CBC News has examined 33 Canadian churches that burned to the ground since May 2021. Just two were ruled accidental.
Investigators have determined that 24 were deliberately set while others are still under investigation. Some researchers and community leaders suggest Canada’s colonial history and recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse.
They don’t generally bury people under churches and I doubt they were breaking through and digging up church floors to hide the dead children when there’s soft dirt right next to the church. But they were usually buried outside the residential school anyway.