Search for truth over graves is elusive – The Catholic Register

September 7, 2023

The absence of human remains following excavations at Manitoba’s former Pine Creek Indian Residential school has attracted international attention in the form of a highly critical article in the New York Post.

“After two years of horror stories about the alleged mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools across Canada, a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains,” New York Post investigative reporter Dana Kennedy wrote in an Aug. 31 story. “Some academics and politicians say it’s further evidence that the stories are unproven.”

Kennedy followed up with a quote from retired Université de Montréal historian Jacques Rouillard calling reports of mass Indigenous graves in Canada a “hoax” is “too strong.”

“But there are too many falsehoods about this issue with no evidence,” Rouillard is quoted.

The New York reporter’s interest was piqued by the Aug. 18 acknowledgement of Manitoba Chief Derek Nepinak that this summer’s excavations of 14 sites underneath Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church came up empty. In fact, Kennedy, whose credits and experience include numerous scoops and two decades as a news correspondent for CNN, ABC, Fox and MSNBC, has been following the Indigenous mass graves story since at least May 2022.