Two non-Indigenous lawyers seek to undermine the Law Society of British Columbia’s (“LSBC”) mandatory Indigenous Intercultural Course, by questioning the established facts about residential school burial sites through a resolution proposed at the upcoming 2024 LSBC Annual General Meeting. The resolution not only disregards the testimonies of residential school survivors about burial sites and undermines their credibility, but also undermines the integrity of our profession and its work done to date to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.
In this blog post, we’ll provide information about Resolution 3 presented that will be voted on at the upcoming Annual General Meeting of the LSBC, discuss the importance of the Indigenous Intercultural Course, and share details about the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
We call on all members of the LSBC to vote against this resolution. Advance voting is open and will continue until September 23, 2024, at 4:30 pm PDT.
Challenging Resolution 3: Upholding the Truth in the Indigenous Intercultural Course
The proposed resolution resolves that:
- a) the Membership affirms its commitment to having factually correct material in all of its training documents and
- b) the Law Society correct its false statements in the Indigenous Training by replacing: “discovery of an unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds”.
with:
“discovery of a potentially unmarked burial site on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds.”
and by deleting the passage:
“the discovery confirms what survivors have been saying all along.”
The resolution suggests that the Indigenous Intercultural Course includes “falsehoods”. It also overlooks the broader history and context of the residential school system in Canada and seek to silence or discredit survivors who have long reported the existence of such burial sites.
Understanding the 215 Unmarked Graves at Kamloops Residential School
On May 27, 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announced its preliminary finding of 215 unmarked graves at the former residential school grounds. The findings are consistent with stories told by Elders and survivors about children disappearing.
Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc continues to investigate the site in accordance with its laws and traditions. The investigation remains confidential to ensure its integrity. However, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc says there were ‘anomalies’ found by the ground penetrating radar specialist at the site of the former residential school.[1] The term anomalies is used to reflect what ground penetrating radar can detect, which are disturbances in the soil that look different, or anomalous, from the surrounding soil.[2] Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc further states that the investigative findings of these anomalies align with the presence of unmarked burials.[3]
Residential school denialists are exploiting this nuanced change in language as an opportunity to argue that no graves were discovered at the former residential school sites. Scholars, Sean Carleton and Reid Gerbrant, define residential school denialism as the act of minimizing or distorting facts about residential schools and their legacy to shake public confidence in truth and reconciliation.[4] They highlight the emergence of a growing narrative regarding the “mass grave hoax,” which is the idea that media, the federal government and First Nations conspired to create a “hoax” to provoke and guilt Canadians into caring about Indigenous peoples and reconciliation.[5]
As we know, residential schools were an insidious aspect of the colonial project in British Columbia and throughout Canada. The Kamloops Indian Residential School was operational from 1890 until 1969 (after which it became a day school until 1978). It was one of the largest residential schools with First Nation’s children who were forced to attend from communities across British Columbia. Understanding this history of residential schools in Canada, and listening to and believing survivors, is an essential first step towards the acknowledgement of the lived experiences of First Nations and its impact.
The Importance of the Indigenous Intercultural Course
The LSBC’s Indigenous Intercultural Course was in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.[6] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action[7] are intended to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance reconciliation. The Calls to Action form part of the broader work by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and call upon the federal, provincial, and municipal governments to work towards reconciliation with Indigenous people in Canada.[8]
Call to Action #27 specifically calls upon Canadian law societies to ensure that all lawyers have received appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools. The Indigenous Intercultural Course seeks to increase the Indigenous cultural awareness and understanding of lawyers. It is an important step towards ensuring the profession meets the Calls to Action.
The LSBC has released a statement clarifying that suggestions to the Indigenous Intercultural course can be made by email. Further, that any member of the LSBC can propose a resolution and that the views in the resolution are not those of the Law Society.
Conclusion
As we approach the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day on September 30th, it is imperative that the legal profession take a stand against residential school denialism and advocate for the voices and lived experiences of First Nations people who were forced to attend residential schools. This resolution offers us pause to sit and consider how we can do that not only in relation to this resolution, but as part of our daily lives as well.
____________________
The authors wish to thank JFK Associate Mae Price for her editorial work on this blog post.
[1] [1] Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, “Offices Closed on May 23 for Day of Reflection” (18 May 2024), online: <https://tkemlups.ca/offices-closed-on-may-23-for-day-of-reflection/>.
[2] Haley Lewis, “Residential school searches: What is ground-penetrating radar?” (11 Sept 2023), online: <https://globalnews.ca/news/9942656/residential-schools-ground-penetrating-radar/>.
[3] Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, “Reflections on the Third Anniversary of Le Estcwicwéy̓ (the Missing)” (27 May 2024), online: <https://tkemlups.ca/reflections-on-the-third-anniversary-of-le-estcwicwey%cc%93-the-missing/> .
[4] Reid Gerbrant and Sean Carlton, Debunking the “Mass Grave Hoax”: A Report on Media Coverage and Residential School Denialism in Canada (2023), online: <https://chrr.info/resource/debunking-debunking-the-mass-grave-hoaxa-report-on-media-coverage-andresidential-school-denialism-in-canada/>.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Law Society of British Columbia, “Indigenous Intercultural Course” (2024), online: <https://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/for-lawyers/professional-development/indigenous-intercultural-course/>.
[7] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action (2015), online: <https://nctr.ca/records/reports/>.
[8] To date, very few Calls to Action were completed, as written about by Eva Jewell and Ian Mosby in Calls to Action Accountability: A 2023 Status Update on Reconciliation – Yellowhead Institute.