Our latest instalment of KUPER ISLAND is available now.

Ep 2 - "Nights on the Boys Side"

Tune in here or wherever you get your podcasts
cbc.ca/listen/cbc-pod… @cbcpodcasts @JodieMartinson @ozhibiiige @CBCgeoffturner We start off here, at the former site of the gym at the Kuper Island school in Penelakut, hearing more about a young boy named Richard Thomas and the disturbing way that he died. #KuperIsland

In ep 1 of KUPER ISLAND, I mentioned res schools were a war on Indigenous families - launched by Canada's first PM, John A Macdonald. I briefly quoted him. Here's his full quote, in 1883:

"When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages... he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department [of Indian Affairs]...

Words of Duncan Campbell Scott, Dep Supt of Indian Affairs 1913-32 🇨🇦

"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages... ... But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department which is geared toward a final solution of our Indian problem." (1907)

1. TV critic @misterjohndoyle says viewers tell him there's "an overemphasis on Indigenous-related stories and content" on new @cbcthenational. "They roll their eyes," he says.

theglobeandmail.com/arts/televisio…

Well.

Can I suggest some reading, sir? 2. Start with Buried Voices by @jhrnews. Data shows Indigenous peoples are vastly underrepresented in Ontario media compared to other stories. Seven times less, in fact, than what should proportionally reflect the population.

jhr.ca/en/wp-content/…