Hidden from History:

The Canadian Holocaust Chronology of Events: Genocide in Canada 1857: The Gradual Civilization Act is passed by the Legislature of Upper Canada, permanently disenfranchising all Indian and Metis peoples, and placing them in a separate, inferior legal category than citizens. 1874: The Indian Act is passed in Canada’s Parliament, incorporating the inferior social status of native people into its language and provisions. Aboriginals are henceforth imprisoned on reserve lands and are legal wards of the state. 1884: Legislation is passed in Ottawa creating a system of state-funded, church administered Indian Residential Schools. 1905: Over one hundred residential schools are in existence across Canada, 60% of them run by the Roman Catholics. 1907: Dr. Peter Bryce, Medical Inspector for the Department of Indian Affairs, tours the residential schools of western Canada and British Columbia and writes a scathing report on the "criminal" health conditions there. Bryce reports that native children are being deliberately infected with diseases like tuberculosis, and are left to die untreated, as a regular practice. He cites an average death rate of 40% in the residential schools. November 15, 1907: Bryce’s report is quoted in The Ottawa Citizen’s headline. 1908-1909: Duncan Campbell Scott, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, suppresses Bryce’s report and conducts a smear and cover-up campaign regarding its findings. Bryce is expelled from the civil service. November, 1910: A joint agreement between the federal government and the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches establishes the structure of Indian Residential Schools and the contractual obligations of churches running them. Duncan Campbell Scott refers to the policy of the government as that of seeking a “final solution to the Indian Problem”. May, 1919: Despite an escalating death rate of Indian children in residential schools from tuberculosis - in some cases as high as 75% - Duncan Campbell Scott abolishes the post of Medical Inspector for Indian residential schools. Within two years, deaths due to tuberculosis have tripled in residential schools. 1920: Federal legislation makes it mandatory for every Indian child to be sent to residential schools upon reaching seven years of age. 1928: Sexual Sterilization Act is passed in Alberta, allowing any inmate of a native residential school to be sterilized upon the approval of the school Principal. At least 3,500 Indian women are sterilized under this law. 1933: An identical Sexual Sterilization Act is passed in British Columbia. Two major sterilization centres are established by The United Church of Canada on the west coast, in Bella Bella and Nanaimo, in which thousands of native men and women are sterilized by missionary doctors until the 1980’s. 1933: Residential school Principals are made the legal guardians of all native students, under the oversight of the federal Department of Mines and Resources. Every native parent is forced by law to surrender legal custody of their children to the Principal - a church employee - or face imprisonment. 1938: Attempt by the federal government to close all residential schools and incorporate Indian children into public schools is defeated by pressure brought by Catholic and Protestant church leaders. 1946: Project Paperclip - a CIA program utilizing ex-Nazi researchers in medical, biological warfare and mind control experiments - uses native children from Canadian residential schools as involuntary test subjects, under agreements with the Catholic, Anglican and United churches. These illegal tests continue until the 1970’s. 1948 - 1969: Offshoot programs of Project Paperclip are established in United Church and government hospitals in Nanaimo, Brannen Lake, Sardis, Bella Bella, Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia; in Red Deer and Ponoka, Alberta; and at the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital in Thunder Bay, Ontario. All of these programs use native children abducted from reserves, foster homes, and residential schools, with the full knowledge of church, police and Indian Affairs officials. 1969: Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien tables his White Paper in Parliament, which reaffirms the "assimilationist" policy of the past century that denies sovereignty and equal status to native nations. As a token gesture, Chretien assigns a limited control over Indian education to local, state-funded band councils. Many residential schools are phased out altogether or simply taken over by band councils. 1984: The last Indian residential school is closed, in northern British Columbia. 1990: State-funded leaders of the Assembly of First Nations discuss “abuses” in residential schools for the first time publicly. 1994-95: Eyewitnesses to murders at the United Church’s Alberni residential school speak out publicly, from the pulpit of Reverend Kevin Annett in Port Alberni. Annett is summarily fired without cause within a month, and is expelled from United Church ministry without due process during 1996. February, 1996: The first class action lawsuit of Alberni residential school survivors is brought against the United Church of Canada and the federal government. The church responds with a counter-suit and an attempted “gag order” on Kevin Annett, which fails. 1996-7: Further evidence of murder, sterilisations and other atrocities at coastal residential schools are documented by Kevin Annett and native activists in public forums in Vancouver. The number of lawsuits brought against the churches and government by residential school survivors climbs to over 5,000 across Canada. June 12-14, 1998: The first independent Tribunal into Canadian residential schools is convened in Vancouver by IHRAAM (International Human Rights Association of American Minorities), an affiliate of the United Nations. Evidence is submitted by dozens of aboriginal witnesses to crimes against humanity. The Tribunal concludes that the government of Canada and the Catholic, United and Anglican churches are guilty of complicity in Genocide, and recommends to the United Nations that a War Crimes investigation be held. 1998-1999: Under strong pressure from the government of Canada, the United Nations refuses to act on IHRAAM’s recommendation. Further evidence and reports of Genocide in residential schools is blacked out of the mainstream media across Canada. A concerted smear and misinformation campaign is launched by the United Church and the RCMP against Kevin Annett and his network’s efforts to document and expose genocidal practices by church and state in Canada. October, 1998: The Vancouver Province reports the admission of United Church lawyers that their church has engaged in a joint cover-up with the federal government of crimes committed at its Alberni Indian residential school since at least 1960. January, 1999: The New Internationalist magazine in Great Britain reports the findings of the IHRAAM Tribunal, including the evidence of murder in Canadian residential schools, but is subsequently threatened and silenced by United Church and Canadian government lawyers. February, 2000: The number of lawsuits brought by residential school survivors climbs to over 10,000. The federal government introduces legislation limiting the number of such lawsuits. It also announces that it will assume primary financial responsibility both for residential school damages and the legal expenses of the churches which ran the schools, despite the fact that Canadian courts have ruled that the churches bear either a majority or an equal responsibility for crimes at the schools. April, 2000: The federal Health Department admits that it used native children from four residential schools, including Port Alberni, in medical experiments during the 1940’s and ‘50’s, including the deliberate denial of vitamins and dental care to them to study the effects. (The Vancouver Sun, April 26, 2000) August, 2000: The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada is formed in Vancouver by forty-eight native and non-native activists, with Kevin Annett as its Secretary. Its mandate is to carry on the work of the IHRAAM Tribunal, and bring charges of Genocide against churches, the RCMP and the government of Canada. February, 2001: The Truth Commission publishes its six year study of Genocide in Canada, “Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust”. A second edition is published in June. Efforts by the United Church to legally prevent its publication fail. September-October, 2001: Judicial decisions in British Columbia and Manitoba deny the claims of residential school survivors that genocide was practiced, absolve the churches of any direct responsibility for damages, and block any future lawsuits from claims older than thirty years, when most residential schools were closed more than thirty years ago. (!) October, 2001: New eyewitnesses come forward with first-hand evidence that native children are being used in west coast pedophile rings involving senior judges, politicians, church and aboriginal leaders. One of these pedophile networks operates out of the prestigious Vancouver Club. December 15, 2001 - The Roman Catholic Church discloses that it hired a known and convicted sex offender and murderer, Martin Saxey, to work as a dormitory supervisor at its Christie Indian Residential School in Tofino, British Columbia, during the 1960's. Saxey subsequently raped and terrorized children at this school without ever being reprimanded or prosecuted. April 27, 2002 - The first television documentary featuring eyewitnesses to murders in Canadian Indian Residential Schools is broadcast in Vancouver, on CTV's "First Story" program. The show is aired simultaneously in Winnipeg, Toronto, and Halifax. Rev. Kevin Annett and native survivors of genocide give their stories. On the same program, United Church official Brian Thorpe admits for the first time that criminal actions occured in his church's residential schools, validating the claims made by Rev. Annett, which had caused him to be expelled from the United Church in 1997 by Thorpe and others. July 22, 2002 - A gag order in the form of a defamation lawsuit is brought by the government of Canada against Rev. Annett and others through its paid agent, Chief Edward John of the state-funded First Nations Summit. The lawsuit seeks an injunction banning Rev. Annett from discussing the allegations of secret land deals, murder, drug trafficking and pedophilia made against Chief John and other state-funded native chiefs by members of his own tribal council, Frank Martin and Helen Michel. Chief John's lawsuit is handled by Queen's Counsel Marvin Storrow of Blake, Cassels and Graydon law firm in Vancouver. Storrow is a personal friend and legal counsel to Prime Minister Jean Chretien. August 22, 2002 - Although Rev. Annett was never notified or subpoenaed, the lawsuit goes ahead and Ed John wins his injunction against Rev. Annett in the British Columbia Supreme Court. The injunction is granted by Judge James Taylor, who on behalf of the Law Society of BC helped disbar lawyer Jack Cram in April, 1994 after Cram had made similar allegations as Rev. Annett concerning possible pedophilia and corruption among judges and politicians in BC involving native children. September-October, 2002 - Despite the injunction banning his constitutional freedom of speech, Rev. Annett continues to refer publicly to the allegations against Ed John and the conflict of interest of Judge Taylor, over Annett's radio program, Hidden From History, in Vancouver. October 18, 2002 - A Restraining Order against Rev. Annett is issued by Judge Taylor, who also bans native eyewitnesses Frank Martin and Helen Michel from discussing their evidence about Ed John, and strikes their statements from all BC court records. Judge Taylor also indicates his intention to seek a banning of Rev. Annett's book on genocide in Canada, "Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust". November 1, 2002 - Rev. Annett's latest book, "Love and Death in the Valley", is published by First Books in the United States. Acting for Ed John, lawyer Marvin Storrow tries to prevent its publication, but fails. Early December, 2002 - An all-party Parliamentary meeting in Ottawa discusses "Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust", and "hashes over how to deal with all the Indians who are starting to talk about murders in residential schools", according to a source who was present. December 14, 2002 - A sheriff from the Port Coquitlam office of the Attorney-General attempts to serve court documents on Rev. Annett, but is unable to locate him. The documents are reported to be either a summary arrest warrant for Rev. Annett or a more severe Restraining Order. December 18, 2002 - A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva confirms that the Commissioner will "probably" be sending an official investigator to Canada in the spring of 2003 to examine evidence of crimes against humanity committed against native peoples. She confirms that Prime Minister Jean Chretien could theoretically be summoned to publicly answer charges of complicity in Genocide. December 28,2002: Kevin Annett is interviewed on KFI radio station in Los Angeles about genocide in Canada, and is heard by an audience of over two million people. Kevin discusses the attacks he is experiencing from the government of Canada through the law firm of Blake, Cassels and Graydon in Vancouver. Dated 11 January 2003 .... Updates to follow Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust website: http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/