The leaders of a powerful push against what they call Indian Residential School “denialism” have seen their anti-denialism critique published by the Calgary Herald.
The authors of Don’t let denialism distract from truth and reconciliation progress, Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, are University of Manitoba political activists posing as scholars.
Students from St. John Paul II school in Grande Prairie walked out in protest of their social studies teacher after she disputed whether graves were found at Kamloops Indian Residential School.
On Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Amy Davidson shared a social media post from Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada and a cabinet minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
I hope their parents are publicly shamed.
According to BC online newsletter Castanet, Chief Rosanne Casimir, leader of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, legally known as the Kamloops Band, says grave exhumation is part of an effort to determine what lies beneath the grounds of the reserve’s former boarding school.
The band made international headlines on May 27, 2021, when Casimir announced that ground-penetrating radar had detected what it initially described as the remains of 215 children near the long-shuttered Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Residential school denialism is detestable but not illegal, and that shouldn’t change, says Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who disagrees with federal Manitoba NDPer Leah Gazan’s efforts to add it to the Criminal Code.
“I have a lot of respect for MP Gazan, but I don’t think we can criminalize this. I think we have to just do the continued work of educating people and trying to combat misinformation,” Kinew told CBC Manitoba Up to Speed host Marcy Markusa on Friday.
Gazan first introduced Bill C-254, her private member’s bill to amend the Criminal Code regarding the promotion of hatred against Indigenous people, in October 2024, but it died when the spring 2025 election was called.
Frances Widdowson, professor, “academic provocateur” and an increasing terror to higher education administrators, is suing the University of Lethbridge for defamation claiming she was accused of spreading prejudice, hate, disinformation and lies.
Widdowson, who is claiming $3 million in damages, also alleges that she was defamed when the university sent out a notice that it would be holding a sacred smudging ceremony to “dissipate the negative atmosphere brought by this individual to our community.”
That smudging should be worth 10 Million on its own!
Governor General Louise Arbour is the latest political actor to give voice to the idea that Indian Residential School “denialism” is such a plague in this country that it must be stamped out.
If that means criminalize it, as others have demanded, then the former Supreme Court judge is doing nothing for truth and even less for reconciliation.
A Sooke brewery has closed temporarily and fired one of its owners after a photograph appearing to show him wearing a “Show Me the Evidence” T-shirt on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation sparked widespread backlash online.
Sooke Brewing Company initially acknowledged the photograph in a social media statement, saying the shirt’s message was inconsistent with what the business stands for.
I bet their beer sucks.
Canada marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with solemn ceremonies and renewed commitments to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) 94 Calls to Action. Residential schools caused documented harm. But the historical record is more complex: compulsory schooling was part of Canada’s broader movement toward universal education, and many former students described their residential school experiences positively and credited their education with improving their lives. Recognizing those experiences requires us to examine the full historical record and apply consistent standards of evidence.
The founder of Orange Shirt Day says she was sick to her stomach when she learned orange shirts with slogans like “Dig deeper” and “Still no proof” were being sold online.
Holding back tears and speaking from Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc in B.C., which announced a discovery of potential unmarked graves near a former residential school site in 2021, Phyllis Webstad said her campaign was being used in a “hateful way.”
“I’ve been trying to understand why they believe that it’s OK to hurt people,” she said.
What nerve, there is no truth in the fake graves grift.
She should apologize to all parishioners whose churches were burned or otherwise vandalized.
For refusing to jump on the Kamloops “mass graves” narrative bandwagon, high school teacher Jim McMurtry was sacked by educational authorities, abandoned by his union and refused a hearing before a labour relations board.
Now, five years after first being walked out of a classroom as Indian residential school hysteria swept Canada, McMurtry is heading to B.C. Supreme Court in a case that he hopes will expose the truth about Kamloops.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s premier investigator of federal government machinations, the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations waived a requirement that the Kamloops Indian Band account for the spending of a $12.1 million grant for the “exhumation of remains” at its former Indian Residential School, according to records disclosed on July 23.
In particular, the Band made no attempt to exhume even a single grave despite this generous funding.
In 2024, a mandatory course for B.C. lawyers referred to the “discovery of an unmarked burial site containing the bodies of 215 children on the former Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds” which “(confirmed) what survivors have been saying all along.” When one lawyer proposed a correction, as no graves were ever found, the B.C. Law Society publicly disparaged him. He sued for defamation — but now, the trial has been called off.
Survivor accounts of residential schools vary — sometimes from the very same person. Nunavut Senator Nancy Karetak-Lindell told Nunatsiaq News in 2001 that her time at Akaitcho Hall was “a home-away-from-home” and that “it’s not like what you’re hearing about all the residential school issues today.” In the same piece, she said, “At Akaitcho, we were in a structured environment compared to where we came from. That taught us perseverance and how to discipline ourselves.” “It taught us a lot about doing things in life that we didn’t always want to do, but those things had to be done … We had to learn how to live with people from different cultures who spoke different languages and came from different parts of the NWT,” she continued, adding that those friendships helped her political career.
Making criminals out of people who merely ask questions about the residential school system is not the path to reconciliation, says B.C. lawyer Jim Heller.
Goodwill and open dialogue are needed far more than trying to imprison people under a “denialism” law, according to Heller, whose defamation suit against his own law society over potential graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was recently settled.
Five years after Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc sent shockwaves around the world by announcing the First Nation found more than 200 possible unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, the chief says the community doesn’t yet know if or when it will proceed with excavation.
Kúkpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir told CBC News the nation is still in an engagement phase with dozens of communities that sent children to the institution when it was in operation from 1890 to 1978 to try to get consensus on the path forward.
“For us, it is about truth and reconciliation and being able to work with all the different communities, our neighbouring nations, our consultants and our families,” Casimir said.
