Jul 8, 2023·edited Jul 8, 2023Liked by Woke Watch Canada
James, this is excellent. I fully support what you say. This subject is not my professional or personal area of expertise, but even as a casual observer and critical thinker I know what you say to be true. When the first T&R project was set up in SA by Desmond Tutu, I recall it being a success, and it was driven by core Christian values of atonement, grace, and forgiveness. This one in Canada is headed the other way, descending into anger, blame and desire for revenge.
I spent my career as a teacher, and over the last 10-15 years there emerged a taboo against saying what James Pew writes: “The intent was cooperation and development, the process was, of course, imperfect, but the net result was an overwhelming benefit for us all.” There was immediate backlash against any teacher who spoke of positive intent, and the one Canadian politician who did, Senator Lynn Beyak, was denigrated and forced into retirement. I am with James and the diehard commentators above. I seek an honest account of history, not falsehoods, false testimony against priests, or false tears over false graves and false reports of murder.
Did anyone read all the letters on Lynn Beyak's website? I did. In hindsight I wish I had made copies of them. She was denigrated under a false premise.
It is the majority of natives that suffer under this ideology. A relatively small group of elite "leaders" benefit. (as well as their kinship groups and lawyers and consultants) I worked in communities in the Yukon in the early and mid 90's and despite all the money that has been thrown at resolving addiction, education, justice, housing and more, the majority of people are still struggling. Even a community like Old Crow (where there are no roads to the community and the residents live a more traditional life) is wracked by dissension and health issues. So much so that the majority of Gwitchen people actually live in Whitehorse and because they don't live in the community are excluded from partaking in elections and decisions affecting the band.
Another thing I noticed is a whole industry of so called elders and pipe carriers and healers etc etc etc making money from those desperate for help. Quite literally traveling the country providing their version of "traditional culture" that has no bearing whatsoever on the natives of the area. I think it's going to get a lot worse before in gets any better.
In culinary terms, "truth and reconciliation" is a smorgasbord of putrid lies palatable to only those in a terminal stage of intellectual anorexia. An obvious and highly distasteful collage of appropriated monikers from genuine victims of social injustice who suffered trauma unimaginable to contemporary Canadians. The phrase itself was fraudulently purloined from apartheid South Africa where an entire section of society experienced violence and egregious human rights violations arising simply from the color of their skin. Rather cheeky, I'd say. Perhaps most duplicitous is the misappropriation of the tragic terminology used to describe the genuine victims of the holocaust such as survivor and genocide. The whole concept reeks of amateur stage craft with a feigned appeal to only those afflicted with myopic ideology and an impaired sense social justice.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
It's unfortunate that people keep pushing this narrative and that it's become part of the mainstream. I just watched this terrible show called "1923" recently and they tried to push this idea that's Catholic schools were just there to torture natives. It's crazy to believe that this genocide happened when there's no evidence for it.
Recent update by the CBC "Two nations Chief Gimmee Gimmee Gotcha thanks all gullible settlers for the recent multi billion $ settlement saying this now allows us to go forward on all our other trillion $ claims"
I believe indigenous "nations" are very insular and secretive. Discussions that take place within the communities (at "feasts", etc.) that determine planning, governance, and so on, are not disclosed, especially in any non-indigenous setting. Ceremonial feasts (and so on) are used to indoctrinate members into skewed, ahistorical, unproven, sometimes bizarre, beliefs about "the other". Stepping outside of that canon results in shaming and shunning, and even expulsion, outcomes which, in such a small society, would be devastating and even insurmountable in the journey to make a meaningful life for oneself and one's family. It's like a child in a home with abusive controlling parents with the rule that one must never discuss what happens at home outside of the home.
Community members in these small insular groups must be very much controlled, given their access to community resources and even welfare money is controlled by band leaders. The narrative is controlled by the elites - oligarchs, as someone recently called them. Look, for example, at the outcome of the MMIWG inquiry and report. Nowhere does it disclose the real source of women's suffering in these communities. Fifty-four million dollars and everyone, including indigenous people, is left with the belief indigenous women and girls are being stalked by non-indigenous men.
Yes, the first imperative is truth. But without truth within these communities, the problem simply persists and worsens. As Mr. Pew writes, "Indigenous grievance activism is a lucrative international grift". As long as that is true, there is no solution, and that will remain true as long as the grifters are in control. It's a clever ruse. Make sure the people are convinced education and anyone on the "outside" are seen as villains, trusting only the secretive insular group on pain of abandonment with no means of sustaining oneself, control over funding, and you maintain your power and your personal wealth and that of your family and close allies. The oligarchs, whom I suspect are mostly men, are not going to give that up, and they are going to sustain the system by naming heirs to what they've achieved, not matter what suffering it causes.
that sounds like a cult. And "mostly men" I would have to partially disagree with. Casimir and Archibald to name two. I wonder if Casimir ever sits and wonders if she released something that will end up much differently than she anticipated. Or is she and others like her so secure in their narrative they cannot imagine any adverse outcome.
Chief Dan George, in his 1967 Lament for Confederation, expressed the hope that “I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government.” Was he aware that he was not being, um, inclusive in his terminology? Probably not. Women were just beginning to be elected to band councils in the 1950s and 60s, but would not become a common presence in band governance for another 10 or 20 years. I guess context is everything.
Chief George also said in that speech, “Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me once again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment.” Dominate the environment?? Isn't that the awful thing that only colonizers do? I wonder if he knew (or even suspected) that, come 2023, such a statement could be deemed politically incorrect, or at best, un-Indigenous. Probably not, eh?
When I was in grade 7 at Austin Heights Elementary in 1969 or 1970 he was the guest at our "graduation" ceremony and he presented me with something or other. Somewhere I have a pic of us together. He was quite a celebrity at the time.. Neither here nor there in this discussion. What you wrote is indicative for sure of how times have changed. The female hereditary chiefs of Gitksan Wesuweten were ousted or removed or something by a group of men declaring themselves the "real" hereditary chiefs, and those men are the ones leading the anti-BCLNG (what can only be properly described as a terrorist) movement.
In London Ontario Grade 11 English class has been changed to indigenous "english" class. The indoctrination is mandatory. You can be sure they'll be pushing the mainstream narrative and lies.
ICT’s list of things that reconciliation is, and is not, reads like it was compiled through participant brainstorming during a cultural awareness training session. I can just see the trainer jotting all these suggestions down on a flip chart.
Indigenous Corporate Training has certainly done well as a big player in the “Industry”. Each of my kids has had to participate in ICT sessions at some point in their professional careers, and Bob Joseph’s “21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act” has become a kind of DEI bible in all levels of government. It would certainly not be in ICT’s best (corporate) interests to see our relationship problems downplayed or resolved!
Speaking of “21 Things …”, has anyone else noticed the truth-bending of Thing #13? That would be the one where Joseph states (p. 65) that the Indian Act “Forbade Indian students from speaking their home language” (subhead reads: “Late 1890s to Early 1960s”). Bob Joseph, who surely KNOWS that this was not legislated in the Indian Act, but was merely an Indian Affairs directive to school staff to encourage the learning of English, supports the claim of Thing #13 with a reference to a ‘chronology of residential schools’ prepared in 2014 by John Edmonds. Edmonds incorrectly claims that the 1896 ‘Programme of Studies’ issued by Indian Affairs “stresses [the] importance of replacing “native tongue” with English. Children forbidden to speak their native language, even to each other, and punished for doing so. This continued to be the policy for life of the system.” (21 Things, p. 118).
I don’t want to belabour this here because it’s a little off topic, but the Programme of Studies says nothing about forbidding students from speaking their native language.
It actually says “Pupils must be taught to read loudly and distinctly. Every word and sentence must be fully explained to them, and from time to time they should be required to state the sense of a lesson or sentence, in their own words, in English and ALSO IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE if the teacher understands it.” And of course there are many documented instances where teachers spoke native languages and even taught in them.
Like the Indian Act and its revisions, the annual reports of Indian Affairs have all been digitized and can be searched online. While I was checking out the Programme of Studies in the annual report for 1896, I did some searching through the entire report for the occurrence of various terms, such as “native tongue,” “language,” “English,” “forbid/forbidden/forbade,” and “prohibit” (“forbid/etc. DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE in the 399-page annual report, which includes the reports of all Indian agents and all school principals across the system. “Prohibit” occurs only in a few instances in relation to prohibiting the sale or trade in liquor on the reserves.
The word “English” appears frequently in the report, of course, because it is listed among the subjects of study. There are MANY references to classes or religious services being taught or delivered in “Indian,” Cree, Sioux or “Montagnais” [Algonquin], in addition to English.
So Bob Joseph is mischaracterizing a policy recommendation for educators as a law, which many Canadians – Indigenous and non – have come to believe was imposed on ALL Indigenous people (in school or not) for decades. (Yes, I have seen it carried that far: “They made it ILLEGAL to speak our own language.” You hear this said over and over.) Argh. Not the kind of “truth” that’s going to lead to reconciliation.
What a great comment! I’ve done some reading in the NAC as well. I’m guessing these are the kind of records Ms Murray wants the indigenous to control. They, like a few biographies I’ve read, are contemporary records, and they (biographies and Archives) tend to confirm one another. So, unless I believe there was a widespread misunderstanding (or conspired misrepresentation), I’m inclined to find those account more persuasive than unexamined testimony offered for money - the more dramatic, the more the payment. While I’m willing to believe there are errors, omissions, misunderstandings, and even some self-serving accounts, there is much in the record that rings true, and, in my view throws much of the arguments made by the indigenous industry into doubt - the tragedy being the longterm harm the oligarchs and their allies are doing to indigenous people, and to the rest of us. Never mind “denialists”. I’d like to see the “leaders” propagating these harmful lies held to account, both non-indigenous and indigenous.
well, that's probably what it is, but I mean is there some measuring stick? Or is it just some notion that keeps changing and Canadian taxpayers have no hope whatsoever in meeting it ever.
The Canadian Encyclopedia phrases it this way, "Reconciliation also refers to efforts made to address the harms caused by various policies and programs of colonization, such as residential schools." If you simply add the word, "reparations" it all makes sense. As the iconic lyric from Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show put it:
"they keep getting richer, so Trudeau can get his picture, on the cover of the Rolling Stone"
James, this is excellent. I fully support what you say. This subject is not my professional or personal area of expertise, but even as a casual observer and critical thinker I know what you say to be true. When the first T&R project was set up in SA by Desmond Tutu, I recall it being a success, and it was driven by core Christian values of atonement, grace, and forgiveness. This one in Canada is headed the other way, descending into anger, blame and desire for revenge.
I spent my career as a teacher, and over the last 10-15 years there emerged a taboo against saying what James Pew writes: “The intent was cooperation and development, the process was, of course, imperfect, but the net result was an overwhelming benefit for us all.” There was immediate backlash against any teacher who spoke of positive intent, and the one Canadian politician who did, Senator Lynn Beyak, was denigrated and forced into retirement. I am with James and the diehard commentators above. I seek an honest account of history, not falsehoods, false testimony against priests, or false tears over false graves and false reports of murder.
Did anyone read all the letters on Lynn Beyak's website? I did. In hindsight I wish I had made copies of them. She was denigrated under a false premise.
It is the majority of natives that suffer under this ideology. A relatively small group of elite "leaders" benefit. (as well as their kinship groups and lawyers and consultants) I worked in communities in the Yukon in the early and mid 90's and despite all the money that has been thrown at resolving addiction, education, justice, housing and more, the majority of people are still struggling. Even a community like Old Crow (where there are no roads to the community and the residents live a more traditional life) is wracked by dissension and health issues. So much so that the majority of Gwitchen people actually live in Whitehorse and because they don't live in the community are excluded from partaking in elections and decisions affecting the band.
Another thing I noticed is a whole industry of so called elders and pipe carriers and healers etc etc etc making money from those desperate for help. Quite literally traveling the country providing their version of "traditional culture" that has no bearing whatsoever on the natives of the area. I think it's going to get a lot worse before in gets any better.
what do you figure has to happen for any meaningful substantive change to take place?
In culinary terms, "truth and reconciliation" is a smorgasbord of putrid lies palatable to only those in a terminal stage of intellectual anorexia. An obvious and highly distasteful collage of appropriated monikers from genuine victims of social injustice who suffered trauma unimaginable to contemporary Canadians. The phrase itself was fraudulently purloined from apartheid South Africa where an entire section of society experienced violence and egregious human rights violations arising simply from the color of their skin. Rather cheeky, I'd say. Perhaps most duplicitous is the misappropriation of the tragic terminology used to describe the genuine victims of the holocaust such as survivor and genocide. The whole concept reeks of amateur stage craft with a feigned appeal to only those afflicted with myopic ideology and an impaired sense social justice.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde
It's unfortunate that people keep pushing this narrative and that it's become part of the mainstream. I just watched this terrible show called "1923" recently and they tried to push this idea that's Catholic schools were just there to torture natives. It's crazy to believe that this genocide happened when there's no evidence for it.
Recent update by the CBC "Two nations Chief Gimmee Gimmee Gotcha thanks all gullible settlers for the recent multi billion $ settlement saying this now allows us to go forward on all our other trillion $ claims"
I believe indigenous "nations" are very insular and secretive. Discussions that take place within the communities (at "feasts", etc.) that determine planning, governance, and so on, are not disclosed, especially in any non-indigenous setting. Ceremonial feasts (and so on) are used to indoctrinate members into skewed, ahistorical, unproven, sometimes bizarre, beliefs about "the other". Stepping outside of that canon results in shaming and shunning, and even expulsion, outcomes which, in such a small society, would be devastating and even insurmountable in the journey to make a meaningful life for oneself and one's family. It's like a child in a home with abusive controlling parents with the rule that one must never discuss what happens at home outside of the home.
Community members in these small insular groups must be very much controlled, given their access to community resources and even welfare money is controlled by band leaders. The narrative is controlled by the elites - oligarchs, as someone recently called them. Look, for example, at the outcome of the MMIWG inquiry and report. Nowhere does it disclose the real source of women's suffering in these communities. Fifty-four million dollars and everyone, including indigenous people, is left with the belief indigenous women and girls are being stalked by non-indigenous men.
Yes, the first imperative is truth. But without truth within these communities, the problem simply persists and worsens. As Mr. Pew writes, "Indigenous grievance activism is a lucrative international grift". As long as that is true, there is no solution, and that will remain true as long as the grifters are in control. It's a clever ruse. Make sure the people are convinced education and anyone on the "outside" are seen as villains, trusting only the secretive insular group on pain of abandonment with no means of sustaining oneself, control over funding, and you maintain your power and your personal wealth and that of your family and close allies. The oligarchs, whom I suspect are mostly men, are not going to give that up, and they are going to sustain the system by naming heirs to what they've achieved, not matter what suffering it causes.
that sounds like a cult. And "mostly men" I would have to partially disagree with. Casimir and Archibald to name two. I wonder if Casimir ever sits and wonders if she released something that will end up much differently than she anticipated. Or is she and others like her so secure in their narrative they cannot imagine any adverse outcome.
I think the women are the exception, by a long shot.
Chief Dan George, in his 1967 Lament for Confederation, expressed the hope that “I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government.” Was he aware that he was not being, um, inclusive in his terminology? Probably not. Women were just beginning to be elected to band councils in the 1950s and 60s, but would not become a common presence in band governance for another 10 or 20 years. I guess context is everything.
Chief George also said in that speech, “Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me once again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment.” Dominate the environment?? Isn't that the awful thing that only colonizers do? I wonder if he knew (or even suspected) that, come 2023, such a statement could be deemed politically incorrect, or at best, un-Indigenous. Probably not, eh?
When I was in grade 7 at Austin Heights Elementary in 1969 or 1970 he was the guest at our "graduation" ceremony and he presented me with something or other. Somewhere I have a pic of us together. He was quite a celebrity at the time.. Neither here nor there in this discussion. What you wrote is indicative for sure of how times have changed. The female hereditary chiefs of Gitksan Wesuweten were ousted or removed or something by a group of men declaring themselves the "real" hereditary chiefs, and those men are the ones leading the anti-BCLNG (what can only be properly described as a terrorist) movement.
Here’s an account of the hostile displacement of the female hereditary chiefs: https://www.jlsreport.com/2019/02/22/wetsuweten-strong-the-symbol-of-male-dominance-over-women/
In London Ontario Grade 11 English class has been changed to indigenous "english" class. The indoctrination is mandatory. You can be sure they'll be pushing the mainstream narrative and lies.
https://youtu.be/7FnLXMzJcaw maybe listen to these guys. https://youtu.be/dtW_aiHXB1Q
Is there somewhere where the TRC actually describes what "reconciliation" means to them?
I don't know if there is such a definition in the TRC report. However, any indigenous descriptions of the process I've read talk about a mutually respectful relationship, but only after various "calls to action" are fulfilled which is all about what non-indigenous people must do for indigenous people. I see little, if anything, about mutual respect for us as Canadians - just more work to create an endless loop of guilty reparation for harms, real and imagined. See, for example, https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/what-reconciliation-is-and-what-it-is-not#:~:text=Reconciliation%20is%20about%20establishing%20and,Aboriginal%20peoples%20in%20this%20country.
ICT’s list of things that reconciliation is, and is not, reads like it was compiled through participant brainstorming during a cultural awareness training session. I can just see the trainer jotting all these suggestions down on a flip chart.
Indigenous Corporate Training has certainly done well as a big player in the “Industry”. Each of my kids has had to participate in ICT sessions at some point in their professional careers, and Bob Joseph’s “21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act” has become a kind of DEI bible in all levels of government. It would certainly not be in ICT’s best (corporate) interests to see our relationship problems downplayed or resolved!
Speaking of “21 Things …”, has anyone else noticed the truth-bending of Thing #13? That would be the one where Joseph states (p. 65) that the Indian Act “Forbade Indian students from speaking their home language” (subhead reads: “Late 1890s to Early 1960s”). Bob Joseph, who surely KNOWS that this was not legislated in the Indian Act, but was merely an Indian Affairs directive to school staff to encourage the learning of English, supports the claim of Thing #13 with a reference to a ‘chronology of residential schools’ prepared in 2014 by John Edmonds. Edmonds incorrectly claims that the 1896 ‘Programme of Studies’ issued by Indian Affairs “stresses [the] importance of replacing “native tongue” with English. Children forbidden to speak their native language, even to each other, and punished for doing so. This continued to be the policy for life of the system.” (21 Things, p. 118).
I don’t want to belabour this here because it’s a little off topic, but the Programme of Studies says nothing about forbidding students from speaking their native language.
It actually says “Pupils must be taught to read loudly and distinctly. Every word and sentence must be fully explained to them, and from time to time they should be required to state the sense of a lesson or sentence, in their own words, in English and ALSO IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE if the teacher understands it.” And of course there are many documented instances where teachers spoke native languages and even taught in them.
Like the Indian Act and its revisions, the annual reports of Indian Affairs have all been digitized and can be searched online. While I was checking out the Programme of Studies in the annual report for 1896, I did some searching through the entire report for the occurrence of various terms, such as “native tongue,” “language,” “English,” “forbid/forbidden/forbade,” and “prohibit” (“forbid/etc. DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE in the 399-page annual report, which includes the reports of all Indian agents and all school principals across the system. “Prohibit” occurs only in a few instances in relation to prohibiting the sale or trade in liquor on the reserves.
The word “English” appears frequently in the report, of course, because it is listed among the subjects of study. There are MANY references to classes or religious services being taught or delivered in “Indian,” Cree, Sioux or “Montagnais” [Algonquin], in addition to English.
So Bob Joseph is mischaracterizing a policy recommendation for educators as a law, which many Canadians – Indigenous and non – have come to believe was imposed on ALL Indigenous people (in school or not) for decades. (Yes, I have seen it carried that far: “They made it ILLEGAL to speak our own language.” You hear this said over and over.) Argh. Not the kind of “truth” that’s going to lead to reconciliation.
What a great comment! I’ve done some reading in the NAC as well. I’m guessing these are the kind of records Ms Murray wants the indigenous to control. They, like a few biographies I’ve read, are contemporary records, and they (biographies and Archives) tend to confirm one another. So, unless I believe there was a widespread misunderstanding (or conspired misrepresentation), I’m inclined to find those account more persuasive than unexamined testimony offered for money - the more dramatic, the more the payment. While I’m willing to believe there are errors, omissions, misunderstandings, and even some self-serving accounts, there is much in the record that rings true, and, in my view throws much of the arguments made by the indigenous industry into doubt - the tragedy being the longterm harm the oligarchs and their allies are doing to indigenous people, and to the rest of us. Never mind “denialists”. I’d like to see the “leaders” propagating these harmful lies held to account, both non-indigenous and indigenous.
Perhaps atonement for having the audacity of trying to educate and integrate an isolated population into mainstream society.
well, that's probably what it is, but I mean is there some measuring stick? Or is it just some notion that keeps changing and Canadian taxpayers have no hope whatsoever in meeting it ever.
The Canadian Encyclopedia phrases it this way, "Reconciliation also refers to efforts made to address the harms caused by various policies and programs of colonization, such as residential schools." If you simply add the word, "reparations" it all makes sense. As the iconic lyric from Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show put it:
"they keep getting richer, so Trudeau can get his picture, on the cover of the Rolling Stone"
Perhaps a better question then is who is defining "harms"
Very good. As is the Dorchester Review article this piece refers to.
I know what is going on in the schools today. I want to be part of this if you are on this same side.