First Nations request $704M to exhume alleged graves
The number of individuals buried, or cemetery sites associated with Residential Schools, is unknown, reads a cabinet memo.
A federal fund for exhuming suspected graves at Indian Residential Schools faces oversubscription, with First Nations seeking over $700 million, triple its original budget.
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada reported thousands of Indigenous children died while attending Indian Residential Schools,” said a March 14 Ministerial Handout memo by the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations. “The actual number of individuals buried, or cemetery sites associated with Residential Schools, is unknown.”
Cabinet allocated $238.8 million in 2022 to the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund to find, document, and commemorate unmarked burial sites. The fund, extended to March 31, 2026, has paid out $246.7 million.
Requests from First Nations now total $704.3 million, according to Blacklock’s.
In 2021, following the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation's claim of 215 graves at a Kamloops Residential School site, cabinet announced the fund. Though no remains were found, the First Nation received $12.1 million for exhumations and DNA testing.
Kimberley Murray, Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves, testified last November 28 at Senate committee hearings, acknowledging public skepticism about the existence of graves.
She stated, “It is one thing to say you don’t believe there are burials. That’s your opinion and you can have freedom of speech to say that.”
Murray then condemned denials of Indigenous burials, calling such speech “incitement to hate” against Indigenous people.
She also describes vitriol around church burnings as hateful.
Between 2010 and 2022, there have been a staggering 592 police-reported arsons at places of worship, resulting in damages of at least $10,000, according to federal data tabled in the House of Commons.
Some 423 police-reported burnings occurred at places of worship since 2015, the year the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published a report claiming 4,100 children died at residential schools, a figure that remains unverified.
As reported by Blacklock’s, arson attacks averaged as few as 13 a year before the report.
Police counted 90 arson attacks in 2021, the same year the Kamloops First Nation discovered 215 alleged graves, with investigations taking upwards of two decades to complete.
In May 2024, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc reclassified suspected Kamloops graves as “anomalies,” three years after public outrage, a papal visit, and church damage over the alleged burial site.
The First Nation declared a 2024 Day of Reflection, using language similar to its 2021 declaration but replacing “children” with “anomalies.”
As of January 2024, only 12 people had been charged with burning churches since the controversy first emerged, with one conviction, reported CBC News.
MP Marc Dalton introduced Bill C-411 on June 19, 2024, to amend the Criminal Code regarding arson of wildfires and places of worship, specifically addressing anti-Christian prejudice. A first offense would carry a minimum five-year jail sentence, subsequent offenses seven years.
No parliamentary committee has examined arson attacks on places of worship.
Alex Dhaliwal
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COMMENTS
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Shaun Morrison commented 2025-08-08 20:28:43 -0400Q: is the 704 million going to be used to further Indian organized crime with the CCP and foreign Cartels?
ps, thank you Sam Cooper for your hard work and facts outlining the governments ability to embrace organized crime. -
Fran g commented 2025-08-08 19:18:36 -0400This is outrageous, they have already received millionssssssss. Some schools up north did exume but found no bodies. Kamloops received millions few years back, they did nothing, what happened to the money? In Liberal madness there is no accountability. I agree, you already were paid well, but did nothing, so now, no more taxpayer money, and get out your own shovels and dig with Conservatives monitoring. Enough of this top level handout, that none of the little people will see.
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Wayne Currie commented 2025-07-29 01:50:51 -0400As long as those supposed bodies are in the ground, it behoves the Kamloops Band to never let a spade touch that earth. That way the money from taxpayers will be a continuous stream to support their claims of genocide.
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James Risdon commented 2025-07-27 06:44:49 -0400At $200 per hour for a backhoe operator, that $704 million would see this effort to dig up the bodies of alleged residential school victims take more than 400 years.
If one body were found per day, that would be 146,365 bodies. That’s a lot of bodies, especially given the total estimated number of First Nations children to have attended residential schools is 150,000.
This budget suggests that the First Nations think the churches and governments in Canada killed just about every child who ever attended a residential school.
I respectfully suggest this is so unlikely as to border on a collective delusion. -
Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2025-07-25 23:07:03 -0400When digging, may as well do it with style, eh?
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Shaun Morrison commented 2025-07-25 22:17:14 -0400Graves will be less than 15ft in depth, gather the band members with equipment/shovels and start digging, maybe even hire a local contractor with equipment to aid in the efficiency of the operation, the 704 million is possibly a money laundering scheme and a form of fraud on the Canadian taxpayer. I talked to a person who worked for Indian affairs many years ago in passing, the band members of this band wanted the Canadian tax payer to pay for this particular band to go into the woods, cut down a giant cedar tree, haul it back to the band and the band would carve a canoe. Another local story, a contractor was developing an area for housing, this contractor offered to take ALL the excavation to the bands property to be processed for artifacts, the local band refused. Please note, these are conversations in passing with people discussing the frustration and problems that were encountered in their careers and journeys.
Q, When will honesty, accountability, integrity and equal treatment be the word of the day?
A, When government has been held to account for thier manipulation and abuse of all, we all come from the same place on earth, migration and speciation make us what we are. -
Bruce Atchison commented 2025-07-25 19:19:29 -0400Greedy pigs! Those indigenous grifters just want more and more money. Let them dig the site up themselves first and prove their claim. And make sure an impartial person is their to supervise. Money makes liars of almost anybody.
