FILE PHOTO - A majority of Canadians say suspected graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School should be excavated.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

A majority of Canadians say suspected graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School should be excavated.

That's according to data from a recent Angus Reid poll, finding most Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike want more evidence than the roughly 200 suspected graves discovered at the site through radar studies.

Of the more than 2,500 Canadians from across the country surveyed, two-thirds said the Indian Residential School system was a form of cultural genocide and more than half believe Canada should continue addressing the legacy it leaves on Indigenous people.

The poll was conducted in late-July, more than four years after Tk'emlups te Secwepemc announced its findings through ground-penetrating radar work between the former Indian residential school and the South Thompson River.

Roughly two-thirds of Canadians would accept the claim if further information was made public through excavation. That proportion is true for those polled in most Canadian provinces, but it drops to 55 per cent of respondents in Quebec and rises to three-quarters in the prairie provinces.

Among ethnicities, 56% Indigenous Canadians agreed they would want more evidence, compared to 65% of white Canadians and 59% non-white, according to the poll.

The disparity between those who would accept the claim with or without more information is most pronounced among voting lines with 83% of Conservative voters calling for more evidence, 52% for Liberals and 39% for NDP.

Tk'emlups took on the work after remains were found on the grounds, including a child's rib bone. In May 2021, the First Nation's announcement made worldwide headlines when it announced it had confirmed "a knowing" in the community with around 200 children's unmarked graves found beneath the soil.

Though some similar work had been done elsewhere, the announcement by Tk'emlups sparked a renewed reckoning over Canada's Indian residential school system and reinvigorated calls to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions calls to action. Other First Nations soon took on similar radar work.

So far only a few excavations have taken place at any site where suspected unmarked graves were found and none have turned up graves.

While the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded more than 4,000 children died in the Indian residential school system, a wave of so-called denialism has since followed. It's been described as a strategy to distort facts about the system to cast doubt on survivors' stories.

Public figures skeptical of the findings have been accused of denialism since the 2021 findings and it has led to controversies like a lawsuit  involving the mayor of Quesnel, for example.

Calls to criminalize denialism even began last year, spurred in Ottawa by an NDP MP. The Angus Reid poll asked if it should be a criminal offence to "make public statements questioning" the harms of Indian residential schools.

It was opposed by 62% of respondents while 15% were unsure. Among Indigenous respondents, results were more split with 45% opposed and 13% unsure.

Tk'emlups te Secwepemc did not immediately respond when asked to comment on the Angus Reid Institute poll.

Go here to see the full poll results.

— With files from The Canadian Press.

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