Widdowson Takes Quesnel

Grave Error author to attend Quesnel council meeting on April 2

By

James Pew

On March 22nd I posted about the outrage in Quesnel, BC, over a book (of which I am a contributing author) that discusses, among other aspects of Indian Residential Schools, the false claims of clandestine unmarked burials in Kamloops, BC, said to contain murdered indigenous children. The book, Grave Error, focuses on how the media, indigenous leaders, and politicians misled Canadians about “discoveries” of unmarked graves at or near the sites of former Indian Residential Schools, and the truth about the history of those schools.

A ton of ink was spilled over the issue last week, and this week promises to see more of the same as one of the books authors, cancelled professor, Frances Widdowson, travelled to Quesnel over the weekend to attend today’s city council meeting to ask questions to the Mayor and councilors who, after admitting to not having read the book, voted to denounce it.

But before I get into those details, lets first finish with the recap of last week:

On March 25th, I published in these pages the official press release responding to the controversy in Quesnel. Then on the 28th, I published Michelle Stirling’s insightful take on the debacle. The day before that, Hymie Rubenstein and I published our response in the Dorchester Review, and a shorter summary in the Western Standard on the 28th, called In Quesnel, They Can’t Handle The Truth.

Needless to say, claims of “residential school denialism” have made their expected appearance. Frances Widdowson, a political scientist who was fired from Mount Royal University for saying that the residential schools provided benefits that children might not otherwise have received, states that “no author is denying that abuse occurred at the schools or that many people were harmed”. And that, “the schools were often underfunded and insensitive to the social dislocation indigenous people were experiencing,” posted a response to the activist-academic, Sean Carleton on her website, The Woke Academy. In her piece, Sean Carleton: Uber Clown, Frances writes:

“While the other self-declared experts in ‘residential school denialism’ – Daniel Heath Justice, Kisha Supernant and Niigaan Sinclair (son of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Murray Sinclair) seemed to have gone quiet on the ‘denialism’ file, Carleton continues to denounce his critics while refusing to engage with them. When Frances Widdowson wrote an article criticizing Carleton and Supernant’s idea of ‘residential school denialism’ (Critical Thinking is not ‘Denialism’), for example, Carleton asserted that he did not engage with ‘denialists’, as Widdowson’s arguments were a trojan horse trying to justify ‘the colonial status quo’.”

To be crystal clear, none of the authors of Grave Error deny that Indian Residential Schools existed, or that some of the former students were harmed. However, there is no evidence of any missing or murdered IRS students, even though the discourse on indigenous issues has evolved into the general acceptance of an unsubstantiated claim of genocide. Canadians who have been skeptical of the mainstream narrative, and who are wondering why an excavation at Kamloops has not happened, realize that NDP MP Leah Gazan’s motion proclaiming Canada a genocidal state would most likely not have passed if it had not been for the media generated hysteria based on false claims of indigenous leaders and politicians regarding the Kamloops apple orchard (where 215 unmarked graves of indigenous children were claimed to be).

The truth matters. And our book aims to correct the “Grave Error” that has been made to the detriment of the truth.

There is no evidence that a genocide against Canada’s indigenous people ever occurred. There is no evidence that Indian Residential Schools were used for the nefarious purpose of wiping out indigenous people or their culture. The authors of Grave Error have endeavored to elevate the discourse and move it away from unsubstantiated hearsay and sensational claims that have more in common with urban myths and ghost stories than anything that resembles the real.

In Quesnel, BC, there seems to be a desire on behalf of some to ask questions about Indian Residential Schools, and claims of clandestine unmarked burials of murdered children that have yet to be investigated by legal authorities three years after the story broke internationally. There also seems to be a desire on behalf of some to prevent those questions from being asked. Frances Widdowson is in Quesnel and intends to find out why.

She will be attending the city’s Regular Council meeting to ask questions in the Gallery. The meeting will take place at 5:30 pm at City Hall, 410 Kinchant St., Quesnel, BC.

Doubting that any of those who complained have actually read the book, Frances stated: “The major issue discussed in Grave Error, is the fact that it has been falsely claimed that there were over 200 clandestine burials at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. There is no evidence that this is the case, and it is highly unlikely as not one parent has claimed that their child went missing there”.

Facing opposition is nothing new for Frances Widdowson. In February 2023, Widdowson calmly interacted with hundreds of protesters at the University of Lethbridge. She is now suing the University of Lethbridge for violating her Charter rights.

“It is important not to be intimidated by people who want to suppress ideas”, Widdowson points out, “as we need to hear different positions in order to improve our understanding. Even at the University of Lethbridge, I was able to have a good conversation about the residential schools with an indigenous man in the crowd”.

Tom Flanagan, one of the editors of Grave Error and a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary, says that he knows Widdowson well and thinks that she is one of the best people to ask Quesnel city councillors questions about why they denounced the book. “Widdowson is a principled defender of free speech and she knows what is at stake”.

Good Luck Frances!!

Watch these pages this week for an update.

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Thanks for reading. For more on Frances Widdowson, read Why Is Situation Widdowson So Compelling?

BREAKING NEWS:

1. A new long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy

2. James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

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!

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