MONTREAL — There have been 96 recorded cases of arson and graffiti attacks on churches across Canada, more than half of them Catholic churches, with several burned to the ground, since the discovery of what is likely the remains of up to 215 Indigenous children in unmarked graves at a former residential school for Natives near Kamloops, British Columbia, in May 2021. Most of these attacks have happened on or near Native reserves.
The Penticton Indian Band released a statement in June 2021, after the burning down of two churches in the region’s First Nations’ reserves. “We, along with the Osoyoos Indian Band, who also lost their church,” it said, “are in disbelief and anger over these occurrences as these places of worship provided service to Members who sought comfort and solace in the church.
“It is not our place to say who to worship and what historical relevance it has to our people,” the statement said. “We are all free to choose and it is our place as a community to support that freedom.”
After First Nations’ leaders had condemned the arson attacks, Harsha Walia, former executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, retweeted a news story about two more Catholic churches being burned down. “Burn it all down,” she said, reflecting the reactionary perspective of many middle-class radicals.
After unmarked graves were discovered by radar technology, tens of thousands marched nationwide to protest the ongoing oppression of the 1.6 million Native people by the Canadian capitalist rulers. Natives make up only 5% of the Canadian population, but over 30% of its prisoners, and fully half of all youth in prison. The official unemployment rate for Indigenous people is 11.6%, compared to 7.6% overall. The Native infant mortality rate is twice as high.
From 1883 to 1996, the Canadian government set up 139 Indian residential schools with the avowed goal of “killing the Indian in the child.”
Over 150,000 Native children were seized from their families and sent to these institutions, suffering years of psychological, physical and sometimes sexual abuse. There were over 4,000 official deaths there, but many more never reported. Official records were only kept beginning in 1935.
Some 60% of these schools were run on behalf of the Canadian government by the Catholic Church, with the other 40% run by Anglican, United and other churches.
“The attacks today against Catholic and other churches has nothing to do with the fight to end the decadeslong oppression of Native people,” Communist League candidate Katy LeRougetel, told the media. “We need to demand an end to these attacks on the right to freedom of worship.
“The Canadian capitalist state is responsible for the residential schools and the oppression of Indigenous people, not ‘Canadians’ or the church, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed when the unmarked graves were first discovered,” LeRougetel said. “He helped encourage the anti-church campaign.
“Unions need to demand a public-works program to build the infrastructure badly needed all across the country, even more so on Native reserves, where proper housing, schools, clean drinking water and modern sanitation systems are desperately needed.
“Affirmative action is needed to provide jobs for Indigenous people,” she said. “The only way we will put an end to Native oppression is for working people to take political power from the capitalist rulers, who foster and benefit from the divisions in the working class.”