The Indian Residential School Research Group

A catalyst for change

By

James Pew

CORRECTION: Chris Champion (publisher for the Dorchester Review) is a sitting board member of the IRSRG. The article originally states that Chris is an IRSRG author (like me), and that the IRSRG board is 6 members, but the truth is, the IRSRG has a 7-member board, and Chris Champion is on it! (Sorry for the mix up, Chris.).

The Indian Residential School Research Group (IRSRG) is an “unincorporated not-for-profit endeavour guided by a volunteer Board of Directors.” Formed in 2022 as a response to “poor standards of research and reporting on the residential school system,” the IRSRG website currently features over thirty articles and essays offering evidence based analysis and opinion concerning Indian Residential Schools.

Award winning author and academic, political scientist, Tom Flanagan is the Chairman of the IRSRG board. Other board members familiar to Woke Watch Canada readers are National Post columnist Barbara Kay, and former Manitoba judge and opinion writer Brian Giesbrecht, and everyone's favourite anthropologist, Hymie Rubenstein (publisher of the Real Indigenous Report). The remaining two board members are Ian James Gentles, professor emeritus of History, York University, and retired Ottawa Citizen columnist Shannon Lee Mannion. 

For the last couple years, since the unmarked mass grave story in Kamloops first broke, I have been part of a small informal email list of researchers, academics and writers trying to uncover the truth about Indian Residential Schools. The six IRSRG board members, and many of the authors who have published articles on the IRSRG website (including me), are all part of this email list that numbers around twenty five people in total. 

Other notable figures who do exceptional work on the IRS file and who share their thoughts and research in our email discussions, are IRS independent researcher Nina Green - who I think it’s fair to say, is a key researcher who, by meticulously scouring and cataloging Indian Residential School records (published to her research oriented IRS web resource), has poked more holes in the false narratives around the IRS system than any other Canadian. 

Also on the email list, former attorney general of Manitoba, James McCrae, historian Jacques Rouillard, political scientist Frances Widdowson - who Woke Watch Canada readers know well due to her ongoing free speech and academic freedom struggles at various woke Canadian universities, lawyer & author Peter Best - another popular contributor in these pages, Rodney Clifton & Mark DeWolf - contributing editors of the book From Truth Comes Reconciliation, Chris Champion - writer and publisher of the Dorchester Review, and Colin Alexander, Pim Wiebel, Michael Melanson, Jim McMurtry, Michelle Stirling (who have all contributed great writing to Woke Watch Canada), and more.

It was Barbara Kay who shared some of my writing on the Truth and Reconciliation with others on the email list. Then Frances Widdowson, who I had already met and had been writing about, invited me to join them. From the beginning of my correspondence with this collection of heavyweight academics, journalists, and public figures, the volume and momentum has been intense, never letting up, not even for a second. 

Every day there are dozens of email discussion threads concerning the various intricacies of the IRS file. 365 days a year, even Christmas day, the work continues. I am constantly in awe of the dedication, determination, skill, and talent of these extraordinary Canadians - some of them were heroes of mine (and still are… Barbara, Tom, Brian and Peter are responsible for at least half of what I know about Canadian issues, and Frances’ analysis of aboriginal issues, more than anything else, made me realize the extent of neo-tribal elite cronyism and aboriginal industry corruption in Canada).

In a sense the IRSRG is a spinoff from a larger collection of IRS researchers who are in regular email contact, dedicating enormous swathes of their lives to the pursuit of truth. The six IRSRG board members, being particularly invested in the work, took the initiative to create a more formal research hub for any and all quality evidence-based writing on Indian Residential Schools. With over thirty such essays, I’d say the IRSRG is off to a great start.

The website has a section in the navigation called “misconceptions.” Clicking through brings readers to a page with six boxes, each containing a particular misconception that is commonly repeated in Canadian media. Click on any of the misconceptions and the boxes expand to pages with summarized and cited evidence based arguments. The six misconceptions are:

1. Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools against their wishes and the wishes of their parents.

2. The “knowledge keepers” are the only ones who can truly say what happened at the schools.

3. The Indian Residential School system was a tool to commit Cultural Genocide.

4. The Residential School system was a tool to commit Genocide.

5. The residential schools were considered harmful by all former students.

6. The residential schools were responsible for a higher rate of disease and death among First Nations children.

Last month I spoke with IRSRG board member, Shannon Lee Mannion. She described the IRSRG as a “catalyst for change.”

“It brings people together. It unites our colleagues as we support one another's writing, some of which is exclusively written for the site or reprinted from various sources. 

There is an option of submitting points of view which may only find a wider audience through the site. Contributors are welcome to take a greater part in how their article(s) will be presented due to one-on-one time spent with members of the web team. They can, for instance, present their own illustrations or photos, suggest a headline, agree or disagree....compromise on terminology; assumptions can be presented then embraced or refuted through our vetting process. No one person has the final say. 

And then there are our readers. People are informed and entertained by our site. New articles are posted several times each week which present varying points of view not seen in the legacy media. People are hungry for factual information. 

It would be interesting to learn how people are finding out about our site. Could it be that those who are aware can hardly wait to share with their circle how amazing it is to finally find out what is really going on when it comes time to our Indigenous people. Obfuscations melt away as people bask in validity.”

Indeed. Shannon is cool, as are the other academics and researchers who share our obsession with Canadian history. When Frances first introduced me to the others, Shannon, being the email list organizer, sent me a private message introducing herself. Her parting words solidified for me what this work is all about. After getting through the polite formalities she signed off with an urgent plea, first issued to her by professor Rodney Clifton - “James, we have a dominion to save.”  

Yes, we do!
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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read The Most Important Story to Teach Children

To hear James Pew discuss the IRSRG with Richard Syrett check out the Monday Oct. 2nd segment of the Anti-Woke Book Club (segment starts at the 25 minute mark)

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