CBC Spews More Indian Residential School Distortion on Percy Onabigon – Part Two
Repeaters, not Reporters.
By Michelle Stirling ©2025 with files and research by Nina Green.
Here are some examples of the application for admission forms for the Nabigon children, signed by their father, Duncan.
However, there is no record in the quarterly returns to Ottawa of a child named Percy Onabigon, or “Nabigon,” as the family name is recorded. This suggests that, as per Robert Carney’s statement, if Percy was at St. Joseph Indian Residential School, it was entirely out of charity and mercy for the family. A child with partial paralysis and epilepsy would not have passed the medical exam for admission to the school as a student. If Percy was at the school, likely his needs superseded the limited human/medical resources and a long-term care solution was sought, as Kimberly Murray’s report recounts.
Though Kimberly Murray’s report says Percy was “well-cared for by his parents,” in fact, the record shows that Percy’s father was away for a period of time being treated for Tuberculosis (TB). TB treatments typically required months or years of isolated care in a sanatorium.
However, it seems Percy Onabigon was never accepted as a student at St Joseph's Indian Residential School. There is no record of him in the quarterly returns for St Joseph's for the relevant period. The quarterly returns can be accessed online here:
FORT WILLIAM AGENCY - INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL - QUARTERLY RETURNS
Nor is there any record of him in the admission and discharge forms for St Joseph's for the relevant period which are available at the same link:
FORT WILLIAM AGENCY - FORT WILLIAM INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL - ADMISSIONS & DISCHARGES
1939
1944
454
FORT WILLIAM AGENCY - FORT WILLIAM INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL - ADMISSIONS & DISCHARGES
On one occasion the Department of Indian Affairs questioned why Bertha’s brother George Nabigon was at St Joseph's when he could have been attending the day school on his home reserve. The reply stated that George's father was in the TB sanatorium, and George had been accepted into the residential school because of those family circumstances.
In fact, in 1944 George himself was a patient at the TB sanatorium (see the aforementioned quarterly returns).
Here are some sample screenshots of the quarterly returns. Percy’s name is not among the 18 references to “Nabigon” in the full file. Percy Onabigon/Nabigon was not an Indian Residential School student at St. Joseph’s. It appears that his tragic life and death are being exploited to further prop up the claim of missing children who ‘disappeared’ at Indian Residential Schools. And to be blunt, now the activists have a body.
If Percy was ever at St. Joseph’s, it is likely that he was transferred to the school as a measure of mercy for his mother; the school’s infirmary might have served as an intermediate care facility, considering his complex health condition.
Historian Robert Carney, father of Mark Carney, explained this type of scenario in his 1996 critique of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People’s report, stating:
“It would have been fair to acknowledge that many traditional [Indian Residential] boarding schools, in some cases well into the twentieth century, took in sick, dying, abandoned, orphaned, physically and mentally handicapped children, from newborns to late adolescents, as well as adults who asked for refuge and other forms of assistance.”
However, there are very serious conflicts in the CBC stories about Percy’s life. Since CBC simply repeated what they were told, without fact checking the story, this has become a story about an Indian Residential School student, instead of a story about a government caring for a ward of the State.
… TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE
CBC is on it's way to the manure heap, as more Indians learn how they have been used to advance fraud.