There was something grimly revealing about the scene that unfolded on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc territory Sunday morning: men dressed in black, their faces concealed by white masks, gathering just days before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Then came the message. “Got bones?”
The banner, displayed later from an overpass above the Trans-Canada Highway, was a pointed reference to the continuing investigation into potential unmarked burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
It was not subtle. Nor was the timing.
Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc says individuals associated with Second Sons Canada, a group linked to white supremacist and white nationalist ideology, was behind the protest on Sept. 27. The nation said security personnel asked the group to leave and contacted the RCMP.
In a comment on X, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the demonstration cowardly and abhorrent, saying it had “no place in this country.”
“My thoughts are with everyone who are shaken and hurt by this disgusting display of hate,” he stated.
Second Sons Canada describes itself as a Canadian men’s nationalist organization. Founded in 2024, the group says its activities include political activism, public demonstrations, distributing flyers and stickers, fitness training and martial arts.
Its rhetoric is considerably more revealing.
The organization rails against what it calls the “mass importation” of immigrants and claims Canada’s political establishment is controlled by “globalist” interests. It also says its members deliberately maintain anonymity in public to protect their identities and deny information to what it calls their adversaries.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network places Second Sons within a broader network associated with Diagolon.
That gives Sunday’s appearance in Tk’emlúps a context that cannot be easily dismissed as a casual group of Canadians exercising their right to protest.
The location and timing are impossible to separate from the history of the site.
The former Kamloops Indian Residential School operated from 1890 to 1978. During that time, thousands of Indigenous children passed through its doors.
In 2021, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc announced preliminary ground-penetrating radar findings that suggested possible unmarked graves at the former school. The nation initially described the findings as the remains of 215 children.
The controversy that followed the 2021 announcement is important because two very different stories emerged from the same evidence.
The first was a story about Indigenous communities confronting a painful possibility that children who died at residential schools may have been buried in unmarked graves.
The second was a story about an alleged “mass grave hoax”.
Sunday’s demonstration was not an isolated incident. In January 2026, OneBC leader Dallas Brodie attempted to hold a rally at the University of British Columbia. Hundreds of protesters confronted Brodie and her supporters, accusing the party of promoting residential-school denialism.
Brodie had previously been criticized for appearing in a photo showing her denying the deaths of children at residential schools.
Another incident occurred in 2023, when a group of denialists entered the Kamloops site without permission. Some carried shovels, claiming they wanted to determine for themselves whether any children were buried.
The federal government has recognized the problem and allocated $5 million in 2024 to establish a program to combat residential-school denialism. Since 2021-22, the federal government has also invested $323.1 million toward implementing Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action 74 through 76, which concern missing children and burial information.
But the events at Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc show that the situation is changing. Denialism is no longer just a problem of misinformation. It is now a vehicle for organized white nationalist movements to target Indigenous communities and sites of historical trauma.
Canada’s response will have to account for that reality as well.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
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