MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee says he’s outraged after the Winnipeg Sun published an opinion piece downplaying the negative impacts residential schools have on Indigenous people.

The article by former judge Brian Giesbrecht titled “Some questions about Kamloops”, says it’s “time to move on” from the news that 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at a former residential school site in BC.

In letter to the Winnipeg Sun’s editor-in-chief, Settee says Giesbrecht also suggested that the children in unmarked graves may have died from the flu or tuberculosis, and adds these types of articles give people permission to -quote- “ignore the atrocities experienced by Indigenous children in these schools”.

He goes on to shame both Giesbrecht and the Winnipeg Sun, and that MKO will not be working with the newspaper until they are willing to publically retract and issue an apology for publishing the article.