Talk:Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust

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It would be helpful to mention what exactly the book alleges about the agents of genocide. Of course I've heard the United, Anglican, and Catholic churches mentioned in the context of the eradication and assimilation of aboriginal culture, most notably through residential schools, but never before in the context of genocide. --Saforrest 23:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

The best way to access the alleagtions and evidence is by seeing Kevin's website at:

www.hiddenfromhistory.org

I'm a graduate student at an Alberta university, whose identity needs to remain anonymous because of the harrassment and ostracism that I receive whenever I try to look at the allegations of genocide in Canada. It's strictly a taboo subject in Canadian academia, thanks in part to the tremendous psychological weight the churches hold in Canada, and their capacity to influence academic discourse and public consciousness.

• • • Not sure what you're smoking... tremendous psychological wieght of the churches in Canada? Ya, right. If that were true, same-sex marriage would never have seen the light of day. Could it not be that academics have assessed the evidence Mr. Annett brings and finds it wanting? What you experience as scorn may very well be their assessment that whatever the history of church and aborignals in Canada, genocide is the wrong word to describe it. Assimilation and eradication of culture is one thing, genocide is quite another. One thing is certain - this message will be erased as part of an on-going harrassment Kevin and his supporters engage in every time someone begs to differ with them.

John Milloy of Trent University confirms Rev. Annett's allegation of a fifty percent death rate in western Indian residential schools, in his book "A National Crime". The evidence of these deaths is actually quite extensive, but few academics brave the professional scorn attached to raising this evidence.

"David"

Right on David. I am a second generation survivor of rez schools in Manitoba. I've been reading this whole debate and I think its time people started taking me and my people seriously. When I hear somebody say it didn't happen, the genocide, it's telling me I am a liar and can't be trusted, another dumb indian. It happened all right. It's still happening. My mom saw a little girl beaten to death right in front of her at the brandon rez school by a staffer. Nothing was ever done about it. The kid got buried secretly in a graveyard a mile down the road from the place. The united church has never apologized for that one. It makes me so fucking mad. How dare you white people say this shit never happened. I don't want to see any such shit on this site anymore. Arnold Cardinal

• • • Why was the discussion here deleted? I also need to remain anonymous because of the abuse and harrassment I receive at the hands of Mr. Annett whenever someone posts information which puts his stuff into perspective. First off (if someone would put the stuff back you'd not need to be reading this again) no one doubts the effects of imperialistic residential schools or the churches who tried to Europeanize first-nations people. However, two things always take this off the rails. One - the churches reversed things beginning in the early 1960s by closing residential schools and transfering education to the authority of tribal councils. There has not bee a residential school in operatin for 30 years. Two - to up the rhetoric from anecdotal stories to speak of genocide is simply not helpful. I am sorry if that pisses you off. It also does not mean that the anecdotal stories are untrue or unworthy of exploring. Indeed if evidence can be found to support the anecdotes, then they should be criminally prosecuted, including hold institutions (including churches) vicariously liable. So there are two issues - one is the nature of the damage caused by the churches who tried to Christianize and Europeanize indigenous folk. To call it genocide in the same vein as what happened in the Ukraine in the 1930s, or Rwanda in the 1990s is more than likely the reason why most reputable scholars don't take people like Annett seriously. You may think of it as professional scorn - sorry you feel that way. I don't evaluate it that way.... the facts simply don't raise the ugly histiry (for which the churches are responsible) to the level Annett claims. In this manner, he is the one misleading aboriginal folk by promising to deliver on something the facts will not bear out. And the proof of the pudding? Evry time this gets mentioned, he smears me and erases the content of messages and harrasses in other manners. The proof for me is that even this little paragraph will eventually be erased, because the last thing he wats is actual discussion on this. No wonder reputable scholars find his stuff bogus.

Reply from Kevin Annett, October 29, 2006: Okay, just to clarify things, I have never deleted anything on this site, smears to the contrary (this is the real Kevin Annett speaking). I do understand the frustration of people who are trying to seriously address the evidence of genocide in Canada, when they are confronted with systematic attacks on me personally. Such red-herring methods of "debate" have of course been the scare tactic employed by the United Church and its supporters ever since I was tossed out of the church in March of 1997. Regardless of where one comes down on the issue of my firing and defrocking, I am not the issue here: Genocide is. So I would appreciate it if contributors to this site would stick to the issue and stop slagging me.

Every definition of Genocide contained in Article Two of the UN Convention on Genocide occuured in Indian residential schools in Canada, according to eyewitnesses (348 of them), DIA and church archival material, and even court records from the earliest class action lawsuit brought by survivors in 1996. In his 1998 decision, Supreme Court justice Doug Hogarth referred to the United Church's Alberni residential school as a place of "systemic pedophilia", in response to the United Church's attempt to use the discredited "bad apple" theory of the crimes at the school. Documents from Dr. Peter Bryce of the Ontario Health Commission in 1907 showed that an average 40% to 60% of students in every residential school were dying EVERY YEAR. Similar death rates in the rez schools were reported in 1932, 1949, and 1965. The constancy of this mortality rate indicates a regime of deliberate mass murder, accounting for the disappearance of more than 50,000 children.

Despite the protestations of our home-grown Holocaust deniers, this mortality rate would be enough anywhere in the world to prompt an investigation, scholarly research, and much soul-seeking in the conquering culture. But this is Canada, with no tradition of an independent media or judiciary, state-subsidized churches, and a general climate of racism towards native people that is rarely acknowledged.

So, like I've said to the churches for years now, open your records. Answer a simple question to the suffering relatives of the children killed by your clergy and staff: How did they die, who killed them, and where are they buried?

I've yet to encounter anyone in the churches - or the government - with the moral integrity and courage to answer these questions. Maybe my erstwhile antagonist on this discussion list can get serious for once and address these issues.

thanks, Kevin Annett / Eagle Strong Voice

ps: The best thing to do is to listen to the voices of the eyewitnesses, on my website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org . I interview new witnesses every day, if anyone wants the "proof"; and, by the way, the suggestion that "mere" oral testimony (belittled with the term "anecdotal evidence) is not enough proof of a crime is inaccurate legally. The Delgamuuk Supreme Court decision of 1997 stated that oral traditions and testimony are as valid as written in the settlement of native land claims, and any other issue involving aboriginals (including residential schools). Also, as Robert Jackson, senior US prosecutor at Nuremburg, stated in 1947, "No regime which practices mass murder and genocide can be expected to keep meticulous records of its crimes. In the absence of such normally validating proof, the eyewitness testimonies of the survivors of these crimes must be considered sufficient affirmation of the crimes themselves."

pps: And another thing: the previous commentator is completely inaccurate in his "facts" about residential schools. The last school didn't close in the early 1960's, as he alleges, but in 1984. Most of the schools weren't closed, but transferred to local Indian bands between 1970 and 1975. The legislation to create and run residential schools is still on the books, if you care to read the Indian Act. And as to his statement that it all occured over 30 years ago, there is no statute of limitation on murder, as any lawyer or cop could tell you.

• • It's nice to actually have some debate on this. Not sure where to begin. However, -anecdotal evidence- is not a pejorative term, it is a descriptive term. There is absolutely no argument that the churches and government participated in eradication of culture and language. So let's put that aside as agreed. Where it does dovetail into Mr. Annett's personal story is the claim that he was fired from the church in Port Alberni because of all this. As for Mr. Cardinal's stuff, I for one do not deny the story at all. People like Willie Blackwater have taken their stories to court and won. Perpetrators have gone to jail. One readily admits that there's a huge and unfair burden on those with stories - witness women in transition houses. So Mr. Annett rightly focusses things on the existence of a genocide, which is something more than a program of eradication of culture, like the British tried in India. The problem is that it is asserted as obvious and proved. It is not. The churches very much can be held to account for eradication of culture with iron clad proof. And they are and have been and are paying real money. The troubling thing is that every time mainstream scholarship accepts the obvious and rejects the stuff that cannot be demonstrated like genocide, Annett posits conspiracy, or Mr. Cardinal gets angry. Please note, conspiracy may be true and anger may be justified, but this is simply not in the realm of proof to the point of acceptance. That this acceptance has happened with loss of culture and language is proof that larger society is not as ignorant or controled by elites as you think. Larger society is ready to hear this stuff and prosecute if need be. Please reread the statements above and see if you do not agree - you're asking people to accept proof based on a negative. So it is not the content of what you're advancing which is the problem, it is the method. REREAD THAT AGAIN, IT'S THE NUB OF THE ARGUMENT. Ie. you say that perps seldom save evidence of their crimes, but then turn it around and claim that the lack of evidence proves your case. Tehn - you quote all sorts of evidence. Which is it? Is the evidence there or is it not? This is what is meant by critiquing your methods, while remaining agnostic about the content. So here it sits. For a vast majority of observers who I know are reading this site, the big block to accepting anything associated with Annett is his avoidence of addressing at all his employment record in the churches. Ad to this the constant arguing from the negative, and there it sits. If you really believe in what you're doing, all of this will need to be addressed - this and conspiratorializing anyone who even utters the smallest smidgeon of criticism your way. That's what I mean about the smear campaign from the Annett-camp. The note above is encouraging that there is a window of opportunity for discussion, rather than calling everyone who expresses doubts complicit in murder. Why do you always up the stakes? Are you afraid of dialogue?

• • • Kevin here. Thanks for your comments. Well, your underlying assumption appears to be that the evidence of intentional genocide in Canada has not been proved, and that I am asserting it is a fact in the absence of such proof. Your perspective is culturally relativistic, spoken from the point of view of a "mainstream", and I am assuming, non-aboriginal person, who has had no personal experience of what is being discussed. The truth is that, in the various aboriginal cultures that were targeted for extermination, nothing has to be proved; the fact of their stolen land, depopulated communities, murdered relatives and shattered personal lives is proof enough of genocide. In that regard, it is disappointing that you avoided answering any of the points I raised in my first email, regarding the veracity of eyewitness testimony in any credible investigation of genocide. The fact is, no such investigation has yet occurred in Canada because of the culturally-based myopia expressed in your article. Christian Genocide isn't genocide to a Euro-Canadian because of its legitimacy, and its masking as something else called "civilization" and "good economics". The problem isn't lack of evidence, but the mindset that sees nothing ultimately wrong with wiping out other people for a "higher good". After all, 98% of the original people of Canada's west coast were exterminated: so why is it so difficult for you to accept that this was genocide? Or do you think that all those people just got a cold one day and died of "natural causes"? Or maybe they all just went away somewhere?
      • This is where you lose people and become unbelievable. First you say all sorts of stuff, expressed as truth, but heavily dependant on circular reasoning and awkward rhetoric. Then you make outrageous claims, like above where you say 98% of people on the west coast were exterminated. Right here you are taking advantage of the tragedy of measles epidemics on the west coast - as if they were wilfully brought upon indigenous peoples. In the 1880s to the early 1900s, yes, about 75% of the aboriginal population of the Victoria area succombed. Are you really suggesting that the medical science of the day could have stopped this? The reality is that immune systems could not handle European maladies. To parlay this into wilfull genocide is where you lose the impact of the argument of cultural assimilation and loss of language. That you cannot see this means that you'll forever be a minority voice, and the good things which you've done will get lost in the inflamed and sloppy rhetoric. Once again it is not the content of what you claim that is the problem, it is the method you choose to advance it. Please read that again, because you seem to think I disagree with you on broad brushstrokes of content I do not. Indeed, you accused me of being insensitive to Mr. Cardinal. I am not insensitive - indeed if someone had not erased the discussion here you would have seen I quite believe the content of what he said, because it matches my own experience. However, I get erased here by claiming that other things need to be proved before the stakes can be upped to the genocide level. Mr. Cardinal has actionable claims within the criminal justice system - yes, I understand fully if he refuses to trust that system, but I also know others have won similar suits based on similar claims. It is the inflamed rhetoric here and in your writings that is the problem, not a first-nations' person's experience. Your rhetoric would not pass muster in an undergraduate sociology course.

To quote Bertrand Russell, "If you tell a man something that confirms his prejudices, you will require no proof of what you allege; but if you tell the same man something that challenges his prejudices, no amount of proof you provide will convince him." That is a good description of the problem of trying to convince "mainstream" Euro-Canadians of the genocidal nature of their religion and culture. Once we find the mass graves from the residential schools and do forensic analysis on them, the final piece of proof will be in place, besides eyewitness testimony and written documentation. That's probably why your friends in the churches and government have been doing their level best destroying that physical evidence, and relying on folks like you to muddy the mental waters with red herring arguments and slanderous attacks on me. In closing, your gross insensitivity to Arnold Cardinal and his pain is typical of your culture. Why don't you try some compassion and understanding towards the people we've slaughtered? Maybe you should try removing the splinter out of your own eye first before noticing the log in mine, to quote the old subversive himself. Kevin Annett

• • • • I will give you one thing. This is the first time I've seen the discussion take place on a reasonable plane. You are quite correct, it is relativistic, but you are not correct about my own background. I have a lot of background in what is being discussed. This is one of the nubs of the question - here we are accusing one another of avoiding each others questions. At least that's a step up from the usual vitriol. The mindset you refer to is at least 40 years old in mainstream culture in the west. One can only laugh at the assertions about the church, ie. that it is still in a culturally dominant position, with culture protecting it from a bad legacy. If anything, tabloid journalism loves to expose the least amount of bad legacy... but then you and I will argue until we're blue in the face on this. However, back to the topic of your book. No, aboriginal people are not in agreement - indeed, it's one of the reasons why you have, in your writings, accused some aboriginals of being sell-outs, if they as individuals say anything other than your party line. Let it be said that extermination of culture and language is a given - indeed, one might even want to make a genocide argument on that. But there is not one aboriginal authority who supports your writings - and the response by you is interesting when that happens - they become sell-outs. Stolen land, depopulated communities, and shattered personal lives are all real elements. I do not say this because of your writings, I agree because of my personal background. No argument here. But to up the ante to the stuff you calim is simply beyond the pale. Then when academics do not support the thesis, once again you accuse them of complicity in the conspiracy, rather than because they look at the evidence and disagree. One poster to this discussion calls it ostracism and harrassment, which probably means a D on a paper for using suspect sources is harrassment. Once again, you've said nothing that sways me to do anything other than suspect your methods - up to and including what got you kicked out of the Circle of Justice, an aboriginal organization. Then again, you'll call raising that a personal smear, I call it part of your own background you never own up to. Bait and switch, bait and switch, bait and switch. That is not good research. Sorry.

• • • I hope you take this in the right spirit, friend, but I think you need a hobby, besides engaging in getting your facts wrong and smearing people you have never met with information you've only heard third hand.

The Circle of Justice was founded by me and Harriett Nahanee in July 1997, and I wasn't kicked out of it: two people in the group, Amy Tallio and her husband, were approached by some state-funded "uncle tomahawks" in the United Native Nations and were offered money if they began a smear campaign against me. Amy and her husband, and two others, met separately from the 18 regular members of COJ in late August, 1998 and declared themselves to be the COJ, and demanded that I give them all of the evidence gathered at the UN Tribunal we held the previous June. When I wouldn't, they started the lie that you are repeating, ie, that I was expelled from COJ for "using peoples' stories without their permission". It's interesting that, the next autumn, Amy and her police agent sponsor-controller, Jim Craven, were both flown to the maritimes by the Canadian government to speak about residential school issues, putting a safely benign ring to it all. Part of her payoff, I guess. I also noticed you got your facts wrong when you claim my former congregational members in Pierson, Manitoba were upset with me. I have six letters of support from Board members at that church that claim the contrary, and which praise my work there. Of course, you'll never see those letters, since they, and 32 other letters of support for me that I entered into evidence at my United Church "defrocking" trial in 1996-97, were censored from the final United Church "report" on my expulsion from the church. That "report" is as filled with distortions, half-truths and outright lies as are your comments about me. I am asking you, again, to refrain from these personal attacks on me and address the issue of Genocide in Canada, for if you continue in this vein I'll be asking the wikipedia editors to take action. Kevin

• • • • No need, since this is the last post. I've come to this relatively new and at one point supported you. And, no, the reason I no longer support your work is not because I've been bought. You use that story too many times, like with Tallio and Craven. You are dividing and conquering. Geez, get a new story! Accusing people of being RCMP stooges is getting a bit thin! That's why this is about now, not about dredging up the past - the method is the same. By the way, I am active in promoting aboriginal rights, esp. redress in the matter of Canadian residential school legacy. Yes, you would label me a sell out, but that's your thing. It's how you divide communities. So we can agree that the real issues are neither about you or me, but the larger stuff. It's just not helpful to approach it using rhetoric from an undergraduate sociology course, suspect methods. Xase in point - in no way shape or form did I say that people in Lyleton were upset with you. I stated the fact that you were there less than a year. (That was in the erased bit - see: erasing stuff cuts both ways!) But then that's you. It is interesting in the extreme that it is you who bring up that they may not have liked you - I have no way of knowing that. The bare fact, though, is that you were there less than a year. Same with Victor Mission. I have said nothing, not even in the erased stuff, about why. Buy you are correct, this is not about you. Like many I am one who's been taken in and then started educating myself and found out the real story. However, I truly wish you well, and have no impulse at all to silence either you or the things you allege. You have not only the right, but also the responsibility to advance these things if you truly believe them to be correct. I may wish that you'd choose better methods, and were not so divisive about it - but again, as others have pointed out, this is not about you. So keep up the work, and let the chips fall where they may. And don't complain if folks don't believe you. So, ta ta.

• • • I'm sorry you don't have the courage of your convictions, and are retreating in the face of hard facts. But that is the way of untruthfulness, which the churches seem to specialize in. (By the way, since you raised the topic, my staying only one year at Fred Victor Mission was related to the fact that I, and others, uncovered drug dealing, prostitution, money laundering, and unlawful expulsion of tenants going on there, at the largest United Church urban mission in Canada. I wrote to every level of the church with our evidence, but was shut down and forced out. My not associating with criminal activity at the Mission was a moral and legal imperative, not proof of my supposed "instability". But the residential schools are evidence enough of how "stable" clergy are expected to avert their eyes and help conceal crimes, including murder). It's too bad the United Church PR guys can't come up with something more original to slander me with than that I'm not a "stable" minister, ie, a good office boy. By that standard, Martin Luther wasn't, either. (For more information about the scandal we uncovered at Fred Victor Mission, please see my book "Love and Death in the Valley", at: www.hiddenfromhistory.org .) The Mission's crimes were also a matter of an Ontario Circuit Court lawsuit in 1992, which was decided against the United Church. Kevin Annett.

• • An afterthought and concern from Kevin: I am very suspect about the person posing as my critic on this discussion site, since s/he is citing confidential United Church information that only someone in the church bureaucracy or in communication with them can have access to: for example, the duration of my tenure in each of my church parishes. I must therefore assume that he, or she, is in fact a United Church functionary, in which case his/her bias and institutional self-interest should be obvious. If this is not the case, let this person identify him/herself. My name is public knowledge; his/her name should be as well, if we are engaged in an open dialogue. Or does this "critic" have a reason for concealing his/her identity, besides the fact that deception and duplicity are trademarks of the United Church of Canada, Ltd.?

• • • I'm Arnold Cardinal again. I wish the person who is so paranoid about Mr. Annett would grow up a bit and take us native people seriously. I am sick of whites denying what they did to us. You should develop some compassion, whoever you are. Do you want me to show you the scars on my penis where a United Church minister drove a nail when I tried to defend my little brother from getting raped? They ran a regular torture chamber in that Brandon residential school hellhole. If you went there you wouldn't be so quick to defend those murderers and rapists in church clothing. ***