Five years after Canadians were told that the remains of 215 children had been found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, The Globe and Mail’s editorial board has finally admitted a basic fact: no such discovery has ever been proven.

The Globe’s editorial board says media, including itself, failed to scrutinize the claim, noting early coverage “simply stated as fact” that remains of 215 children had been found.

In a remarkable rebuke of the media, political leaders and institutions that treated the claim as a settled fact, The Globe acknowledged that reports of hundreds of children’s graves at Kamloops remain unverified and that extraordinary claims require evidence.

“The fact of the crimes committed against Indigenous children at residential schools over many decades does not automatically validate claims that hundreds of students were dumped into unmarked graves in Kamloops and other residential schools,” reads the column.

“That is an extraordinary assertion, one that requires proof.”