed and reburied.
Qu'Appelle (Lebret), Saskatchewan: the Saskatchewan Coroners Service confirmed a jawbone fragment belonged to a child aged four to six, about 125 years old.
Fort Resolution, NWT (St. Joseph's Mission)
Ground penetrating radar found nothing at first. But the Elders kept saying Mission Island was the place to look. Deninu Kųę́ First Nation brought in cadaver dogs, excavated, and found burials. Five children and two adults, and they say it's "just the beginning." Since then, little Alma Beaulieu, who died at the school at age five, has been brought home to rest beside her mom in Fort Smith. Alice Abel and Denise Boucher went home to Łútselk'e this summer. The Elders were right.
Here at home, at Chooutla in Carcross, archival researchers verified 33 student deaths and ground penetrating radar identified 15 potential graves. Researchers said the findings were consistent with the written record and with what Survivors have always told us.
And there are others.
(Photo 2) A photograph showing children carrying a casket in Carcross, Yukon, circa 1930s. (P7538-616, Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada Fonds, General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada)
Is that enough evidence? Many will still say no, which brings us back to another question we are hearing more and more
"So why not just dig?"
Because one school site can hold children from dozens of Nations. Williams Lake First Nation counted 48 Nations whose kids went to St. Joseph's Mission. Every one of those Nations has its own laws and ceremonies for caring for the dead. Coming together on whether to disturb a child's resting place is governance and love at work. Some families want answers. Some want their babies left in peace. Both are sacred.
Then there's the archives, the forensics, and the DNA matching with living relatives. Experts say this is a 30 to 40 year journey.
"What have they been doing with all the money?"
In 2024, Ottawa tried to cap search funding at $500,000 a year, down from $3 million, an 86 per cent cut. It reversed course only after Nations and Survivors pushed back. In 2025 it ended funding for the National Advisory Committee that guides community searches.
This year, the Grassy Narrows search team was denied funding.
You cannot demand the evidence and defund the search in the same breath.
What coming home looks like.
Percy Onabigon was taken from Long Lake First Nation as a young boy and buried 1,200 km away. His family searched for decades. Last year they brought him home to rest beside his sisters. That is what this work is for.
Denialism is growing, and Kimberly Murray put it plainly: it's a "uniquely non-Indigenous problem." So if you're not Indigenous, this part is on you. Read her report. Read the TRC. Learn before you scroll past.
A few things we are urging people to think about this September 30th
Over 11,000 Canadian soldiers are named on the Vimy Memorial with no known grave. Has anyone asked us to dig up France before believing they died?
Canada spent years searching for the lost Franklin ships and found them with the help of Inuit oral history. Why is our knowledge trusted when it finds British sailors, but doubted when it points to our children?
At Treblinka, archaeologists searched without disturbing the ground, out of respect for Jewish law. The world accepted that. Why is respect for our laws called a cover up?
And honestly, whose grief has to be proven with bones?
Every child matters. Not as a slogan. As a standard.
