The new book Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools) constitutes a response to the moral panic unleashed in Canada on May 27, 2021, when the Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc (aka, the Kamloops Indian Band) announced that ground-penetrating radar (GPR) had located the remains of 215 “missing children” in an apple orchard on the grounds of the local residential school.
Barrhead RCMP and Barrhead Fire Services are investigating two arson fires that have severely damaged two of the town’s churches on Thursday night.
At approximately 7:52 p.m. police responded to a structural fire at The Glenreagh Church, located on Range Road 40 in Barrhead. At 9 p.m. police responded to a second structure fire at The United Church, located on Range Road 54 in Barrhead, according to a Friday morning news release.
“It wasn’t that bad, they got an education out of it.”
Michael Eshkawkogan says he’s seen that exact comment and others like it when scrolling on social media. No one has ever said it to his face, but he knows it’s out there.
“Some don’t believe churches or people are capable of this,” said Eshkawkogan, whose grandmother was forced to attend the Spanish Indian Residential School for girls in northeastern Ontario before it closed in 1965.
Canada’s justice minister is considering options raised by the independent adviser on unmarked graves, who says Indigenous leaders want Canada to move on criminalizing residential school denialism.
Kimberly Murray called on lawmakers to consider “legal mechanisms” that could address the practice of denying or minimizing the abuses Indigenous children suffered at residential schools in her interim report released back in June.
WAUZHUSHK ONIGUM NATION – A First Nation in northwestern Ontario says it has found 22 areas where human remains may be buried at the site of a former residential school.
The Wauzhushk Onigum Nation, near Kenora, Ont., was “alerted” to the areas at the site of the former St. Mary’s Residential School(opens in a new tab) in mid-August after using a cadaver dog to conduct ground searches in and around the old school grounds.
Opened in 1897 at Rat Portage in northwestern Ontario this school was first known as the Rat Portage Boarding School, then the Kenora Boarding School and then St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic School. From 1938 it was known as St. Mary’s School. Early in its history, the local band negotiated an agreement that students would not be converted to Catholicism against their parent’s will.
As reported by the Calgary Herald, on September 30, the City of Calgary announced an official location for a permanent Indian Residential School memorial, at a cost of $1 million.
“This is an incredibly important day,” said Mayor Jyoti Gondek. “It has been a long time coming. I appreciate everyone’s patience as we made sure that we got this memorial right.”
In a move that has stirred controversy and sparked outrage, a councillor from Murray Harbour, P.E.I., has refused to resign over a inflammatory sign displayed on his property. The sign denies the existence of mass graves at former residential school sites, a claim that has been vehemently disputed and condemned by Indigenous leaders and politicians.
The councillor’s defiant stance comes amid growing calls for his resignation. Despite taking down the sign and expressing regret for any hurt caused, he has refused to step down from his position. This has further fueled the controversy and highlighted the ongoing denial of historical and current injustices faced by Indigenous communities.
Nearly half of Canadians have no plans to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
A new survey found that 48 per cent of Canadians say they won’t be taking any specific action to recognize National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
This is according to Leger, a data analytics company that surveyed more than 1,600 Canadians to better understand their awareness of Indigenous communities.
The data found that 24 per cent of Canadians think they are much more aware of Indigenous history in Canada than they were four to five years ago.
CARCROSS, YUKON – Yukon First Nation elder Sandra Johnson says the discovery of 15 potential graves near the site of a former residential school has “uncovered long-buried wounds.”
Johnson spoke Tuesday at the release of an investigation into unmarked graves and the deaths of children who attended the former Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, south of Whitehorse.
Queen Elizabeth’s statue goes up at Queen’s Park, despite misgivings of Indigenous MPP
The queen has landed after years in limbo.
A 3,500-pound bronze statue of Queen Elizabeth II was hoisted into place in front of the legislature Monday while Premier Doug Ford hosted Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow at a meeting inside.
… The board includes New Democrat MPP Sol Mamakwa (Kiiwetinoong), who objected to the installation, saying the money would be better used finding the unmarked graves of Indigenous children at residential school sites.
The discourse on “mass graves” linked to the Indian Residential School system in Canada has painted a sombre chapter in our history. But as recent excavations suggest, these “mass graves” do not exist, though there are most certainly residential school cemeteries that have been overgrown or otherwise lost to time.
Canada stands at a crossroads, torn between its historical sins and the inability to discuss what actually happened in residential schools, because the truth has been buried under the false narrative of “mass graves.”
When our national media don’t like where a narrative is going — as in anyone assuming Joe Biden is an eager participant in Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling — they repeat a mantra about “no evidence.” Biden’s critics have “no evidence” of a Joe-Hunter corruption connection.
But when they like a narrative — like arrogant white imperialist Catholics in Canada were so hostile to “indigenous peoples” that they committed a genocide — somehow, no evidence is required. The wilder, the better. In 2021, a Native Canadian tribe claimed that “ground-penetrating radar” found 215 bodies near a residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. Within a week, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau ordered flags across Canada to be flown at half-staff for all the allegedly murdered children
Canadian public servants are set to attend a course to combat residential school “denialism” despite a recent excavation at an alleged “unmarked graves” site finding no human remains.
On September 29, the Canadian government is offering a session entitled “Addressing Residential School Denialism and Embodying Reconciliation” for all public servants in the country.
In May 2021, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the remains of 215 children had been found buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation band had confirmed the story, they claimed, quoting Chief Rosanne Casimir. “To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” she said. “Some were as young as three years old. We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc is the final resting place of these children.”
In the last week, some international news outlets published claims that Canada has fallen for one of the biggest hoaxes in its history.
“Alleged mass grave of Indigenous children at Catholic schools across Canada contains NO BODIES,” declared Britain’s Daily Mail last Thursday. “No human remains found two years after claims of ‘mass graves’ in Canada,” headlined the New York Post. The American Conservative claimed Canada has perpetrated an “anti-Catholic blood libel.”
