Hey, Has Anyone Found Out Who Burned Those Churches Yet?

Anyone?:

The St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey, B.C., has been destroyed in an overnight fire that investigators are treating as suspicious. 

 

Oh, is it, police?

I bet you have some leads on this guy. 

It's not a "burn it all down" event, I will admit, but - you know - priorities.

Also - a map of forty-seven churches burned and/or vandalised. 

 

 

Remember - some people are so special that nothing they say or do (or not say and not do) can ever be questioned.

Cases in point:

A researcher from the Fraser Valley University near Vancouver walked us through her research and methods, explaining how she detected roughly 200 “subsurface anomalies” which remain “targets of interest.” The 215 figure, we were told, was given in error. And to be clear, no one yet knows if these 200 “anomalies” are graves. We do know with certainty that these were not mass graves. 

 

These graves: 

Sarah Beaulieu, an anthropologist at B.C.’s  University of the Fraser Valley, who did the research, told reporters that ground-penetrating radar had found 200 anomalous spots in the ground over a two-acre space that were “probable” burial sites, given size and depth and east-west directions of the graves, consistent with Christian burials.

“We can never say definitively that they are human remains until you excavate, which is why we need to pull back a little bit and say that they are probable burials,” Beaulieu said.

It is unclear whether or not the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc will proceed with excavation. Evelyn Camille, a survivor of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, said she wants the site to be left undisturbed. But Donald Worme, legal counsel for the First Nation, said there are also those who want to see the people in the graves identified.

 

Um, aren't these mass unmarked unidentified graves the reason for this national guilt-fest and church-burning marathon?

That's one hell of a walk-back.

** 

While engineers from SNC-Lavalin began their ground-penetrating radar search in the morning ...

 

You don't say!

**

According to the Canadian Archaeological Association, “it is not possible to identify grave locations or the absence of graves with 100% certainty using remote sensing” and that the archaeologist will likely “assign different levels of confidence to their results in much the same way as a weather forecaster predicts the likelihood of rain.”

 More:

Lagimodiere, who is Metis and grew up in Northern Manitoba, was asked about Residential Schools. He condemned them, citing a medical report at the time describing the harsh conditions that allowed diseases like Tuberculosis to fester and kill. 

He also noted, rather unfortunately given the current climate, that the people who presided over the schools believed they were “doing the right thing at the time.”

This is an interesting area of discussion, and one that is glossed over in this cultural moment of over-the-top self-loathing as a nation. 

Universal education is generally celebrated and often cited as a pathway out of poverty for marginalized and excluded people. In the Victorian Era context, that meant boarding schools with strict rules, harsh conditions and corporal punishment. It’s these methods that we condemn today.

But this sort of nuanced discussion has no place in today’s society, and NDP Leader Wab Kinew, who is also Indigenous, showed up to remind us of this sad reality.  ...

“You have to change that thinking,” Kinew told Lagimodiere, confronting him at the podium. “You can’t be out here defending Residential Schools if you want to work with Indigenous communities.” 

A visibly uncomfortable Lagimodiere grimaces and nods along, looking a bit like a deer in the headlights. 

 

Yes. Mr. Lagimodiere. Money has to be thrown into education, not proven that it works.

 

Also - let them fight: 

Cabinet spent six months on a failed search for a new Commissioner of Indigenous Languages who spoke French, according to a briefing note. The requirement was dropped with the appointment of British Columbia anthropologist Ronald Ignace to the $216,000-a year post: “Our languages will no longer stand in the shadow of other languages here in our land.

 

(Sidebar: this.)

** 

Everything this corrupt douchebag does is for show: 

Seeing the prime minister kneeling at these gravesites was disrespectful in so many ways. I come from a strict traditional upbringing and we are not allowed to take pictures at our loved ones’ gravesites. Seeing these pictures circulated online and used for political purposes or sold as memorabilia made me furious.

 

F--- off. 

This entire thing is a spectacle. What the hell is with the shoes, the orange shirts, the gross mischaracterisation of the nature of these graves and then the gradual walking-back?

And I will bet you would all bloody well vote for this sock-wearing moron if the Chinese let him have an election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was confronted by protesters who hoped to draw his attention to mercury contamination in the First Nation communities of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong during a Liberal fundraiser in Toronto on Wednesday night. The prime minister’s response? “Thank you for your donation.”

 

Did that make you furious?