Frontier Centre may sue for malicious misrepresentation
Anthropologist Hymie Rubenstein's response to false and potentially libelous accusations of fomenting hate
by Hymie Rubenstein
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Frontier) is one of Canada’s most prominent independent think tanks with a head office in Winnipeg and staff and advisors across the country. Since 1999, it has published thousands of publications on transformational public policy and hosted hundreds of events, seminars, and meetings.
On January 19, 2023, its President and founder, Peter Holle, issued a statement that Frontier is “considering legal action against certain members of the media and others for deliberately misrepresenting the Centre’s mission as ‘racist,’ promoting ‘white supremacy’ and not being fact based.”
These misrepresentations focused mainly on Frontier’s publication of data-driven articles subjecting the federal-government commissioned 2015 Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Report about Canada’s Indian Residential Schools to detailed scrutiny.
Frontier also has done ground-breaking work disputing the claim that thousands of indigenous children are lying in unmarked graves far from their homes across Western Canada. Holle also said, “Given that so many of us at the Centre are passionate about reconciliation, truth, and are even of Aboriginal background, we were very disturbed by these false accusations…. More than ever, our work needs to be founded on truth, not speculation, not misrepresentation, groundless assertions and ad hominem attacks.”
Informed sources have indicated that Frontier’s focus of concern is an opinion piece titled Fomenting hate sets stage for heinous criminals’ devastating acts, published by the Winnipeg Free Press (WFP) on December 7, 2022.
Written by weekly columnist Niigaan Sinclair, a professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba, the piece focused on Jeremy Skibicki, a white man charged with the serial killing spree of four indigenous women in Winnipeg beginning in early May 2022.
According to Sinclair, Skibicki “posted videos and articles [on social media] that celebrated white supremacy;” “he supported residential school denialism online;” “Skibicki’s postings included statements and other material denying the existence of unmarked graves of children at residential schools,” and “Even though the [posted] material featured nonsensical conspiracy theories and misrepresented information, they clearly influenced Skibicki.”
Facebook selfie of Jeremy Skibicki.
Among these “influencers” were “Manitoba … writers — including former provincial cabinet ministers, judges and professors.”
Sinclair also claimed that “Jeremy Skibicki may have acted alone … but he spent years being conditioned, encouraged and enabled to believe Indigenous people lie about the violence they experience…. Some of the people producing and perpetuating this story have accreditation in the highest educational institutions of our community, with huge platforms and decision-making power. They, in part, are responsible for the violence against Indigenous people.”
Who are these accredited “conditioners, encouragers, and enablers” with all this power?
Judging from the following email Sinclair sent me on the same day his WFP piece appeared, I am one of them.
From: Niigaanwewidam Sinclair <Niigaan.Sinclair@umanitoba.ca>
Subject: You helped create this monster
Date: December 8, 2022 at 3:01:48 PM CST
To: Hymie Rubenstein <hymie.rubenstein568@gmail.com>
Another one is James McCrae, a habitual FCPP writer on indigenous issues. McRae served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1986 to 1999 and as a cabinet minister for 11 of those years. After he retired from active politics, he was appointed a Citizenship Judge.
From: Sinclair, Niigaan <Niigaan.Sinclair@freepress.mb.ca>
Sent: December 8, 2022 3:05 PM
To: James McCrae <jasmac@live.ca>
Subject: A giftSince you’re so obsessed with wanting me to tell the truth, I wrote this with you and your ilk in mind.
Fomenting hate sets stage for heinous criminals’ devastating acts
Niigaan James Sinclair
Columnist, The Winnipeg Free Press
Several of us implicitly identified by Sinclair based on our former occupations complained to the WFP about this vilification on December 15. No reply was received from the newspaper until well after we complained to the National News Media Council, a voluntary Canadian body supposedly promoting media ethics and responsible journalism, which then forwarded our complaint to the newspaper.
Paul Samyn, the WFP’s editor, replied in a January 20 email that none of the five persons who filed the complaint could be identified by name, a dubious claim given the email evidence sent to McCrae and me. He also opined that “While you may not agree with Niigaan’s column or like the way he fashioned his argument, he was well within his rights as a columnist to draw on facts and commentary in the public domain to raise concerns about how fomenting hate sets the stage for the slaying of Indigenous women.”
Lost in this pseudo-psychology excuse for potentially libelous accusations is the elementary observation that truly fomented hate provoked the series of vandalizations, arsons, and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 that desecrated, damaged, or destroyed 68 Christian churches across the country following the May 27, 2021, Tk'emlúps te Secwé pemc (Kamloops) Band’s press release stating that "This past weekend, with the help of a ground penetrating radar (GPR) specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light – the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School."
Regardless of the intense grief and anger this announcement produced, its veracity remains highly questionable because GPR can't verify the existence of human remains, let alone any organic material. Given that there is no record of family members searching for missing IRS children, it is more probable that decades of construction activity in the very area the GPR “hits” were recorded account for the 215 soil disturbances.
Indifferent to scientific evidence, Indigenous activists, aided and abetted by compliant politicians, have indoctrinated an entire generation of indigenous youth with the false notion that Canada is a genocidal country whose white citizens hate them.
Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
___
Thanks for reading. You many also be interested in Seeking the Truth About Residential Schools written by James McCrae, Nina Green and James Pew.
Please consider supporting Woke Watch Canada by upgrading to a paid subscription.
The simple facts today are that anyone who disagrees with the narrative from the liberal elites in Ottawa headed by Mr trudeau aka Blackface and his booblehead crew are considered racist, colonials, terrorists, nazis and people who wear tinfoil hats. Whereas he in fact is the most divisive intolerant premier to ever lead this country who has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth every time he opens it and has a temper tantrum every time anyone has the temerity to disagree with him a classic example of that is Tamara Lych & the peaceful convoy to Ottawa.
Disgusting to see the head of this country act like a little spoiled brat at the best of times but when he started this entire debacle in the first place it only makes it worse. A sad day indeed when truth and justice take a back door to woke ideology.
Journalism is supposed to be a dispassionate search for truth. This "journalist" seems like a hate-filled activist with an agenda.