"Scorched Earth" Confronts Silence and Apathy on Church Burnings
But Repeats Unfounded Tropes
By Michelle Stirling ©2025
Macdonald Laurier Institute (MLI) have done the unthinkable. They have just issued a report titled: “Scorched Earth: A quantitative analysis of arson against Canadian religious institutions and its threat to reconciliation.” The author, Edgardo Sepulveda, is an economist with some thirty years of experience.
This report is unthinkable because no one wants to talk about burning churches, right? After all, didn’t Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say it was “understandable” after his government blithely accepted the claim, with no due diligence or evidence, of the Kamloops First Nation, that they had found “mass graves” and “human remains of 215 children” in the orchard near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School over the May long weekend in 2021?
No one had any questions about why such important work would have been conducted over a long holiday weekend? And announced publicly with no verifying evidence provided?
No one asked about who funded this work? It was Heritage Canada, it turns out, on a grant intended to improve the Heritage Park; a grant that had expired a year prior. No questions?
No one asked about the qualifications of the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) operator. GPR cannot find bodies or graves – only impressions of things called “anomalies” which are only identifiable as one thing or another after excavation.
No one asked who the Knowledge Keepers are who apparently helped with this find.
No one asked to speak to the witnesses, still living, who claim to have seen or have participated in the clandestine burials of classmates in the middle of the night.
No one asked for the list of names of missing children. Or to speak to their family members.
And no church protested the claims or demanded evidence and proof of this blood libel. No church issued any cease and desist order to stop such defamatory statements being made without evidence or due process of law.
No one called for recognition of the fundamental premise of Canadian law – that there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
No one.
The sole push-back came from the retired Bishop Henry, who fought, to the end, on his death bed, to kibosh this blood libel on the Roman Catholic church.
Mainstream media bought the story hook, line and sinker, and amplified the imaginary gory details, repeating claims that children as young as six had been burying classmates as young as three.
No one had any questions about the fact that several Indigenous teachers, including one who was the Chief of a local band and was also working at the Kamloops Indian Residential School at the time, and somehow, they failed to notice or care about 215 students disappearing under their watch.
The MLI report doesn’t get into those sticky details, but on the upside, it does do a rather thorough, scientific assessment of the likely correlation between church arsons and such announcements, using statistical and geospatial data to confirm the thesis that churches were burned due to these “incendiary” announcements.
So, this is good. It is a good compilation and assessment.
The bad part is that is repeats a number of mistaken tropes about Indian Residential Schools that are points which infuriate people and make them want to burn churches down.
The report starts off with the claim that “Many, if not all, countries have dark chapters in their past,” going on to claim that Indian Residential Schools were our most tragic, as if providing education to children is a crime; or that sheltering orphans, destitute children, or those at risk of violence or neglect is a crime. Indian Residential Schools were a lifeboat for such marginalized children, but that is a part of our history that no one wants to hear about anymore, because it fills you with a sense of pride and compassion. Thousands of little Indigenous children were saved from abandonment, by Indian Residential Schools and by the clergy and staff who dedicated their lives to these children, for little remuneration in the face of astounding challenges.
The MLI report claims that 3,201 children died at the schools, citing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In fact, the TRC found that 423 children died on the premises of the 139 schools over the course of 133 years. While tragic, this seems a low figure over such a span of time. While the TRC references other locations that children died “while enrolled” in the schools, this is disingenuous to then tie these deaths to the actual schools. If an enrolled child dies of a burst appendix in hospital, it cannot be said that this is the fault of the school. If an enrolled child dies at home on reserve due to a house fire at their home, this is not the fault of the school. If a number of children died due to Tuberculosis (TB) back in the day when TB was the greatest killer of ALL Canadians, this is not the fault of the school.
Note: The ‘unnamed’ register appears to be a case of double counting. Children’s names were well-documented as this is how the schools were funded. Indian agents knew their communities well. The Department of Indian Affairs had inspectors visiting schools, as well as many reports on activities. For all but the most remote communities, parents were invited to school functions and festive holiday events.
The MLI report is correct that Canadians felt shame and anger upon these ghastly announcements, but the report repeats the trope that “children were separated from their families…to explicitly extinguish Indigenous cultures.”
“Since the publication of the TRC’s findings, many Canadians have come to confront with shame and anger not just these instances of child abuse, but the very notion of a residential school system that separated Indigenous children from their families and that the federal government constructed to explicitly extinguish Indigenous cultures. The participation of almost all of Canada’s mainstream Christian churches in this endeavour ran counter to the faith’s claim of a call to love and justice for all and has prompted a series of formal apologies by church leaders.”
No. Parents voluntarily enrolled their children in Indian Residential Schools so that they would be educated in the ways of the changing world – so that they would have a future. Many of the Oblate fathers were fluent in native languages; some clergy had created syllabic forms of writing and dictionaries to capture and retain native languages. Many schools celebrated festivals and graduations with traditional native dancing and song. Some students graduated speaking four languages, Slavey, Cree, English and French. The Oblates advocated for incorporating native languages into the curriculum; the government of the day rejected that call. So, the churches burn and the government of today says it is “understandable.”
No. It is not understandable. It is CRIMINAL.
“Scorched Earth” mentions Kimberly Murray’s work. She was the Special Interlocutor on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves Related to Indian Residential Schools. She issued three ‘incendiary’ reports. She operated from Osweken, a place that claims it is not in Canada. See the full presentation related to the above slide here.
And that’s the other odd thing about the MLI report. The opening paragraph outlines broad stroke implications of church burnings this way: “The act of setting fire to houses of worship carries profound implications for our culture, our politics, and for the state of religious liberty in Canada; it also has the potential to seriously undermine Indigenous reconciliation.”
Why the focus on Indigenous reconciliation? Church burnings seriously undermine the fundamental premise of Canada – peace, order and good government. Church burnings undermine the fundamental premises of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which begins with this opening statement: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of G-d and the rule of law…”
The burning of a church is a blatant violation of both principles. This is why it is not “understandable” to convict a whole nation based on a claim made without evidence.
Sepulveda’s claim that church arsons have “the potential to seriously undermine Indigenous reconciliation” is kind of a non-sequitur. If the nation has been gutted by lies which were supported and promoted by elected officials, if the wallets of the taxpaying public have been emptied in a forced effort to reconcile a false claim, by issuing millions of dollars in grants for searches for missing children, for whom no list of names or missing persons reports exist; whose names are not found on historical census reports one year and gone the next; whose names are not found on historic Treaty Rolls one year and gone the next, then we are not talking about reconciliation being undermined, but rather the whole foundation of Canada as a nation has been undermined.
No peace.
No order.
No good government.
No Canada.
Showing up with displays of tiny shoes made in China by Uyghur slaves; shoes never worn by the victims of this phantom genocide and posing with a teddy bear at an unmarked grave, which are typically found in old cemeteries, doesn’t absolve the government of its irresponsible actions on this file.
We now have school children in compelled acts of penitence, tying orange ribbons to school fences in commemoration of 215 Ground Penetrating Radar “anomalies” found by an unqualified conflict anthropologist over a long weekend in May, misconstruing the images of the GPR unit. This work was done at the behest of a Kamloops Band female member who was one of many who subsequently financially benefitted from the Day Scholar settlement for ~$2 billion – a class action suit that had stagnated for nine years; resolved within a week of the Kamloops blood libel allegations.
Since the work was done over the long weekend in May, (Victoria Day weekend no less), no one accessed the previous land use files before making the public claim. Had they done so, it would have been clear that the area searched was underlain by 2000 feet of septic trenches dug for the school in the 1920s. Had they checked the historical records, it would have been clear that the Kamloops First Nation had its own members who were qualified archeologists doing digs around the around the former residential school for several decades; never finding any bodies.
At schools, our children are tying 215 orange ribbons in commemoration of septic tiles and trenches; they are compelled to wear orange hair shirts and feeling guilty and angry toward their parents and grandparents who let priests and nuns murder innocent children like them. How do we untangle this lie?
We now have countless “Indigenous-led” projects, financed by shamed and guilted taxpayers who are keen to make amends for this crime that never happened. These projects are popping up across Canada thanks to the fact that UNDRIP was rammed through the House of Commons within less than a month after the blood libel allegations, despite the fact that for more than six months prior, six premiers and several First Nations wanted changes and clarifications to the text.
And we have had China accusing Canada of genocide at the UN, backed by a handful of other despot nations, the day after UNDRIP received Royal Assent, citing the Kamloops find as evidence.
There is no reconciling a blood libel like this or a traitorous, malfeasant government that did no due diligence and did not respect the fundamental principles of the Charter of Rights, or Canada’s motto.
You may ask, why am I making this argument while the churches are silent? Well, the federal government is also threatening to take away the charitable status of churches. The churches who thought their participation in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement would end recriminations are being threatened with evermore accusations of withholding records or new angles on different kinds of class actions…and the threat of another arson attack is always in the air.
Canada has been psychologically and financially gutted by this charade of Kamloops and the Trudeau Liberal government, and I don’t see any way back.
In this regard, “Scorched Earth” is really the perfect title for the study.
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Pls read “Canada’s Darkest Secret – the Myth of Missing Children at Indian Residential Schools”
Out by my Bison Ranch in North West Saskatchewan a landmark old church was burned down. The farmer who worked that land (his elderly mother owned it) took it upon himself and built a new church. He kept his hired men on for the winter and built it in his farm shop. No advertising,no fanfare,no bullshit,he just did it. I am so proud to call him my neighbor…
The MLI is a very good organization, if they have made factual errors, they may be willing to correct in a second edition of a report. Its worth providing them with your information.