“The destruction of places of worship is unacceptable and it must stop,” Trudeau told reporters hours after a fire in Alberta brought the number of church incidents to a dozen in the past 10 days.
The fires come as Canada grapples with one of the darkest chapters of its history: Wednesday saw the announcement of another discovery of unmarked graves at a former school for Indigenous children — at least the third such find since late May.
The Lower Kootenay Band, part of the Ktunaxa First Nation, said ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains in unmarked graves — some as shallow as three feet — at St. Eugene’s Mission School in British Columbia. The school was run by a Catholic group until it closed in the 1970s.
“It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa nation, neighboring First Nations communities, & the [local] community of aqam,” the Lower Kootenay Band said in a statement.
“Let’s call this for what it is … a mass murder of Indigenous people,” Chief Jason Louie told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The discoveries of multiple unmarked Indigenous graves has led some localities to cancel celebrations of Canada Day — this Thursday — which marks the date in 1867 when three British colonies banded together.
“Celebrating Canada Day is being seen as inconsiderate to all the children’s lives that were lost and we encourage everyone to consider the price these children had to pay at the hands of the Canadian government,” Chief Bobby Cameron of the Saskatchewan Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said in a statement.
Trudeau urged Canadians to reflect on the country’s history, but also indicated that celebrations would go ahead. “We must work together to right past wrongs,” he said.
Indigenous leaders expect to find many more unmarked graves as communities across the country turn to ground-penetrating radar to unearth dark secrets buried for decades.
“This is the beginning of these discoveries,” tweeted National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Perry Bellegarde on Wednesday.
Nearly 150,000 Indigenous children were sent to the government-funded and church-run boarding schools, which were set up in the 19th century to assimilate them and operated until the late 1990s. Many were forcibly separated from their families to be placed in the schools.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a 2015 report that many of the students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the schools, which barred them from practicing their traditions and speaking their languages. It said the schools carried out “cultural genocide” and effectively institutionalized child neglect.
The commission identified more than 3,000 students who died at the schools, a rate that was far higher than for non-Indigenous school-age children. That number has since grown.
Pope Francis, who has expressed sorrow over the graves but stopped short of apologizing for the Catholic Church’s role, has agreed to meet with residential school survivors. The Canadian government, as well as the Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches, which ran residential schools, have apologized for their roles in the abuse.
Since the first graves were discovered, a dozen churches across the country have been vandalized or burned. Authorities have been careful not to link the fires to the discovery of the unmarked graves, but some of the vandalism alluded to a response.
In Saskatchewan, a Catholic church was splattered with red handprints and the words, “We were children.” And in Alberta, where Indigenous communities are also searching for unmarked graves, a statue of Pope John Paul II in Edmonton was similarly vandalized, with stuffed animals placed at its base.
In neighboring Morinville, another suspicious fire early Wednesday destroyed a century-old church. And in British Columbia, four small Catholic churches on Indigenous land and a vacant former Anglican church have been destroyed by blazes authorities say are suspicious.
“Hate-inspired violence, burning down faith communities, targeting them with these acts of violence and intimidation is not reconciliation,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told reporters as he toured the Morinville church’s charred remains.
On the other side of the country, police in Nova Scotia are investigating a fire that damaged a Catholic church on a First Nation land roughly five miles from a former residential school.
Bellegarde, the First Nations chief, urged restraint.
“I can understand the frustration and the anger and the hurt and the pain,” he told Global News. “But to burn things down is not our way.”
Amanda Coletta in Toronto contributed to this report.
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