Meme - Jonathan Kay @jonkay: ""Not entirely accurate" is the new "mostly peaceful""
The Tyee @TheTyee: "When a Canadian museum tweeted something not entirely accurate about #Kamloops, denialists jumped to spread misinfo. @Niigaanwewidam and @SeanCarleton encourage all to understand how denialists spread misinfo. We all have a role to play in responding."
When the left lies, it's "not entirely accurate". When people fact check the left, it's denialism and misinformation
Canada should consider legal solution to fight residential school denialism: report - "Canada should give "urgent consideration" to legal mechanisms as a way to combat residential school denialism, said a Friday report from the independent special interlocutor on unmarked graves. Justice Minister David Lametti said he is open to such a solution... Murray raised concerns about increasing attacks from "denialists" who challenge communities when they announce the discovery of possible unmarked graves. "This violence is prolific," the report said. "And takes place via email, telephone, social media, op-eds and, at times, through in-person confrontations."... some countries have criminalized denial of the Holocaust during the Second World War. The federal government followed suit last year, amending the Criminal Code to say someone could be found guilty if they wilfully promote antisemitism "by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust." The measure does not apply to private conversations. NDP MP Leah Gazan has also called for Parliament to legislate residential school denialism as hate speech."
The Ministry of Truth marches steadily on. When facts are offensive, they become hate facts
In Canada, Asking for Evidence Now Counts as ‘Denialism’ - "given that the originally announced radar data would have indicated to Indigenous groups and forensic investigators exactly where any suspected human remains would be lying, the passage of two years without the reported unearthing of physical evidence can only be described as a strikingly odd development. As I noted in a recent article for a British magazine, and here at Quillette, this is a subject that many polite Canadians are scared to talk about. In 2021, the assumed discovery of those 215 unmarked graves took on the quality of a sacred national narrative. Pointing out the holes in that narrative that have since developed, as I am doing here, feels like secular sacrilege. Moreover, there’s a considerable amount of political capital at stake. During the 2021 federal election campaign, Trudeau campaigned on a promise to make amends for the murderous horrors inflicted upon Indigenous Canadians by his forebears. And Indigenous leaders, quite understandably, were happy to take the Prime Minister’s money as he did so. Journalists assured their readers, listeners, and viewers that the presumed graves offered further proof that Canada was a “genocide state,” thereby sparking all manner of new charitable initiatives, hashtags, and T-shirt campaigns. After all this, few public figures have any incentive to admit that perhaps we all might have waited for the facts before setting about the garment-rending with such gusto. Only one large Canadian media outlet, the National Post, has dared publish a full and frank analysis of how everyone got the unmarked-graves story wrong. Other outlets have either ignored the story’s denouement altogether, or have gone further by denouncing revisionism as a symptom of bigotry... Yet even as they publicly hew to the orthodox line on the unmarked-graves story, Canadian reporters and editors are now adding language that signals the growing uncertainty about what actually lies beneath the ground... The desire to protect the unmarked-graves narrative remains especially strong among Canada’s ruling Liberals, whose Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations has taken the rather extraordinary step (for a liberal democracy, at least) of instructing reporters not to report heretical facts. In early 2022, when a few writers began saying out loud how odd it was that no bodies had yet been discovered in Kamloops, the minister, one Marc Miller, denounced these Canadians as being “part of a pattern of denialism and distortion that has coloured the discourse on Residential Schools in Canada. They are harmful because they attempt to deny survivors and their families the truth.”... And yet, last month, Miller himself felt compelled to hedge awkwardly when tweeting on the two-year anniversary of the unmarked-graves story—excoriating those who make “sickening attempts” to “deny” history while also referencing the “finding of over 200 suspected unmarked graves” (my emphasis). The s-word betrays Miller’s hypocrisy: If acknowledging that those 200-plus graves in Kamloops might not actually exist qualifies someone as a “sickening” genocide denier, then Miller seems to belong on the list. Later on his thread, Miller seems to suggest that the truth of the graves’ existence is beside the point anyway, because the very act of discussing the issue “remain[s] traumatic for the community, survivors and their families.” And so writers should resist the temptation to dispute the credulous 2021 consensus, Miller tells us. Instead, he instructs journalists to assume the role of monks tasked with “reflection and contemplation of the work that remains to ensure Indigenous Peoples heal.”... Like Miller, Murray seems to regard claims of unmarked graves at Kamloops and elsewhere as morally unfalsifiable, since they are “Survivors’ truths.” She repeatedly suggests that the mere act of requesting physical evidence is, itself, evidence of denialism. On this point, Murray approvingly quotes the chief of a First Nation in western Canada who
subtly addresses denialism by stating that ‘[w]hether or not unmarked graves are found, there is enough documented oral and archival evidence to say that these burials do or did exist.’ The community acknowledges that the voices of Survivors, who have first-hand accounts of what happened in Indian Residential Schools, should be prioritized over anything else...
At other points in her report, Murray goes further, suggesting that the deniers’ ranks encompass anyone who does not pledge his or her belief that residential schools were instruments of literal genocide... a person could be a “denier” without saying or writing anything at all, insofar as they had not heeded Murray’s exhortation that “each of us must stand up and speak out” in the manner she prescribes. In the long run, however, this kind of semantic analysis likely won’t matter much, since any legal effort to censor “denialism” (however that word is defined) would almost certainly be struck down by courts as an infringement on free speech. Canadian constitutional principles permit laws that ban the wilful promotion of “hatred” against identifiable groups. But no one can seriously argue that asking for evidence of unproven murder allegations, or offering dissenting theories about residential schools come close to meeting that standard."
NP View: Criminalizing speech the wrong way to address residential school legacy : canada - ""There are people who did have good experiences in residential schools. People who got an opportunity at a life because of it and who succeeded"
This would be an extreme minority if it was even true, and compared with the number of people who were abused, died, are still dealing with trauma, is an insignificant minority that is used to effectively imply residential schools aren't as bad as people think. How fucking dare you."
""The individual student’s ability to succeed within the residential school system, and the positive difference that individual teachers and school staff made in some students’ lives, are important parts of the history and legacy of the schools and deserve recognition"
Direct quote from the Truth and Reconciliation report. You know, if it was even true."
In this thread, lots of liberals were cheering on government censorship, of course
Weird how residential school denialism doesn't include contradicting indigenous voices who said residential schools were good for them, or pretending that indigenous people never ran residential schools
Criminalizing speech the wrong way to address residential school legacy - "Given their clear disdain for free speech, it’s a suggestion that the Liberals seem fully on board with... the label of “denialism,” an insidious term intended to draw moral comparisons with Holocaust denial, is not only directed at those who misrepresent the history of residential schools. It is targeted at anyone who challenges particular narratives. Anything that could be perceived as downplaying what happened in residential schools, even if only to affirm what the facts say, is considered offside. Those who point out, accurately, that at least 200 suspected graves discovered near Kamloops Indian Residential School have yet to be confirmed are labeled “denialists.” They are given this label even though the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc First Nation itself has not confirmed whether the signatures found by the ground-penetrating radar survey of the site are in fact the gravesites of children who attended the school. If one notes — again, accurately — that tuberculosis and other diseases were the largest killers of children in residential schools that is enough to earn one the label of denialist, despite that point being prominently discussed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Murray’s report itself is not particularly concerned with facts or evidence. For example, she claims that “denialists” entered the Kamloops site to dig up suspected graves. “Some came in the middle of the night, carrying shovels,” she writes, “they said they wanted to ‘see for themselves’ if children are buried there.” Trespassing on First Nations territory with the intention of violating a probable burial site is utterly contemptible, and very likely criminal. That is, If it happened, but there has been apparently no RCMP report and Murray does not cite any corroborating evidence to support this story. She doesn’t even tell us when it might have happened. To support her call for criminal sanctions, Murray quotes favourably Gazan’s statement that, “Denying genocide is a form of hate speech,” even though whether what took place at Canada’s residential schools meets accepted definitions of a genocide is very much a matter of debate. The TRC labelled it a “cultural genocide,” while some historians who recognize the assimilationist intention of residential schools and the resulting harm stop short of equating them with that term. The 2019 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry also hedged by calling it a “colonial genocide,” and even that was contentious. At the time, Romeo Dallaire, who witnessed the Rwandan genocide first hand, noted that what happened at residential schools was “scandalous” and “unacceptable,” but suggested it was not the same as what happened in Rwanda, which was “a deliberate act of a government to exterminate, deliberately and by force and directly, an ethnicity or a group of human beings.” This is a reasonable view to take, and not one based in bigotry, yet here we are, four years later, having a national conversation about making changes to the Criminal Code that could very well make comments like Dallaire’s illegal. And the proposal is being embraced by prominent cabinet ministers. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller tweeted that, “Residential School denialism” is “criminal in nature,” and Justice Minister David Lametti said he is open to “a legal solution and outlawing it.” Given how little value this government places on robust debate, which is a long-proven route to better policy, no one should be surprised if the Liberals follow through with new curtailments on expression. It was just a year ago that the government outlawed “condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust,” which is unlikely to have a meaningful effect on antisemitism. The Liberals are also expected to introduce their much-anticipated online harms bill in the near future, which would give Ottawa greater powers to police the internet for unapproved speech. It’s all part of a push on the part of the Trudeau Liberals to control what Canadians say in an attempt to curb misinformation and disinformation — a significant cause for concern given that this government’s propensity to label any opposition to it policies as “misinformation.” This won’t help Canadians come to terms with the often miserable legacy of the Indian Residential School system."
Renewed calls to cancel Canada Day in wake of residential school gravesite discovery
From 2021. Fake news is good when it supports the liberal agenda
Michael Higgins: Truth ignored as teacher fired for saying TB caused residential school deaths - "After four decades as a teacher, Jim McMurtry was fired Tuesday for daring to speak out. He first fell foul of authorities for speaking about the Kamloops Indian Residential School and for saying things not in line with official ideology... The long and rocky road that led to McMurtry’s dismissal hearing began in 2021 during a Grade 12 classroom discussion in Abbotsford, B.C., concerning the just announced news of 215 unmarked graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School. A student said priests had murdered and tortured the children at the school and then left them to die in the snow. McMurtry pointed out that most children at residential schools died from disease, primarily tuberculosis. “I wasn’t trying to be inflammatory,” said McMurtry in an interview. “It was one comment. It was not done with callousness.” It took one complaint, and before the hour was out McMurtry was being frog marched out of the school... A report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlights that this deplorable situation was well known, quoting documents in the National Archives of Canada that said: “As many as half of the aboriginal children who attended the early years of residential schools died of tuberculosis, despite repeated warnings to the federal Government that overcrowding, poor sanitation and a lack of medical care were creating a toxic breeding ground for the rapid spread of the disease.” One would hope that this truth would be taught in every school. But that’s not the truth the Abbotsford District School Board cares about. Its report said, “Mr. McMurtry’s personal opinions regarding residential schools were seen in contradiction to the truth and reconciliation work that is currently underway in the District.” Apparently, McMurtry’s truth, backed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, isn’t good enough for the school district who have another, different truth. One can almost hear the school district quoting Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” McMurtry was suspended and then, over a year later, had the audacity to speak out about the unfairness of it all. This, of course, got him in more trouble. Now he’s accused of “flagrant disregard” for his employer. The impact of his comments on students could be “unethical and immoral,” claimed the school district. If only he had followed the expected “lines of communication,” as was demanded of him, he might still have a job. But what does McMurtry know? He only holds a master’s degree in the history of education and a doctorate in the philosophy of education with a specialty in Indigenous history. “I’m a Canadian,” McMurtry said in the interview. “I’ve a right to freedom of conscience. I don’t understand any of this. How can they do this to me?” McMurtry said “woke dogma” was dominant in schools and needed to be challenged. “This woke indoctrination (is) as offensive as any totalitarian ideology that has ever been pushed. People use ideologies to further their own interests, this isn’t new. What is striking is that in schools they are presenting only one side. “There’s people who believe that Canada is systemically racist and that all our ancestors were monsters. And I’m the person who is saying, ‘Well, let’s debate it. Let’s look at it.’ “Teachers are walking on eggshells on all sorts of issues. Teachers need to stop now and say, ‘Enough is enough’.” McMurtry said he was concerned that NDP MP Leah Gazan recently announced that she wanted legislation that might target people like him. “Now the NDP wants to have people like me labelled as denialists and guilty of hate speech,” he said."
Truth is only valuable when it advances liberal goals
Did Indian Residential Schools Cause Intergenerational Trauma? - "“TRAUMA” IS A GREEK WORD meaning wound or injury. Its original and still current use in medicine is to describe physical injuries, such as whiplash after a car accident. More recently, it has been widely used to describe psychological stress caused by wars and natural catastrophes, i.e. Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. An even further and more recent extension has applied the concept of trauma to whole peoples or nations, as in the phrase “historical trauma.” Historical trauma is not a bad way to describe what happened to the original peoples of what is now Canada... It is commonly asserted today that residential schools are responsible for the “intergenerational trauma” of Indigenous people by having cut them off from their traditional languages and cultures. It is further said that the schools, by removing children from their parents, damaged their sense of family life, so that they were unable to become good parents when it was their turn to marry and raise families. Thus the damage was passed from generation to generation, resulting in the ills that plague Indigenous people today: lower life expectancy, higher disease morbidity, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, crime, and so on. The legacy media routinely present the thesis of intergenerational trauma from the residential school experience as if it were an established fact... one of the stories is far from heart-rending. It concerns a woman who is now a tenured professor of public health at the University of Toronto. She says her parents went to residential school, and she was largely raised in foster homes. "My kids have to deal with this sort of, sometimes crazy, sometimes unstable mom, because I didn't have parents because they went to residential school," she says, adding that she didn’t like to go to parent-teacher conferences for her four children because they “evoked negative feelings.” But by any reasonable standard, this woman’s life ought to be considered an inspiration, not a disaster. After a difficult childhood, she earned a Ph.D. in child psychology, now holds a tenured position at one of Canada’s most prestigious universities, and seems to have successfully (she doesn’t say otherwise) mothered four children. She would be a viable candidate for super-woman! Whatever intergenerational traumas she claims to have suffered, they haven’t kept her from achieving extraordinary success. Behind these superficial stories in the media lies a body of academic research, the findings of which need to be scrutinized more carefully. There are numerous methodological reasons to be cautious about what is reported in this literature. First, with a tip of the deerstalker hat to Sherlock Holmes, there is a dog that didn’t bark. The obvious first step in research should have been to compare the life outcomes of those who attended residential school to those who did not... Unfortunately, almost none of this research has been done. A golden opportunity was missed in the First Nations Regional Health Survey (RHS), carried out in the years 2008-2010... THIS NEGLECT OF THE obvious has been typical of the Canadian research of the alleged IRS factor in intergenerational trauma... One exception is the work of Simon Fraser University economist Donna Feir, who found that Indian mothers who attended IRS had a similar socio-economic status to those who did not... at least from the 1950s onward, those who attended residential schools tended to experience an increase in height, decrease in obesity, and lesser prevalence of diabetes, in comparison to those who went to non-residential schools. Substantial statistical acrobatics were required to tease out these results because children sent to residential school in this period tended to be shorter, fatter, and in poorer health than those who went elsewhere because the schools served in effect as refuges for abused and neglected children... at most one-third of Indian children ever attended IRS, and in most years the percentage was considerably less. There were always more students in day schools on Indian reserves, plus some who attended residential schools daily while continuing to live at home, or who went to public or Catholic schools in nearby towns, or did not go to any school at all. And of those who did go to residential schools, many were there only briefly; the average period of attendance has been estimated at 4.5 years. Was that really enough to destroy children’s bonds with their family and traditional culture? Other influences upon First Nations seem more important, such as the confinement to Indian reserves, which impeded economic progress, followed by extension of the welfare state, which undermined previously strong Indigenous families. In any case, the past is over and cannot be changed... Indigenous people can now do more for themselves and their children by focussing on things they can change, such as low educational achievement, family disintegration, and governance on reserves, rather than rehearsing the past."
Two-Thirds Did Not Attend Residential School - "Commissioner Sinclair claims that the “thinking of the day” which led to the creation of the residential school system was to “Kill the Indian in the Child.” In fact, the specific phrase “kill the Indian in the child” was never used by the Canadian government at the time. It was invented by the historian John Milloy in a report he submitted to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in May 1996 entitled “Suffer the Little Children: The Aboriginal Residential School System 1830-1992.”... As the source for his claim that “kill the Indian in the child” was the Canadian government’s “thought even before the deed,” Milloy cites page 4 of D.A. Nock’s A Victorian Missionary and Canadian Indian Policy. However, the specific phrase “kill the Indian in the child” cannot be found on the page cited by Milloy, nor anywhere in A Victorian Missionary. Nor can it be found in any other document prior to 1996. It thus seems beyond dispute that the phrase “kill the Indian in the child” is Milloy’s invention, and since 1996 has been falsely and widely attributed to the Canadian government as its policy underlying the establishment of residential schools. In fact, the Canadian government made clear at the time that the purpose of educating status Indian children in residential schools was “to develop the great natural intelligence of the race and to fit the Indian for civilized life in his own environment”... Commissioner Sinclair’s statement that nearly every indigenous child in Canada for roughly seven generations was forced to attend a residential school is directly contradicted by the Indian Act, by census and enrolment data in the Department of Indian Affairs Annual Reports, and by a plethora of other government documents... so many Indian parents applied to have their children admitted to residential schools that some schools had waiting lists... there can be no legitimate claim that status Indian children were “forced” to attend residential schools prior to 1920, or that “every” school-age status Indian child attended a residential school during those years. THE YEAR 1920 was something of a turning-point. In that year, amendments to the Indian Act made attendance at a residential school compulsory for all status Indian children, but only if there was no day school available on their reserve... During the 1920s, the demand for places in some residential schools continued to exceed the supply... If residential schools achieved “unacceptably poor education results,” as Mr. Sinclair alleged, what of the two-thirds of school-age status Indian children who, as we have seen, did not attend residential schools? Did they receive a superior education to that available in residential schools? In a shocking number of cases, many of these children did not get any formal education at all"
Of course, today liberals are for compulsory education, and many of them don't want private schools or homeschooling to exist
Foreign Information Operations and Canada's Residential Schools - "Authoritarian regimes often use a rhetorical tactic called “whataboutism” as part of their information and influence operations, whereby negative stories in western liberal media are exploited by these regimes in order to deflect attention away from their criminal activity and human rights abuses. Whataboutism was a frequent Cold War tactic of Soviet propagandists, who would, for example, point to the mistreatment of Black Americans whenever Soviet terror and repression were mentioned by Western media and officials... China has focused on the residential schools issue as a means to distract from the Xinjiang genocide by creating a false moral equivalency between the two events... The Chinese government is distorting the issue by completely ignoring the fact that Canada has facilitated reconciliation for former students and families and admitted wrongdoing through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Additionally, Canada continues to address and make amends for past immoral action while China attempts to suppress its ongoing transgressions – including its mass human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and against Hong Kong pro-democracy activists. Chinese dialogue on the topic of residential schools may be further motivated as a defence mechanism to avoid calls by Canada to allow for immediate access to Xinjiang... Russia and Iran have exploited the residential schools issue as a mechanism to discredit the Canadian government and undermine our credibility on human rights issues... In 2007, Russia used historical disinformation against Estonia to manufacture an ethnic conflict in the country during the Bronze Night Riots. Notably, during the COVID pandemic, Russia has promoted vaccine hesitancy in Western nations using state-controlled media and social media platforms to amplify them... A June 25, RT headline reads: “The silence on Canada’s indigenous deaths shame shows there are double standards on global human rights.” The article strategically omits the existence of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report and condemns Canada’s hypocrisy on all human rights issues"
Kenney criticized for cancel culture remarks amid renewed residential school debate - The Globe and Mail - "A western Canadian Indigenous leader is condemning cancel culture remarks made by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, and says it reinforces a recent decision to scrap a formal working agreement with the province. Kenney spoke Tuesday about cancel culture when asked about Calgary Board of Education trustees voting this week to immediately rename the Langevin junior high school in light of outrage following the discovery of the remains believed to be from children at the site of a former Kamloops residential school. Hector-Louis Langevin, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister, is considered an architect of the residential school system... Kenney equated removing statues and renaming institutions with erasing from history these figures and thereby not allowing Canadians to understand, learn and grow from past actions, even those deemed reprehensible. The Premier took issue with the focus on Macdonald, noting other federal leaders throughout Canadian history embraced racist and punitive policies, such as the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. “If we go full force into cancel culture, then we’re cancelling most if not all of our history,” said Kenney. “Instead, I think we should learn from our history.” Grand Chief Vernon Watchmaker was critical of Kenney’s remarks in a statement Wednesday. “The Premier’s diatribe was particularly insensitive, especially on the heels of the mass grave discovery in Kamloops, B.C.”"
215 "Graves" - "The only “scientific” evidence was a report from a junior archaeologist, (with questionable radar expertise), operating a ground penetrating radar machine... The only other “evidence” offered were stories of secret burials that had circulated through the community. But these stories were clearly in the nature of conspiracy theories. They include stories of priests incinerating indigenous children in furnaces and hanging their bodies on hooks in barns. They also include stories of Queen Elizabeth personally kidnapping indigenous children. Simply put, these are bizarre tales, closer to children’s ghost stories than a historical record. The fact is, there is no historical record of any Kamloops parent, or other indigenous parent from other communities served by the school, reporting that their child had mysteriously disappeared after attending the Kamloops school. Indigenous parents are no different from any other parent. They love their children, and if their child had suddenly disappeared, they would obviously raise the alarm. They would complain to their chief, the police, the newspapers, their Indian Agent, the Department of Indian Affairs, and anyone else who would listen. Yet there was not a single report. The other evidence all points to the fact that these stories of secret burials by priests late at night, and six-year-olds forced to dig graves, and Queen Elizabeth stealing children from their schools are just that. Stories. There is currently no credible evidence that there is anyone buried in the Kamloops IRS apple orchard."
GUEST OP-ED: Historic septic dig casts doubt on Kamloops residential school burial site claims - " It is important to note that it was the so-called indigenous Knowledge Keepers at Kamloops who claimed to have known that the Kamloops apple orchard was a clandestine burial site. The reason ground penetrating radar (GPR) searches were conducted was due to the Knowledge Keepers “knowings” – which derive from indigenous oral traditions (also known as “traditional knowledge”). But what is the difference between an urban legend and a “knowing” disseminated through oral traditions? Former KIRS student, Emma Baker admitted in an interview with CTV that when she attended the Kamloops residential school from 1952 to 1956, she and her friends made up stories about graves in the apple orchard... Those lurid stories, or more likely, highly implausible urban legends, were for decades circulated by defrocked former United Church minister and debunked conspiracy theorist Kevin Annett... An anonymous architectural consultant who specializes in site inspections and goes by the moniker KamRes (short for Kamloops residential school), has built a website called Graves in the Apple Orchard featuring details of his analysis concerning survey data of the infamous Kamloops apple orchard... “…a report anonymously prepared by an architectural consultant who specializes in site inspections, which suggests that the anomalies picked up by the T’Kemlups GPR survey are likely the result of decades of ground disturbances — irrigation ditches, utility lines, backhoe trenches, archeological digs, waterlines and so on.”... It is likely that the soil disturbances caused by this 1924 septic field were picked up by ground penetrating radar and have been mistakenly interpreted as clandestine graves. Because the Kamloops Indian Band has not released Dr. Beaulieu’s GPR report, researchers cannot verify if she knew about the 1924 septic field and drainage trenches. However, comments she has made to the media, like the one that follows, give the impression of a person not very open to alternative explanations of what she believes to be unmarked graves. “All residential school landscapes are likely to contain burials of missing children. Remote sensing such as GPR merely provides some spatial specificity to this truth.” – Dr Beaulieu Researcher Nina Green had this to say about the developments offered by KamRes: “KIRS had a very large septic field in 1924, and according to Kam Res, it’s under the apple orchard where Dr. Beaulieu did her GPR work. There’s no way GPR can distinguish between a filled-in septic field trench and a filled-in grave. The GPR profiles will look the same.”"
