“Marchand was there. Marchand was well connected. Marchand never experienced, never witnessed, and never heard about the “horrors” we’re hearing about today.”
“I was never abused, and I never heard of anyone else who was mistreated at the Kamloops school.”
“…Canada’s first “Status Indian” Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister, Leonard Stephen (Len) Marchand. Elected, then re-elected twice, to the House of Commons, he served as a parliamentary secretary, minister and, later, member of the Senate. His first election in 1968…came just eight short years after John Diefenbaker’s government granted status Indians the right to vote …
“He was appointed to the Senate in 1984, serving there until 1998 when he was 64, retiring long before the rules required him to do so. He then involved himself with the Nicola Valley Indian Administration as its chief administrator. He died in 2016 at age 82, leaving behind a lifetime of achievement…
“…Born in 1933, Marchand’s life story, chronicled in his autobiography “Breaking Trail”, was one of accomplishment, the pursuit of happiness, and service to Canada…
https://www.amazon.ca/Breaking-Trail-Autobiography-Len-Marchand/dp/092057680X
“…Marchand was a former student at the…Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS). Much of ‘Breaking Trail’, published in 2000, documents his experience at the school and reveals that he was never a mere “survivor” or would ever view himself as such…
“…Marchand’s autobiography tells the story of his residential school experience and his life afterwards. It speaks modestly of his significant contributions to ‘Indigenous’ {sic, Aboriginal} Canadians, and all Canadians. ‘Breaking Trail’ was published eight years before Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s {foolish} 2008 apology for residential schools…
“…Having previously attended elementary school on his reserve, at age 15 Marchand entered the Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) for the 1949-50 school year. Despite his dislike of the food – “watery potatoes and over-boiled vegetables” – and, upon arriving, obliged to wash his hair in coal oil, he later described his time there as formative for his life’s successes. (“Kindly” Brother O’Brien told Marchand the coal oil was to “kill any lice”. The very clean-living Marchand noted the ordeal made him “a little upset”.)…
“…He wrote:
“I was already missing the pies and cakes my big sisters used to make. But there was plenty of milk and butter from the dairy herd and slabs of good bread. I soon learned that the thickness of your slice was a status symbol. A thicker crust meant you had a girlfriend who was a big wheel in the kitchen”.
“There is no mention of hunger, let alone starvation…
“About conditions in the classroom, he wrote:
“…the staff did put a definite priority on giving us an education. The classrooms were big, well-lit rooms, with desks as modern as any you could have found on the west side of Vancouver in 1949”.
“And the teachers were just as good.”
“Marchand went on to describe the commitment of the nuns to the students’ education, and added, “…and most of us responded”.
“Perhaps the most notable observation Marchand made about his time at Kamloops school was that:
“… another motivation took root in the back of my mind: that somehow, by getting educated, I would be able to do something to help my people. I don’t remember the first time that idea came to me, but it probably sprouted sometime during the year that I spent at Kamloops Indian Residential School”.
“…Marchand enjoyed playing sports at the school – baseball, basketball and hockey – admitting in his book that he was not very good at any of them, performing better in his classroom studies. Still, he took pleasure in the sporting achievements of his teammates and wrote proudly about the school’s Holstein cattle winning blue ribbons at the Armstrong Fair, and Sister Anne Mary’s “superb” choir “cleaning up” at the annual local choral festival…
“…In many ways, directly and indirectly, Marchand made it clear that his days at the KIRS were happy ones. Today, reports of happy times at any of the schools are met with angry demands for retraction and apology…
“Story-telling about the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) by its former students has changed mightily in recent years. Twenty-one years ago, Marchand was not afraid to write,
“I was never abused, and I never heard of anyone else who was mistreated at the Kamloops school”.
“He did not fear writing positively about the priests, nuns and brothers:
“… they meant well by us, they genuinely cared about us, and they all did their duty by us as they saw fit”.
“…Those words are important, because having lived since 1933 in a region comprising several Indian reserves, having attended a reserve day school and the KIRS, and having risen to lofty federal positions of power, a Member of Parliament – especially an ‘Indigenous’ one – gets to know all the leadership people in the region he represents, including mayors, chiefs, elders and knowledge keepers. Len Marchand was a very good Member of Parliament. Good MPs talk to people, listen to people, help people, exchange stories, learn about the “knowings” of the elders, knowledge keepers, former residential school students and their families…
“…Marchand was there. Marchand was well connected. Marchand never experienced, never witnessed, and never heard about the “horrors” we’re hearing about today…
“…This is an important observation: today, 72 years since Len Marchand attended the KIRS, chiefs, knowledge keepers and others are presenting sometimes detailed – though second-hand – stories about events that Len Marchand never heard a word about. Why today? Why not then?…
“Williams Lake, B.C., Mayor Walt Cobb was recently condemned for reposting an online suggestion that there might be more than one side to the IRS story. He was forced to apologize and came very close to losing his job. He must now be ‘re-educated’. Len Marchand’s story included his own experience at the KIRS and covered many of his years in public life. We can only wonder, if he were still alive, what he would say about the IRS revelations.
“Len Marchand’s education did not end at the KIRS. He was a lover of learning and was consumed with helping his people. He earned a master’s degree in forestry and secured employment as an agronomist prior to beginning his work in Ottawa, the nation’s capital. His work with parliamentarians in Ottawa led to his being approached to run for office in Kamloops-Cariboo, which he did, in the process making history.
“Quite unabashedly, Len Marchand wrote of his love for, and pride in, Canada. Is anyone doing that these days? Yes, Marchand identified himself as a ‘Skilwh’ of the Okanagan ‘Nation’, preferring that appellation to that of Aboriginal, Indian, native, or ‘First Nations’, an appellation he called “pretentious, politically loaded” {Yes, it is!}. But first and foremost, Len Marchand identified as a proud Canadian.”
–‘Len Marchand’s Indian Residential School Experience’,
James C. McCrae & Peter Holle, Frontier Center for Public Policy, November 25, 202
(James C. McCrae, former Canadian citizenship judge, MLA and attorney general for Manitoba)
https://frontiercentre.org/2021/11/25/len-marchands-indian-residential-school-experience/
See also:
‘Changing Their Story’ (Res. Schools) {Feb.13, 2025}:
“Dogrib Indians in 1946:
“We Dog-Ribs Indians of Fort Rae, N.W.T. respectfully submit to the Indian Affairs branch … The present system of education, approved by the Dominion Government and set up by the Indian Affairs Branch is satisfactory to us and no change whatever is either desired or will be accepted by us.”
“Dogrib Indians in 2024:
“We are all healing from the traumatic effects of racism, discrimination, and genocidal / assimilationist policies and systems such as the ‘Indian Residential School’ system” and the ‘Sixties’ Scoop.’”
https://endracebasedlaw.ca/2025/02/13/changing-their-story/
‘Who To Believe?’ (Res. Schools) {July 4, 2025}:
“We would prefer to see our children without instruction rather than have their education taken out of the hands of Priests and Sisters, who for more than half a century have been sharing all our adversities and were often the sole protectors of our rights.”
-Fort Vermillion Reserve, 1946
https://endracebasedlaw.ca/2025/07/04/who-to-believe/
‘The Real Charlie Wenjack Story’ {July 1, 2025}:
“Unfortunately, much of what has been written and said about Charlie Wenjack—including some contents of ‘Secret Path’—has no basis in fact.”
“What should sensible people do when schoolchildren are told things that are untrue about Canadian history? Perhaps the question should be: What should sensible people do when schoolteachers present fictional material as truth? The good news is some misinformation that has been taught in Canadian schools can be easily corrected. Robert MacBain has authored a 230-page book that corrects the lies that have been written, sung, and spoken about the short life and tragic death of Charlie Wenjack.”
https://endracebasedlaw.com/2025/07/01/the-real-charlie-wenjack-story/
‘Mark Carney’s Residential School Connection’ (Robert Carney) {June 22, 2025}:
“Mark Carney as Prime Minister shares many things with his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, one of which is the way that both of them contradict their own fathers when it comes to the Aboriginal issue – despite the fact that the fathers knew far more about the subject than their foolish, virtue-signaling sons…
“‘Liberal’ {Party} Leader Mark Carney distanced himself from comments his late father made 60 years ago as an educator and his subsequent defence of residential schools in the later years of his life.”
https://endracebasedlaw.com/2025/06/22/mark-carneys-residential-school-connection/
‘In Case You Missed It – Sen. Beyak’ {June 19, 2025}:
“Some have criticized me for stating that the good, as well as the bad, of residential schools should be recognized. I stand by that statement. Others have criticized me for stating that the Truth and Reconciliation report was not as balanced as it should be. I stand by that statement as well. And finally, I have been criticized for offering concerned Canadians a space to comment critically about the ‘Indian Act’. My statements and the resulting posts were never meant to offend anyone, and I continue to believe that ‘Indigenous’ issues are so important to all of us, that a frank and honest conversation about them is vital.”
https://endracebasedlaw.com/2025/06/19/in-case-you-missed-it-sen-beyak/
♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠
Websites:
END RACE BASED LAW inc. Canada
https://endracebasedlaw.wordpress.com/
ERBL Canada News Feed
https://endracebasedlawcanadanews.wordpress.com/
♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠
Facebook:
ERBL Main Page
https://www.facebook.com/ENDRACEBASEDLAW
ERBL Canada News Feed
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ENDRACEBASEDLAWnewsCanada
♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠
TWITTER (X): https://twitter.com/ERBLincCanada
♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠
Petition to END RACE BASED LAW
https://endracebasedlaw.wordpress.com/petition-canada/
JOIN US IN THE FUTURE OF A UNIFIED CANADA
END RACE BASED LAW Daily News Canada 