The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Grave Error: New book exposes the truth of the IRS unmarked graves scandal

It’s finally here! A book, a milestone, a bucket-list achievement, and dare I say, a dream come true!

Let me explain. In March of 2022 I wrote an essay that was critical of the Truth & Reconciliation process in Canada, called Re-Evaluating Canada’s (Un)Truth and Reconciliation Commission . Shortly after publishing, my friend (and someone I consider to be an irreplaceable mentor) Barbara Kay, emailed me with some very kind words about my essay. She asked if she could pass it along to some IRS researchers she works with. I of course was extremely pleased. It is very rewarding when people read my work, but when it is appreciated by a legendary Canadian columnist like Barbara Kay, the sense of accomplishment is indescribable.

Soon after, I learned who the researchers were whom Barbara sent my work to. One of them is Frances Widdowson, who I had already known (and had written about her work). Frances invited me into the informal research group of a little over 20 writers, academics and researchers focused on the Indian Residential School file (with extra attention given to the false unmarked graves story).

Since that time, I have been in email contact with this group everyday. I have written about them as well. In October of this year I wrote The Indian Residential School Research Group: A catalyst for change - about a website launched by the IRSRG board formed from our email based IRS research group. The board members are Tom Flanagan (also the editor of Grave Error), Barbara Kay, Brian Giesbrecht, Hymie Rubenstein, Ian James Gentles, and Shannon Lee Mannion.

I’ve also written about Nina Green - an extraordinary IRS researcher - who regularly shares the results of her research with our group and with an extensive list of Canadian journalists and politicians. Nina launched an IRS research oriented website last year, called Indian Residential School Records. I wrote about this excellent research tool in December of 2022, in a piece called Indian Residential School Records: A New Online Research Tool for Indian Residential Schools

Beyond these two IRS oriented websites, where narrative-crushing evidence-based writing and records on the IRS period can be found, the 20-plus members of our informal group have been steadily publishing articles (mostly in independent media, including Woke Watch Canada) critical of the Social Justice inspired narratives attached to the IRS period and the sensationally fake unmarked graves story.

But now, editors Tom Flanagan (another personal hero of mine), and Chris Champion (indeed a true Canadian champion who is also the publisher of my favorite Canadian journal, The Dorchester Review) have put together an edited volume, mostly of the work written by members of our IRS research group.

The book is called Grave Error: How The Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). - Click on the link to purchase a copy from Amazon.

A few other reasons why I am so pleased with this book - aside from the fact that a piece I wrote on the so-called “mass graves” discovery in Kamloops is included as chapter seven - is that another of my favorite Canadian columnists, Conrad Black, has written the preface! Also, Barbara’s son, the brilliant Jon Kay, contributes a chapter - how cool is that!?

I plan - if time permits - to write a full review of the book. I haven’t yet read the whole thing, but am eagerly plowing through it. Many of the pieces had been published previously, but have now been updated with the most recent developments. The first essay of the book, written by historian Jacques Rouillard, called In Kamloops, Not One Body Has Been Found, is a detailed analysis of the facts and how they were misrepresented by media, indigenous leaders, and politicians. The second essay, written anonymously, contains extensive survey data of over 100 years of excavation and public works that took place in the Kamloops apple orchard. These are public works that were most likely mistaken by ground penetrating radar to be unmarked graves.

Below I have included my contribution to the book. Please consider picking up your own hard copy. If you know any voracious readers, this book makes an excellent Christmas present.

In closing, I just want to extend an enormous thank you to Tom Flanagan and Chris Champion for taking the initiative to put this important volume together. Also, I am humbled and honoured to be included.

By

James Pew

Canada's Descent into Collective Guilt: How the Media Used Soil Disturbances to Make an Entire Country Hate Themselves 

In May of 2021 a devastating Canadian story made headlines. The Chief of the Tk’emlups band in Kamloops, B.C. announced that 215 unmarked graves were found using ground-penetrating radar on the site of a former residential school. 

Canada’s legacy media made the shocking announcement: “Grief, sorrow after discovery of 215 bodies, unmarked graves at former B.C. residential school site” (Global News). South of the border on the same day the Washington Post’s headline read: “Officials Discover Remains of 215 Indigenous Children at Former Canadian Residential School Site.” 

The Washington Post, along with many major news outlets, didn’t sugar coat anything. Whereas Global News exercised some restraint by referring to the discovery of 215 “bodies” in unmarked graves, the Washington Post said what many Canadians were thinking: that 215 “Indigenous Children” had been discovered. Or had they? 

The Canadian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for First Nations children. The last government-funded residential school closed in 1996. It is claimed that many Indigenous children who attended them never returned home. 

Commonly considered one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history, recognition of the harms caused to “survivors” of residential schools has been an essential element of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation commitments to Indigenous Canadians. 

As the news cycle around the discovery of the alleged 215 unmarked graves in Kamloops evolved, the language the media used evolved. It wasn’t long before the scene was being described as an “unmarked mass grave.”¹ A stark and dramatic image indeed. 

I will always remember the sadness and shock expressed by so many fellow Canadians in the weeks that followed, but things got worse, and confusingly bizarre on June 24 with another bombshell. The National Post headline read, “‘Like a crime scene’: 751 unmarked graves reported found at former Saskatchewan residential school.”² 

Many people on social media, some of whom already believed the country was systemically racist, used the sensational headlines as an opportunity to declare it undeniable proof of Canada’s murderous genocidal history. Others said it demonstrates the evil white supremacist colonial underpinnings of the nation, while others were sorrowful and apologetic, insisting the tragic events reinforced the importance of the Truth and Reconciliation work ahead of us. 

Around this time I began hearing the first rumblings of “Cancel Canada Day.” The national day of celebration, formerly Dominion Day, expected to happen on July 1, was shaping up to be … awkward to say the least. 

On June 30th, one day before Canada Day (six days after the last “discovery”), another 182 soil disturbances/unmarked graves were discovered by the St. Mary’s First Nation (a member of the Ktunaxa Nation) at the site near the former St. Eugene's Mission Residential School. Less than two weeks after that, Chief Joan Brown of the Penelakut First Nation announced that at least 160 unmarked graves were located on the grounds of the former Kuper Island Indian Industrial school, off Vancouver Island. 

Canada Day came and went with muted fanfare, many Canadians choosing quiet personal reflection over celebration. Some wore orange shirts to events instead of red. The fact that we were in the middle of the Covid-19 global pandemic with limited options for group gatherings added to the sadness and outrage over unmarked graves fuelled by North American legacy media. 

But seemingly everyone, from legacy media to the regular folks on social media, either missed or glossed over a number of facts relating to the nature and locations of the unmarked graves. Automatically claiming genocidal guilt, instead of seeking clarity of facts and context, seems to be the way we operate when it comes to Canadian Indigenous issues. 

In July 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reassured Canadians that “the government will continue to tell the truth and work in partnership with First Nations to fight systemic racism with real, concrete actions." 

Bob Chamberlin, former vice-president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said the following about future discoveries not yet made: 

“What we're going to find is ... a very large number of unmarked graves across this country, which are going to speak very loudly about the path that this country set out to destroy children, family, culture, language, traditions and remove us from our land which everyone is enjoying today, except First Nations.” 

So they know of the existence and general locations of unmarked undocumented graves? They do seem to be “discovering” them fairly rapidly. What is going on? 

If you read only the headlines of the legacy media’s coverage, both in Canada and south of the border, which if we’re being honest is the extent of what many do, you can’t help but form a clear impression of the horribleness of the “shocking” and “traumatic” discoveries. Reading a little deeper past the headlines, the message is that these discoveries are tragic confirmations of the terrible stories Indigenous people have been telling for years. 

There is some truth in all of this reporting. Problems with the Canadian Residential School system were well known before any unmarked soil disturbances were discovered. However, through omission and manipulation of facts, the legacy media was complicit in the misrepresentation of these discoveries in order to feed the lucrative, woke, anti-West grievance economy, including Canada’s corrupt Aboriginal Industry.³

Everything today is viewed through the cynical lens of radical critical theory. Critical theory has been called Americanized postmodernism; I like to call the current iteration critical wokeism. It asserts that the relatively peaceful and pluralistic first-world societies of the West are actually oppressive regimes upholding the white patriarchal power structure left over from colonialism, and serving the interests of public enemy number one: White men.

Like the authoritarian Diversity and Equity administrators of universities, legacy media accept this ahistorical meta-narrative as truth. The casual claim is that Canada is a systemically racist and white supremacist country built on colonialism and genocide. Many now consider it an act of violence to argue that there is more to Canada’s history than oppression. However, while Canada is not perfectly free from racial discrimination, the charge of systemic racism is not backed up with convincing data and is more likely to be the product of deranged and unfounded assumptions that, although they make compelling headlines, are really just ways media companies and activists cash in on woke-ness. In my essay Re-Evaluating Canada’s (Un)Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I offer an argument for why claims of genocide and cultural genocide are not consistent with the facts.⁴

Hate Inc., a book published in 2021 by veteran American journalist Matt Taibbi⁵, does an amazing job of explaining the business models of legacy media, their methods of story generation, and the hidden pressures that narrow the range of allowable discourse (a central theme of Noam Chomsky’s and Edward Herman’s classic Manufacturing Consent).⁶

There will always be some version of a grand narrative that we assume (in varying degrees) to be true. But the one we are currently suffering is a shallow and wildly unfair indictment of the West and the people in it. Legacy media are powerful arbiters of this nonsense. Their success, Taibbi explains, is dependent on getting everyone outraged, at each other and the West in general. 

“Hatred is the partner of ignorance, and we in the media have become experts at selling both,” wrote Matt Taibbi.

Non-legacy media do not suffer from the same discourse-narrowing pressure to conform to false narratives. Candice Malcolm’s journalism, published by Canadian independent media organization True North, regarding the unmarked graves of former residential schools, serves as a case in point.

In July of 2021 she posted an article to the Truth North website titled “Six Things The Media Got Wrong About The Graves Found Near Residential Schools.” As the title of her piece states, the graves were found “near” former residential schools, not “at” former residential schools, as the legacy media reported.⁷

“When it comes to the coverage of graves identified near residential schools in three First Nations communities, the legacy media in Canada has done a tremendous disservice to all Canadians – especially First Nations…They have created a moral panic, and continue to fan the flames of racial division … This panic came to a breaking point over the weekend, when prominent statues were knocked over and at least 25 churches in Western Canada were either vandalized or completely burnt down,” wrote Malcolm.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the anger Canadians feel towards the federal government and Catholic Church is “real and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we have all become more aware of.”⁸ In the first couple months after the initial discovery of unmarked graves near former residential schools, dozens of churches were burned to the ground or vandalized across the country – eight of which occurred in First Nations territories.

In speaking about the vandalism inflicted on the African Evangelical Church in Calgary, Alberta, premier Jason Kenney said, “These folks came to Canada with the hope that they could practise their faith peacefully. Some of them are traumatized by such attacks. This is where hatred based on collective guilt for historic injustices leads us. Let’s seek unity, respect and reconciliation instead.”⁹

A July 4, 2021 article in The Guardian chronicled St Anne’s church, the “spiritual home to the Upper Similkameen Indian Band,” the fourth church on Indigenous lands recently destroyed by arson.

As reported in The Guardian, “The church meant so much to all of us, especially our ancestors,” Carrie Allison, an elder who helped maintain the church, said in a statement. “When your hurt turns to rage it is not healthy for you or your community.”¹⁰

Candice Malcolm explained the facts around what exactly had been found near former residential schools. At this time no excavation had actually been done. The existence of graves is suspected because of the results of ground-penetrating radar scans, which can locate the presence of the characteristics of a grave, but not whether the site is occupied by human remains, including child remains.

Even if graves do exist on these sites, the ground-penetrating radar “confirms” the presence only of multiple single graves, not as some media reported “mass graves,” an image widely associated with genocide. When you are trying to evoke rage, powerful allusions of genocide are a great way to do it.

A common Indigenous practice was, and still is, the use of wooden grave markings. Over time these grave markings disintegrate and disappear. Could this explain the prevalence of both unmarked and undocumented graves? Record keeping in the past was not up to today’s standards. Could perhaps the use of biodegradable grave markings have contributed to the “disappearance” of old cemeteries now re-appearing as unmarked grave sites?

This conclusion is reinforced by reports from members of communities where graves were discovered, who have informed the media that they do not believe all graves contain children and that most likely a mix of people from the community (along with some residential children possibly?) are the occupants of the graves.

As Malcolm wrote in her True North story, “Tucked away at the very end of a Globe and Mail report on the findings at the Cowessess reserve in Saskatchewan, it said this:

It appears that not all of the graves contain children’s bodies, Lerat (who is one of the band leaders) said. He said the area was also used as a burial site by the rural municipality. … “We did have a family of non-Indigenous people show up today and notified us that some of those unmarked graves had their families in them – their loved ones,” Lerat said. … “So what we have here is an abandoned community cemetery, where people of different backgrounds were buried.”¹¹

“That’s quite a leap from the original storyline that these graves belong to children who had died at a residential school,” Malcolm wrote.

Malcolm’s True North piece, and her continued journalism, stand in stark contrast to the Canadian legacy media. It is clear, in my view, that for whatever reason, the majority of Canadian legacy media promotes a dangerous narrative unfairly painting Canada and its citizens (especially white straight conservative Christian types) as systemically racist, upholding a primarily white male power structure that oppresses women, BIPOC, and those who identity as LGBTQ. It’s a depressing and uninspired narrative indeed, and one that holds little congruence with the truth.

Few seem to care about the actual facts surrounding the unmarked graves. The opportunity to perform virtue through self-loathing is too tempting for many to resist, so there is a morbid eagerness to accept the claim that the Canadian government and Catholic Church committed genocide against Indigenous people.

Even if every one of the thousands of graves they find turn out to be children from residential schools, the fact will remain that legacy media rushed to condemn the Canadian government and Catholic Church for an assumed genocide — well before a proper investigation was possible.

Is it wrong to think that Canadians deserve better? Stories that shock and outrage make great breaking news, get on-going repetitive coverage, and solidify the narratives that become the new “normal” from which all further action, media amplification and criticism proceeds. But these media narratives do not agree with basic reality. 

Thankfully we have a group of Canadian researchers diligently seeking truth regarding residential schools and Indigenous issues in general. Take a look at Hymie Rubenstein’s Substack - The Real Indian Residential School Newsletter.¹²

My personal feelings regarding Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples can best be described as sadness, regret at human failings, and that empty feeling that accompanies the knowledge injustice has been committed. If I may state the obvious; it is easy to blame people from the past for what is so clearly seen as wrong today. That being said, I do believe there have been injustices both past and present and whether intentional or not, the people of Canada sometimes do fail each other. No one is blameless. 

You can say these things, recognize that oppression and violence has been omnipresent throughout history, feel a sense of historical injustice, a need for present day truth and reconciliation, and reject woke notions of present-day systemic/structural racism perpetuated by the invisible hand of white supremacy.

Like many Canadians I feel sadness regarding aspects of our national legacy, but do I personally feel guilt? No. Guilt is for those who commit crimes and hurt others. My “whiteness” doesn’t automatically make me adjacent to the crimes of other white people. I have a guilt-free conscience because I try to practise kindness. I’m not so sure the “White Fragility” woke crowd can honestly make this claim.

Originally published on James Pew’s Substack, The Turn, as “Canada's Descent Into Collective Guilt,” March 27, 2022.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Historical Injustice & Class Action Settlements

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

There are now two ways to support Woke Watch Canada through donations:

1) By subscribing to the paid version of the Woke Watch Canada Newsletter for - $7 Cdn/month or $50 Cdn/year

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1. Joan Bryden, “Commons holds special debate on remains of 215 children found at residential school,” The Canadian Press, CTV News, June 1, 2021

2. Christopher Nardi, “‘Like a crime scene’: 751 unmarked graves reported found at former Saskatchewan residential school,” National Post, June 24, 2021.

3. I have written about this elsewhere in “The Corruption Of Canada’s Indigenous Victim Industry,” Woke Watch Canada Newsletter, Substack, February 17, 2022

4. Re-Evaluating Canada’s (Un)Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Woke Watch Canada Newsletter, Substack, February 17, 2022

5. Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another (OR Books / 392 Counterpoint Press, 2019)

6. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the 393 Mass Media (Pantheon, 1988).

7. Candice Malcolm, “Six things the media got wrong about the graves found near Residential 394 Schools,” True North, July 12, 2021

8. Quinton Amundson, “Church fires, vandalism condemned,” The Catholic Register, July 6, 2021.

9. Twitter, @jkenney, July 1, 2021

10. Leland Cecco, “Burned churches stir deep Indigenous ambivalence over faith of forefathers,” 397 The Guardian, July 4, 2021

11. Jana G. Pruden, Kristy Kirkup, Mike Hager, and Carrie Tait, “Cowessess First Nation discovers 398 hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school site,” Globe and Mail, June 23, 2021. 

12. Hymie Rubenstein, The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter, on Substack.