Never question the Narrative:
Here’s a paradox for you. The drive to criminalize objections to the genocide thesis and even to publicly question reports of a vast national archipelago of secret graves containing the remains of Indigenous children murdered by priests and nuns, is itself a case of a fringe movement that has gained momentum by being given an extraordinary amount of attention and airtime.The whole concept of “residential schools denialism” is the invention or co-invention of an academic who first made a name for himself in Vancouver by claiming on behalf of the local Indigenous peoples that a Vancouver Canucks jersey appropriated their art in a manner all bound up in the sinister capitalist purpose of their dispossession. It turned out that the local Indigenous leadership had been consulted about the jersey logo, and they said they liked it just fine.Article content
Article contentA necessary disclosure: The denialism inventor is Sean Carleton, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba who has turned himself into a pretzel in his zeal to lump me in with the so-called denialists. My primary crime was to have written up for the National Post an extensive enumeration of the multitude of headline-grabbing errors and pressed panic-buttons accompanying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s flag-lowering histrionics two summers ago.
The Trudeau government set its “national reckoning” in motion after an erroneous report to the effect that a “mass grave” had been discovered at the site of the long-shuttered Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The report was refuted by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leadership almost immediately, but the Maple Leaf stayed at half-mast for several frenzied months of statue-topplings, church burnings and a 260 per cent spike in hate-motivated crimes targeting Catholics, as tabulated by Statistics Canada.Article content
For the record, I’ve long argued that “cultural genocide” is a reasonable description of the federal Indian Residential Schools policy, at least in its early years, but this hasn’t acquitted me on the trumped-up charge of denialism, which has been flung at me quite liberally. My transgression was to notice that Ottawa’s residential-schools “narrative” required the substitution of what we were allowed to know with what we were told to believe. And now we’re being told to submit to the genocide thesis on pain of prosecution.Also for the record, the so-called “denialists” are a group of credentialled historians, independent researchers and noisy contrarians associated mostly with the Dorchester Review, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Indian Residential Schools Research Group, (some of whom have been cross with me for failing to commit thoughtcrimes with sufficient relish).
But censorship is what Canada does best.
Indeed, while no one was looking, Bill C-18 passed.
First is the recommendation for affirming “Indigenous data sovereignty.” Murray states: “Indigenous data sovereignty involves amending the laws that put power in the hands of government institutions, universities, and church organizations — the ‘creators’ or copyright holders of documents — and shifting that power back to the Indigenous people that are documented within records.”She wants assurance that “data collected from Indigenous communities is used ethically and with the community’s consent.” Thus she finds a “need to protect Indigenous data from unauthorized access or use.”What does this mean in practical terms? The website of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) offers a clue in its section, “Proactive Disclosure.” The NCTR has already taken guardianship of a massive archive of government and church records, and now seems poised to assume authority over what records the public may or may not see.Article content
This supposition was reinforced in a recent presentation by NCTR head archivist Raymond Frogner to the Yellowknife Knowledge Sharing Circle, in which he defines Indigenous data sovereignty as “the right of Indigenous people to govern the collection, ownership and use of data about Indigenous communities, peoples, lands and resources.” Frogner’s attached bio states it is his responsibility “to respectfully honour, safeguard and when appropriate (my emphasis), make available the records acquired by the TRC and additional records of enduring value for Indigenous peoples.”Indigenous data sovereignty means that any record that mentions an Indigenous person would be shielded by “privacy” laws and the above-mentioned proactive disclosure procedures. Such a redrafting of mission could result in the entire school files series by Library and Archives Canada, rightfully available to all Canadians at present, falling under the NCTR’s privacy rubric and allowing the NCTR to prohibit access to seekers they disfavour.Article content
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This is an ominous scenario, and it’s no secret who would be the first targets of the restricted access: the “denialists,” a word coined to describe any historian or journalist who takes issue with any parts of the residential school narrative as told by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and — after Kamloops — expanded to cover anyone who questions the truth of any statement about unmarked graves by any Indigenous claimant.Murray perceives findings that diverge from received Indigenous wisdom as “violence” and “hate,” even if based in documentation, such as school admission papers, medical records and death certificates. Lamentably, in Murray’s report, no effort is spared to link the evidence-based work of history scholars with the pathology of Holocaust denial, a true marker of hatred embraced only by the abysmally credulous and the moral scum of the earth.
Except that the Holocaust was a sin and crime verified even by its own perpetrators.
Only a heartless moron would deny the Holocaust (something he or she is free to do because why stop someone from figuratively hanging themselves, thus ending - one hopes - their litany of scurrilous idiocy?).
But when those who maintain the guilt of an entire country refuse to substantiate anything whatsoever, there are bound to be questions.
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Twenty-four months later, much has changed. During this entire period, not a single unmarked grave, body, or set of remains is known to have been found at Kamloops, nor at any of the other First Nations communities that conducted similar ground-penetrating radar surveys.
What credibility does anyone expect to be left with when sensible questions about an ostensibly nation-wide (in their terms) genocide remain decidedly unanswered?
Why not get to the bottom of it?
Doesn't human decency demand this?
The Liberal government said the finalized plan contains 131 measures it plans to take to uphold the advance the rights of First Nations, Inuit and Metis people.Such measures include co-developing an approach to combat anti-Indigenous racism and guidance when it comes to engaging Indigenous Peoples on the development of resource projects.The government had passed a law in 2021 requiring it return to Parliament with an implementation plan by June.Lametti said the two-year timeline was “ambitious” and had been requested by Perry Bellegarde, the assembly’s former national chief.Article content
“We made it,” he told a crowd of Indigenous leaders gathered in Ottawa for the report’s release.“This represents a historic moment.”Lametti said the document is not perfect and is not designed to be “static.”
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They said the child was declared dead at the scene on Thursday evening.Mounties later issued a news release saying they were searching for 33-year-old Mervin Poorman from Kawacatoose First Nation, and he’d been charged with failing to stop after an accident resulting in death and for operating a vehicle while prohibited.
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