Pronouncing moral judgment on the deceased – and yet elementary justice demands that he who is to be judged should have a hearing – the dead, white Christians and indigenous, are powerless to defend themselves, whatever they are accused of.
Assembling evidence to judge those no longer alive as both prosecutor and judge -- but there is not spokesperson for the defense.
The folks in charge of the residential school system did not have the standards of the present. Honestly, beyond the self-satisfaction of the self-appointed judge, what do we learn except that moral standards have changed? No figure of the past will meet the standards of the present.
If each generation is free to measure its predecessor morally, using the criteria now accepted, no one will escape condemnation. We must be judged by the moral criteria we know.