People are upset…and they’re Indigenous! GASP!!

Why do Canadians Half-Step on Pushback Against False Indigenous Narratives?

Image of an Indian Residential School. Source is Wikipedia

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(Kamloops North MLA Peter Milobar) “admits to being a speaking piece for residential school denialism, which we now know has little to do with actually denying residential schools and the bad things that happened in them and everything to do with challenging politically correct narratives about them instead.” - Drea Humphrey (Rebel News)

By

James Pew

We really need to cancel the word “narrative” when used to describe history in any shape or form. Social Justice narratives are not history. They are the fictions of creative people. In the post-truth West, narratives are invented and shaped into preferred counter-factual versions of events that are used to convince people of something that advantages the narrative holders. I don’t think it is more complicated than this.

Once a narrative is established, relevant facts or evidence are selectively included or excluded into the lore of that narrative depending on if they support or reject it. The entire process is entirely and always an agenda-driven post-truth exercise. That this is permitted is a vast disservice to the public who generally do not grasp the existential danger of the post-truth paradigm, and the central role played by emotionally manipulative narratives.

However, one of the more effective ways false Canadian narratives are undermined and corrected is when well-known American journalists decide to cover them. Recently, some Americans have been taking greater interest in Canada’s issues with truth and the corresponding weaving and adamant defense of false indigenous narratives.

The American media hub Revolver published somewhat of an expose of the unmarked graves hoax on February 27th. Written bluntly in that piece: “... this whole story appears to be nothing more than a shameful hate hoax—carefully crafted to fuel more anti-Christian hatred…Think about the countless Christian churches that were vandalized, even burned to the ground, all because of this anti-Christian, left-wing lie.” Indeed.

Recently American journalist Matt Walsh produced a 16-minute segment for his popular podcast on Canada’s unmarked graves hoax. The segment begins at the top of the video. I encourage readers to view the video below and take note of the difference between Walsh’s rhetoric and that of the typical Canadian commentator who has either swallowed the phony story hook, line and sinker, or who is too darn scared to invoke the truth and properly denounce the falsehoods.

To wrap our heads around the seriousness of the matter, let us turn to a piece published by Canada’s Fraser Institute written by Tom Flanagan concerning the missing indigenous children aspect of the false residential school narrative: “The myth of missing students arose from a failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s researchers to cross-reference the vast number of historical documents about residential schools and the children who attended them. The documentation exists, but the commissioners did not avail themselves of it.” Documents smockuments, who needs em?

When it comes to phony indigenous narratives, Canadians divide generally into three groups: 1) Those, like me, who don’t believe a word. 2) Those who don’t believe, but can’t bring themselves to mount a full rejection of the untruths. Instead they focus on the most egregious falsehoods, but they always make excuses for the indigenous liars who made up the narratives and received millions in taxpayer dollars for their disingenuous efforts. 3) The credulous. Those suffering from the mind-virus of leftism/wokeism who believe everything immediately and unquestioningly as long as it supports progressive narratives or woke leftism in one way or another.

The well-known Canadian journalist Jon Kay is a good example of one who fits comfortably into group two. To be fair, it should be recognized that he has contributed excellent commentary that correctly describes the unmarked graves story as false, post-truth histrionics. However, he is reluctant to point a finger at the indigenous activist groups who created the false narrative that caused the country to lose its collective mind and burn down dozens of Christian churches (while vandalizing dozens more). Further, he is prone to repeat falsehoods that concern the history of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.

In Jon Kay’s recent Quillette piece he wrote the following: “Needless to say, myths, social panics, and conspiracy theories spread regularly in all corners of the planet. But one typically can depend on mainstream media, politicians, and civic organisations to at least try to investigate and debunk such tall tales.” I can’t help feeling this is a little rich coming from Jon Kay, who, in this case, doesn’t need to “try to investigate” anything. Gifted Canadian independent researcher Nina Green and others have already done a bang up job of that. All Jon Kay needs to do is look at and contend with their work, which has been handed to him on a silver platter.

Why would any journalist who knows that the indigenous activists and their media and government partners are telling lies, and who also knows that the meticulous and exceptional independent Canadian researcher (Nina Green) is entirely on top of the facts concerning the issue, still selectively believe the liars while arbitrarily accepting only part of what the truth-tellers have to offer? It boggles the mind. I think Jon Kay needs to put on his courage pants and start debunking the full false narrative concerning Canada’s Indian residential schools.

It is really odd that Jon Kay does this half-stepping thing because I know for a fact that he has the same access as I have to the best truth-seeking IRS researchers who use school records and other bits of material evidence to demonstrate that many of the widely circulated aspects of Canada’s IRS narrative are total B/S. For instance in the same Quillette piece quoted above, Kay repeats several falsehoods concerning the history of Indian Residential Schools. Those remarks include:

1. Jon Kay referred to Canadian history as, “often shameful history of mistreating Indigenous peoples.” However, this is nothing more than mind pablum which is far too often repeated by Canadian journalists. Someone like Jon Kay is too smart to repeat such a vacuous ahistorical non-statement, yet he does, all the time. Does Jon Kay or any other Canadian journalist ever ponder the treatment of the settlers by the indigenous during the colonial period? Can they even conceive of a history where indigenous treatment of non-indigenous was also “often shameful.” To my eye, on this issue, JK seems incapable of this type of balanced reflection and examination.

2. Agreeing with the ahistorical anti-Canadian assumptions of the woke “settler historian” Sean “Clown Show” Carleton, Kay wrote “Canada’s history is stained with shameful policies that forced many Indigenous communities to send their children to schools.” No indigenous children were forced to attend Indian Residential Schools. This has been thoroughly debunked by the same IRS researchers who debunked the 215 unmarked graves myth. Again, JK needs to take advantage of the full buffet of fact-based truth-centric debunking of false indigenous narratives. Why be so selective? Why stick to poking around the appetizer and bread table when right beside it is a spread of juicy prime rib? Get some meat JK, your iron is low!

3. In referring to the IRS system, JK wrote it “often did treat Indigenous children in a cruel, or at least neglectful, fashion.” Here is where a more thoughtful (less lazy) writer would discuss the difficult circumstances faced by both indigenous and non-indigenous populations during the IRS period. When one properly assesses this period, and the role the IRS system played, the net result is that the settlers were boundlessly kind and concerned with the well-being of indigenous people. The building of the IRS system, which was intended to educate and integrate indigenous children into modern society, is proof of this kindness. If the intention had been genocide, the settlers would have built Nazi-style concentration camps with crematoriums, not schools. Duh!

4. JK wrote, “Children were typically prevented from learning their ancestral languages, and stripped of their cultures.” This one is far worse than mind pablum. It’s actual horse shit. The IRS system was never designed to celebrate or preserve indigenous languages or cultures. The responsibility for that was on indigenous communities themselves. Why can’t modern day writers see this? The settlers aim was to educate indigenous kids in English and Western lifeways. This act of kindness was never intended to have anything to do with indigenous culture. However, in spite of this, many efforts were made to preserve indigenous cultures at the schools through the encouragement and practice of indigenous arts and languages (among other cultural features). While it's true students were required to speak English during class time, it is well documented that most schools permitted students to speak their mother tongue during non-class times. Mark DeWolf, a white student who attended an IRS (his father was the principal) has written how he felt alienated from his classmates because he did not understand their language (which they spoke most of the time outside of class). Rodney A. Clifton’s piece The Slander of James McCrae offers important balance to the issue of indigenous languages and Indian Residential Schools (someone tell JK to read it!).

5. And finally, JK wrote, “At least 3,200 Indigenous children are known to have perished after attending residential schools—typically from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.” The part about tuberculosis is true. However, the 3,200 is a misleading number. The true number of residential school deaths is estimated to be around 423. The rest of the deaths occurred at places other than the schools. So why are the schools blamed for these deaths? Peter Bryce’s famous study concluded that almost all of the indigenous students he examined already had tuberculosis before they were enrolled in a residential school. This means, in most cases, the students contracted tuberculosis from their home reserves, and then ended up dying from it in some place other than the schools, but activists blame the schools anyway (becuase it serves their false narrative). The image below is from the Truth and Reconciliation Report:

The inspiration for today’s post is BC lawyer Jim Heller. I will have more to say about Jim in a few days when more information regarding his case gets made public. Jim’s situation, and the defense of Jim by BC MLA and critic to the attorney general, Dallas Brodie, is probably the most important development to date on this embarrassingly shameful false narrative of murdered indigenous children dashed away in clandestine graves.

In a nutshell, Jim had respectfully and quietly requested that the BC Law Society update the language used in some of its training materials. He asked that it not refer to the 2021 discovery of the bodies of children (which is not true) in the apple orchard of the former Kamloops residential school. Instead Jim suggested that the language should be similar to what the Kamloops band recently updated their website to reflect: that soil anomalies, not dead children, had been discovered.

The law society refused and publicly called Jim a racist. Jim is now suing for defamation. Dallas Brodie is defending Jim vigorously. Check out the recent tweet she published and continues to stand behind (notice the almost 8,000 likes):

My next piece will go more in-depth into the Jim Heller and Dallas Brodie developments. In the meantime, I wish them both strength and success in they’re efforts to stand for truth! We could sure use a lot more Canadians like Jim and Dallas!

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Trump vs. Canada.

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