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(LifeSiteNews) — The government-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published a story asserting that Indigenous children dug graves for classmates at residential schools despite not one grave being found.

In a Sept. 27 article, the CBC interviewed indigenous researcher Robyn Bourgeois of Brock University who attributed Canada’s existence to “theft of Indigenous lands” and claimed that her grandfather dug graves for his classmates at residential schools.

“I think about him being that age and digging graves for other kids like him, and also wondering, ‘OK, if this is happening to them, could this happen to me?'” Bourgeois said of her grandfather, Johnny Bourgeois, who spent most of his childhood at Grouard Residential School in Alberta.

Bourgeois continued to blame residential schools for “very punitive, very shameful, very violent” experiences that she claimed began a cycle of abuse in her family.

While some abuse did take place in residential schools, many have condemned the narrative that children were routinely abused in the institutions. Catholic author Michael O’Brien, who attended residential schools and gave testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, previously told LifeSiteNews that the chief underlying issue in the residential school saga was the institutional abuse of children by removing them from their families by the state authorities and then taken to the schools, noting the “long-term psychological and social effects of this.”

Bourgeois’ story, which cannot be verified since her grandfather passed away more than 20 years ago, has a distinct flaw: No unmarked graves have been discovered at residential schools, so who would her grandfather have been digging graves for?

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.

The claims were made after ground-penetrating radar technology discovered disturbances in the soil. But as LifeSiteNews has reported, no human remains have actually been discovered.

Residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set up by the federal government and operated from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.

While some children did die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children tragically passed away as a result of unsanitary conditions due to the federal government, not the Catholic Church, failing to properly fund the system.

Despite the article for “Truth and Reconciliation Day,” Bourgeois and the CBC, who published her unfounded story, seem to be interested in neither but rather perpetuating hatred toward white and Christian Canadians.

Indeed, Bourgeois goes on to claim that “Anybody who lives in Canada today, whether you intend to or not, has benefited from colonialism.”

“Canada exists and it only exists because of colonialism, because of the theft of Indigenous lands and the occupation of them, the removal of Indigenous people, whether through policy or residential schools or missing and murdered Indigenous people,” she added.

Unfortunately, narratives like Bourgeois’ and other published by CBC have proved dangerous in Canada as they have led to anti-Catholic hatred and violence across the country.

More than 100 churches have been burned or vandalized across Canada in seeming retribution for the claims. Instead of apologizing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and the mainstream media have seemed to sympathize with those destroying churches, as evidenced by a CBC report on the matter.

In fact, in 2021, Trudeau waited weeks before acknowledging the church vandalism, and when he did speak, said it is “understandable” that churches have been burned while acknowledging it to be “unacceptable and wrong.”

The vandalism, which began in 2021, is still continuing throughout Canada, particularly in churches that serve Indigenous communities. Earlier this week, the Catholic church on Alexander First Nation in Alberta was reduced to rubble in what police called a “suspicious” fire.

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