QUEBEC STATE OF CHILD ABUSE

 

REMARKS

MNN. May 15, 2024. This is about accountability. That is what reconciliation is about. We were given by creation the ability to protect ourselves, our people, the kanien’keha:ka, and all peoples and to love and care for our mother earth. Presently we are trying to find our missing and murdered children. We find that no public institution in Quebec has the mandate to be accountable for state abuse and genocide of children and people.

Our kaianerekpwa teaches us to hold ourselves accountable to our past traditions, our ways that foster dialogue and harmony to create balance and equality: the two row wampum, the dish with one spoon, the kaianerekowa (great peace). We first met the SAQ [Quebec Liquor Board] after writing them a letter in January 2024 about our concerns that the former cemetery on the property of the St. Jean de Dieu Hospital contained our ancestors who were patients there. We always seek to find all our children. Before the beginning of our relationship with the Europeans we held onto the spirit of loving and caring for our children. We find no one accountable for torturing and murdering them. They have benefitted from the genocide. This is a crime against humanity. 

The Duplessis orphans were mistreated and eliminated because of money. Only the corporation’s rights have been upheld, not that of the people. Our way is to hold ourselves to the truth. The Quebec government and its institutions like the SAQ [Quebec Liquor Board] have to be held accountable for their part in criminal actions to our people and to the orphans of all origins. What are we supposed to do when no corporate or religious institution seems to have the mandate to hold groups like the Sisters of Misericorde, the Quebec government and the SAQ accountable for the atrocities that were committed here and from which they are benefitting – the lobotomies, the pigsty cemetery, over which the first SAQ warehouse was built in 1975, transporting bodies in black plastic bags [we have seen the photos] of those bodies found by accident. The SAQ now inexplicably refuses to allow search dogs to survey the area to ensure that no burials or human remains will be destroyed or hidden. Refusing this recommendation from the leading national body of experts in searches for unmarked graves is immoral, unethical and inhuman., and pure evil.

The Quebec government made money changing the status of these children, most of whom were stolen from their families and designated as “mentally retarded”. What happened to us and to them is arguably one of the worst crimes against humanity that occurred in the Western world after the Second World War. The surviving Duplessis Orphans here are primarily witnesses to the horrors and atrocities they experienced which they tried to make public. They have been denied and betrayed every single time. I went to a funeral of three orphans. Hervé’s group doesn’t have enough money to put names on their gravestones. The orphans became family together and we are family with them. Many of them were Indigenous and had been hidden away as orphans, simply taken away, or sold for adoption if they were lucky, used for psychiatric experiments if they were not.

People’s power was taken away so they could not fight back or protect themselves. Our children and families were taken away to disempower us. The SAQ built its warehouse over the cemetery where more than 2000 people were buried. By refusing to let in search dogs who are capable of detecting the zones containing human remains, the SAQ is inferring that it will not account for the wrongs, even if it means infringing on human rights, breaking Federal and international law, and  breaching the ethical framework of a just society. Our ways are different, we respect everyone, we trust true dialogue and strive for understanding.

Yesterday, I asked to stop our meeting with the SAQ after they announced that the search dogs could not be used. The  voice of the orphans was ignored, as was their demand for search dogs to be used as recommended by the top experts in this country to make sure no grave will be desecrated or destroyed. It was very hurtful, insulting and abusive. In our ways we cannot speak with such dissonance. We must have a consensual discussion which is based on truth, peace and complete respect so we can arrive at a complete understanding. When sharp words and dealings happen, we must close the meeting and the parties must come back to the table when our minds agree to understand each other. If that mindset cannot be reached by state institutions like the SAQ, Quebec will have to reckon with the way their dead are being treated. This is very alarming.

SAQ obviously have never had a dog and they show their hatred by disallowing our blood hounds to go onto the land and be good dogs. As Red Foley sings about dogs:

When I was a ladAnd old Shep was a pupOver hills and meadows we’d strayJust a boy and his dogWe were both full of funWe grew up together that way
I remember the time at the old swimmin’ holeWhen I would have drowned beyond doubtBut old Shep was right thereTo the rescue he cameHe jumped in and then pulled me out
As the years fast did rollOld Shep, he grew oldHis eyes were fast growing dimAnd one day the doctor looked at me and said“I can do no more for him, Jim”
With hands that were tremblingI picked up my gunAnd aimed it at Shep’s faithful headI just couldn’t do it, I wanted to runI wish they would shoot me instead
He came to my side and looked up at meAnd laid his old head on my kneeI had struck the best friend a man ever hadI cried so I scarcely could see
Old Shep, he has gone where the good doggies goAnd no more with old Shep will I roamBut if dogs have a heaven there’s one thing I knowOld Shep has a wonderful home

 

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AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HOUND DOG!

MNN. May 16, 2024. Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers: Details on stopping SAQ [Quebec Liquor Board] from starting their construction work on the former site of the former cemetary of St-Jean-de-Dieu “asylum” Tiohtià:ke /Montreal.

 Stab-in-the-back handshake.

SAYUMKI’YA’ASEH

On May 16, 2024, faced with the SAQ’s refusal to let the HHRDDs enter the site to ensure that no graves will be disturbed or destroyed, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers may have no choice but to seek to file the appropriate emergency legal applications, while being prepared to use mediation or negotiation before going to court if work is halted. On May 14, 2024, the Comité des Orphelins et Orphelines Institutionnalisé.es de Duplessis and the Kanien’keha:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) sent a formal notice to the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), demanding an immediate halt to all excavation work on the site of the former pauper’s cemetery of the St-Jean-de-Dieu psychiatric “asylum” in Montreal’s east end. This move follows the SAQ’s categorical refusal to employ historic human remains detection dogs (HHRDD) and other non-invasive techniques recommended by the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Working Group on Unmarked Graves (CAAWGUG), the country’s leading authority on the proper techniques for investigating these contexts.

“The SAQ has ignored our repeated calls to thoroughly investigate this tragic site where Duplessis orphans and Indigenous children suffered abuse and inhumane medical experimentation,” said Kahentinetha, speaking on behalf of the Mohawk Mothers. “Their remains could be buried in unmarked graves that the SAQ is preparing to disturb with no respect for their dignity.” Rejecting the use of HHRDDs, the provincial Crown corporation chose to go ahead with its proposed development project immediately, disregarding the expert’s recommendations and the demands of the impacted communities and survivors, the Duplessis Orphans and the Mohawk Mothers. “This is an insult to the memory of our lost brothers and sisters,” added Hervé Bertrand, representing the Duplessis Orphans. “The SAQ must be held accountable and demonstrate transparency by immediately suspending work until a proper investigation is carried out.”

This formal notice is a response to the SAQ’s neglect of basic human rights and its refusal to promote reconciliation and healing. The groups involved are urging the media to amplify their voices and hold the SAQ accountable on this critically important issue. GBM partner Frédéric Bérard will be representing the Duplessis Orphans. Faced with the SAQ’s refusal to let the HHRDDs enter the site to ensure that no graves will be disturbed and destroyed, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers may have no choice but to seek to file the appropriate emergency legal applications, while being prepared to use mediation or negotiation before going to court if work is halted.

For interviews, further information or access to supporting documents, please contact Philippe Blouin at 514-463-8835 or philippe.enver.blouin@gmail.com.

____________

BACKGROUND & TIMELINE: On January 9, 2024, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers wrote a letter to the SAQ stating that work planned for a new automated distribution center risked disturbing and destroying human remains from the former cemetery known as the “pigsty cemetery”, where more than 2,000 patients from the St-Jean-de-Dieu psychiatric asylum whose bodies were unclaimed had been buried between the years 1870 and 1958. The Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers requested the use of non-invasive technologies, and of qualified, independent experts and cultural monitors during any archaeological investigations, and that a discussion be opened with the goal of discussing an independent inquiry into the history of the people buried in the cemetery, and the potential atrocities that led to these deaths.

The letter of January 9, 2024 reminded the SAQ that, after the Sisters of Providence had exhumed more than 2,000 bodies from this cemetery for unclaimed patient’s bodies in 1967, additional remains had been accidentally found in 1975, during the construction of the SAQ’s first warehouse, showing that the first exhumation had been incomplete. In 1975, these bodies were exhumed by a construction company and moved in plastic bags to a mass grave at Repos St-François d’Assise, without the presence of an archaeologist or forensic expert. In testimony to the Superior Court, Sister Marie-Paule Lévaque admitted that she did not know the exact extent of the cemetery. Then, in 1999, the Journal de Montréal reported another accidental discovery of human remains in a zone quite far from the “pigstry cemetery,” during a new SAQ warehouse expansion project led by SAQ president Gaétan Frigon and then Parti Québécois minister François Legault. The SAQ has been unable to locate or provide a report or any information whatsoever about the bones found in 1999.

Between February and May 2024, a total of eight (8) meetings took place between the SAQ, the Mohawk Mothers and the Duplessis Orphans. The latter two groups learned in April that on the very day of their first meeting, February 23, 2024, the SAQ had privately hired Arkéos Inc. to submit an archaeological permit application to the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications (MCC), without consulting the Duplessis Orphans or the Mohawk Mothers. The inventory application submitted by the SAQ and its contractor avoided the requests of the Orphans and Mohawk Mothers for the use of non-invasive technologies specifically designed to detect human remains, such as georadar and Historic Human Remains Detection Dogs (HHRDD) – trained to detect historic human bones at depths of several metres – which are most appropriate when there is a potential for the discovery, disturbance and destruction of human remains.

The Arkéos inventory was not specifically designed to identify and preserve unmarked graves or burials, but rather to identify the remains of material heritage such as buildings, roads and artifacts. Its sampling approach, which suggested that the failure to find complete remains in four (4) trenches dug in certain areas of the site eliminated any possibility of human remains elsewhere, was insufficient to reassure survivors whose loved ones were buried in this cemetery as a result of mistreatment, which included lobotomies.

The Orphans have been calling since 2002 for the exhumation of the bodies buried in the “pigsty cemetery”, the heart of which lies beneath the current SAQ warehouse, to find the evidence of medical experiments and atrocities committed against children. Following the SAQ’s unilateral decision, the Duplessis Mothers and Orphans wrote to the MCC to make additional submissions to ensure that the archaeological permit would take into account the need to use non-invasive techniques to exclude or confirm the presence of human remains on the entire site, but their message was ignored by the Ministry.

Anxious to accommodate the work schedule, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers made a compromise at a meeting held on April 2, 2024, agreeing to work with the contractor selected by the SAQ for an archaeological inventory on the condition that SAQ request and respect the recommendations of independent experts specifically experienced in the use of non-invasive methods and in the search for unmarked graves. At this meeting, all parties agreed to involve Canada’s leading authority on the search for unmarked graves at residential school and on hospital grounds, the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Working Group on Unmarked Graves (CAAWGUG). In an e-mail dated April 4, 2024, the SAQ altered the verbal agreement to request and respect the CAAWGUG recommendations instead to a commitment to hold an information session with the CAAWGUG. As a result of this change of heart, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers had to cancel a traditional condolence ceremony to authorize and inaugurate Arkéos’ research according to Indigenous spiritual protocol.

On April 10, the SAQ finally agreed in writing to suspend work until the CAAWGUG had made its recommendations, and the condolence ceremony was held on April 16, 2024, followed by Arkéos’ inventory. Holding this ceremony was conditional on the involvement of CAAWGUG and a commitment that an independent investigation would be carried out in line with best practices determined by the experts specializing in archaeological investigations at sites potentially containing anonymous burials.

Representatives of CAAWGUG attended a meeting with all parties on May 8, 2024. At this meeting, the SAQ’s contractor, Arkéos, presented a preliminary report “liberating the site” from archaeological restrictions and not recommending any additional measures on site, not including the presence of archaeologists and cultural monitors during the construction work to identify human remains which might be discovered accidentally. It is important to note that the SAQ and Arkéos made this decision despite the fact that only just over half of the bones excavated at the site could be visually identified as being of animal origin, and that no laboratory tests were planned for bone fragments that could not be visually identified.

At the May 8, 2024 meeting, CAAWGUG representatives were finally able to obtain from the SAQ some of the documentation needed to make recommendations appropriate for the site’s context, and indicated that they would be able to provide their recommendations in less than seven (7) days to accommodate the SAQ’s concerns about their project timeline.

On May 9, 2024, reneging on its commitment to wait for the CAAWGUG report, the SAQ announced in a press release that the archaeological investigation was complete, that no human remains had been positively identified on the site, and that work would resume during the week of May 13, 2024. The CAAWGUG shared its official recommendations around the same time as the SAQ’s May 9 press release. In these recommendations, the CAAWGUG called for the use of HHRDD throughout the site and on the excavated bones to detect any human remains, as well as the presence of monitors during all excavation work.

On May 14, 2024, the SAQ held a meeting with the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers to announce that they had decided that the CAAWGUG recommendations would not be followed, that HHRDD would not be used on the site, and that construction would resume immediately without further action. In a press release dated May 15, 2024, the SAQ demonstrated an appalling lack of understanding of the work of the CAAWGUG, which it confused with the broader organization that is the Canadian Association of Archaeologists (CAA), stating that “the CAA is not a professional order, but an association that brings together archaeologists, amateur archaeologists and members of the general public.” This misinformation is extremely worrying coming from a provincial Crown-corporation that acknowledges it has “neither the expertise nor the authority to determine the process of archaeological investigation or analysis of recovered artifacts.” Unlike the CAA, the CAAWGUG brings together fifteen (15) professional archaeologists and scholars selected specifically for their expertise in the search for unmarked graves and burials in humanitarian contexts, such as residential schools. Far from a group of “amateur archaeologists”, the CAAWGUG was recently awarded the 2024 Governor General’s Award for Innovation, which noted that the group “continues to lead the nation with guidance, training, support and assistance for communities conducting searches for children who disappeared from residential schools.”

In its May 15, 2024 press release, the SAQ states, without further explanation, that “regarding the use of HHRDDs, we have referred the matter to the relevant authorities for evaluation. Their conclusions stipulate that this type of method is not appropriate for our site.” Without naming said “competent authorities”, this unjustified rejection of the use of HHRDDs is incomprehensible to the Orphans, the Mohawk Mothers and the survivors of the atrocities that took place at St-Jean-de-Dieu.

While the Arkéos inventory concluded that no human remains were found on the entire site based on samples limited to four (4) trenches, a report published by the U.S. Department of Defense established that HHRDD dogs can effectively differentiate human remains from animal bones (p. 94), even at a depth of 2 metres (p. 44). According to a recent study (Grebenkemper et al 2021, p. 235), HHRDDs have only a 0.06% probability of false positives when two dogs identify a target in the same location. The CAAWGUG, Canada’s leading authority on the subject, considers the use of HHRDD to be appropriate, if not essential, on the entire site and on the excavated bones, with a thorough understanding of the soil composition, as evidenced by the fact that the CAAWGUG does not recommend the use of georadar in its report given its potential ineffectiveness on the site’s clayey soils.

The Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers are taken aback by the SAQ’s refusal to allow HHRDDs to visit the site to ensure that burials and human remains are identified and protected before work begins. Above all, they are shocked that the SAQ would publicly disseminate misinformation. Once construction work resumes without any supervision – which may already be the case, as the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers have not been informed of the work schedule – nothing will be in place to protect the graves, which risk being disturbed, damaged and destroyed forever. Their request to implement, as initially promised, the recommendations that the CAAWGUG specifically identified as critical to identifying any unmarked graves or burials prior to the work is a very basic demand.

Faced with the SAQ’s refusal to let the HHRDDs enter the site to ensure that no graves will be disturbed and destroyed, the Duplessis Orphans and Mohawk Mothers may have no choice but to seek to file the appropriate emergency legal applications, while being prepared to use mediation or negotiation before going to court if work is halted.

*Comité des orphelins et orphelines institutionalisées de Duplessis, 135 rue Therrien Ste-Anne-des-Plaines (Québec) J5N 3B7 *h1bertrand@videotron.ca *Kanien’keha:ka Kahnistensera B.P. 991 Kahnawake (Mohawk Territory) J0L 1B0 kahnistensera@riseup.net

MEDIA CONTACT Philippe Blouin 514-463-8835 philippe.enver.blouin@gmail.com

Vintage Canadian legend and hippie chick, Joanie Mitchell, has the perfect lyrics in “Dog Eat Dog”:

It’s dog eat dog, I’m just waking upThe dove is in the dungeonAnd the white washed hawks pedal hate and call it loveDog Eat DogHoly hope in the hands ofSnakebite evangelists and racketeersAnd big wig financiers
Dog eat dogOn prime time crime the victim begsMoney is the road to justiceAnd power walks it on crooked legsPrimetime, CrimeHoly hope in the hands ofSnakebite evangelists and racketeersAnd big wig financiers
Where the wealth’s displayedThieves and sycophants paradeAnd where it’s madeThe slaves will be takenSome are treated wellIn these games of buy and sellAnd some like poor beastAre burdened down to breaking
Dog eat dogIt’s dog eat dog, ain’t it Flim Flam manDog eat dog, you can lie, cheat, skim, scamBeat’em any way you canDog eat DogYou’ll do well in this land ofSnakebite evangelists and racketeersYou could get to beA big wig financier
Land of snap decisionsLand of short attention spansNothing is savoredLong enough to really understandIn every culture in declineThe watchful ones among the slavesKnow all that is genuine will beScorned and conned and cast away
Dog eat dogPeople looking, seeing nothingDog eat dogPeople listening, hearing nothingDog eat dogPeople lusting, loving nothingDog eat dogPeople stroking, touching nothingDog eat dogKnowing nothingDog eat dog
Dog Eat Dog

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