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Picture of the Qu'Appelle Indian Industrial School in Lebret, Assiniboia, North-West Territories, Dominion of Canada, ca. 1885
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Picture of a study period at a Roman Catholic Indian Residential School in Fort Resolution, North-West Territories
Before the Great War, Residental Schools across Canada were created to get the Native Americans to assimilate into Canadian culture. However, these schools were closed in American-occupied Canada during the Great War. While the United States had similar schools, American newspapers during the war used the schools as propaganda to villainize Canada; later historians compared it to Entente propaganda of German-occupied Belgium. After the Great War, which saw the rest of Canada put under American control, the US continued to use the schools as propaganda, this time to get the Native Americans to support the occupation, even though the United States kept them open until 1996. On June 11, 2008, American President: Leo V. Enos officially apologized to the Native Americans in Canada and other Indigenous peoples across the United States.
The Republic de Québec had similar schools created after the Second Great War. However, under pressure from the United States, these schools were closed in 1996.
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Map of the Residential Schools in former Canada, including the schools in Quebec and Newfoundland.
In 2021, a series of mass graves were discovered in the residential schools, much to the shock, anger, and horror of the people of the United States.
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Picture of a makeshift memorial honoring 215 children, whose remains have been discovered buried near the facility, surrounds a monument outside a former Residential School in Kamloops, British Columbia, June 2, 2021.
Some American nationalists used the schools to justify the occupation of Canada, while ignoring or denying the United States' role in the schools in Canada. For Canadian succession movements, the schools are a controversial topic. Radical groups denied how brutal they were under the Dominion and saying that the schools were worse under the United States. In contrast, moderate groups fully acknowledged the atrocities that were committed.
"If what the Yankees did to our people is a cultural genocide, then what we did to the Indigenous peoples was also a cultural genocide"- Alec Pomeroy, leader of the moderate Canadian Independence Party, Winnipeg, July 1, 2021.
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Canadian Independence Party rally on July 1, 2022, Ottawa. Since the Great War, July 1, Canada Day, a public holiday in independent Canada, has been used to protest the United States' rule over Canada, even after the former Provinces and Territories were admitted into the Union. Some even used the Fourth of July to protest.
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Flag of the Canadian Independence Party.
"This is the flag of our people; Britain, our Mother Country, has lost her way since the Great War. We will be independent of all foreigners"-Alec Pomeroy, 1967.
Addition to this.
Picture of counter-protests against Canadian Successionists, July 1, 2021.
In 2021 a series of mass graves were discovered in Residential Schools for Native Americans in former Canada, dating back to when Canada was independent. While the United States used these schools, albeit in secret (with its secrets being revealed in the same year), many in former Canada and beyond were outraged. Moderate Canadian successionist movements, notably the Canadian Independence Party (CIP), led by Alec Pomeroy (1936-2022), the son of Mary McGregor Pomeroy, stated that "while the Americans had committed a cultural genocide on our people, it is also important to let the Indigenous peoples' voice be heard." In Winnipeg, Pomeroy delivered a speech about this discovery (as shown above). Radical groups, notably the Independence Now Party, had called the discovery "something that the Yankees made up about our people for the first time since military rule" and called Pomeroy "a traitor for saying these lies and for having bastard half-Yankee children."
On July 1, 2021, the CIP held rallies and a moment of silence for the Native American communities. However, like the image above, many had worn orange to counter the secessionist (moderate and radical) rallies and remember the Indigenous peoples who died in the schools.
Canadian secessionist movements appeared to be on the downturn as of 2023, although the CIP and others are still active.