Author:  Douglas A. Alderson, MA (Toronto), LLM (Yale)

Tales of abused and missing children naturally tug on the heart strings and engender feelings of outrage and sympathy: outrage at the perpetrators; sympathy for the victims and their families.

Our natural sympathies, however, are being manipulated and abused by the Trudeau Government and the Aboriginal Grievance Industrial Complex (“AGIC”).  Trudeau, who has about the same empathy for Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples as a wolf has for the caribou, never misses an opportunity for a photo op.  The AGIC, made up of Aboriginal elites, lawyers, accountants, consultants, anthropologists, linguists, politicians, bureaucrats, corrupt and lazy media. and others that thrive on aboriginal dependence for their existence and legitimacy, never misses an opportunity to play the guilt card to enhance their financial position, their political power and influence.

At the outset, it must be acknowledged that the history, and the truth of that history, between Aboriginal tribes of what would become Canada and European discoverers and settlors can only be fully appreciated via “a complex truth-finding process.”  That process involves bringing together many threads, some good, others bad, in order to arrive at a fair and balanced historical judgment.  Authentic “truth and reconciliation” requires no less.

Unfortunately, the quest to arrive at such a judgement, and with it true “truth and reconciliation” with respect to Canada’s founding peoples has become distorted and politicised so as to make an objective and fair assessment impossible.

2024 Final Report Another Missed Opportunity

The most recent example of this shameless political dog and pony show came at the end of October with the release of the “Final Report” of Kimberly Murray, the “Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools.”  A massive 1,710 page, three volume document, plus a 285 page “Executive Summary”, the “Final Report” contains distortions, half-truths and political bias/assumptions that do nothing to further the cause of “truth and reconciliation” but everything to do with the embodiment, and continued entrenchment, of the AGIC and its agenda—an agenda that first began to be articulated with the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Established in June of 2022 in the wake of the “discoveries” of potential unmarked graves and burial sites at Kamloops, BC, and other sites, the most damning aspect of the Independent Special Interlocutor Project is that it is based upon a lie.  While at least 33 churches have burnt to the ground since 2021, not one body or mass grave has been excavated and confirmed.  Not one.  Plenty of time has elapsed since the 27 May 2021 announcement by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir that “the remains of 215 children” had been found using ground penetrating radar at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.  However, that discovery has yet to be properly investigated and confirmed.

The ”Final Report” relies heavily on the multi-volume Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) 2015 Final Report and readily accepts everything in that Report as being definitive and infallible despite the fact that the 2015 Final Report is selective in its data and questionable in its historical survey.  For example, the TRC all but ignored the Chronicles kept by the Sisters of Providence at Cluny, Alberta, the Sisters of Charity (Grey Nuns) at Cardston, and the Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Delmas, Hobbema and Onion Lake, which clearly testify to the care and dedication these orders had for children under their care at the residential schools were they served.

Censorship is Not the Answer

There are many other problematic aspects to Murray’s “Final Report”, but the most problematic is its recommendation for more bureaucracy together with censorship and the criminalization of speech.  Specifically, Recommendations 35 to 37 under the heading “Fighting Denialism and Rewriting Canada’s History”, the “Final Report” requires:

  1. The federal government must combat Indian Residential School denialism by:
  • Tracking the dissemination of disinformation and misinformation about Indian Residential Schools, missing and disappeared children, and unmarked graves and burial sites;
  • Regulating and requiring search, social, and digital companies to stop and immediately remove the dissemination of misinformation, disinformation, and falsehoods about Indian Residential Schools, missing and disappeared children, and unmarked graves and burial sites;
  • Providing support for Indigenous people and communities that have been subjected to online hate and harm; and
  • Establishing penalties, effective monitoring, and enforcement mechanisms.
  1. The federal government must include provisions in Bill C-63: An Act to Enact the Online Harms Act to address the harms associated with denialism about Indian Residential Schools, including the missing and disappeared children and unmarked burials.
  2. The federal government must amend the Criminal Code, making it an offence to wilfully promote hatred against Indigenous Peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying, or justifying the Indian Residential School System or by misrepresenting facts relating to it.

This coincides nicely with NDP Leah Gazan’s (Winnipeg Centre) Private Members Bill C – 413, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (promotion of hatred against indigenous peoples).  As its name suggests, the Bill would amend the Criminal Code to create a new offence of wilfully promoting hatred against Aboriginal peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada through statements communicated other than in private conversation.

Neither the “Final Report” nor Bill C – 413 are concerned about identifying what “denying, downplaying or justifying” means—and of course, that is not the point about such legislative schemes which aim at chilling free speech and making the process of being charged the punishment regardless of one’s legal vindication after a lengthy and costly legal ordeal.  Just ask Mark Steyn or Dr. Jordan Peterson about the process being the punishment if you have any doubts.

Canada’s Continuing Aboriginal Heritage

Equally spurious are allegations of “genocide” which are nothing more than rhetorical devices to gain a sense of moral righteousness and thereby legitimize demands to address past grievances.

For those who aren’t paying attention, the very name of this country “Canada” is probably derived from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement”,  Indeed,, Canada is full of place names derived from Aboriginal languages, such as: Toronto, (in the Mohawk “tkaronto “ meaning “where there are trees standing in the water”; “toronto” also means “plenty”’, in Huron and Iroquoian languages); Ontario (thought to be derived from either “Ontarí:io”, a Huron word meaning “great lake”, or “skanadario”, which means “beautiful water” or “sparkling water” in the Iroquoian languages); Québec (derived from an Algonquin word meaning ‘narrow passage’ or ‘strait’); Saskatchewan (river and province, takes its name from the Cree “kisiskāciwani-sīpiy” meaning “swift flowing river”); and Ottawa (originally named Bytown, after Lieutenant Colonel John By, British Royal Engineers, who supervised the construction of the  Rideau Canal, is derived from the Algonquin “adawe,” meaning “to trade.”)

All these names and many more are evidence of the continuing Aboriginal history of the country.  If “genocide” aims at eradicating any semblance of a group’s existence, successive Canadian governments have failed miserably.   Governments are undoubtedly guilty of other evils, but surely genocide is not one of them.

Any fair and unbiased assessment of Canadian history would recognize the good as well as the bad in relations between Europeans and Aboriginal People.   However, under the current cancel culture and politically correct narrative, it is forbidden to recognize the positive role that Sir John A. MacDonald and his government played in alleviating famine facing Indian tribes in the wake of the collapse of the buffalo herds in the 1870s.  It is equally forbidden to recognize the fact that the reserve schools could only be established if asked for by Aboriginal leaders pursuant to the Crown’s various treaty obligations.

Starting with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 through the Numbered Treaties of post-Confederation, the framework was established that relations with Aboriginal People would be governed by treaty negotiation and not military fiat.  This is in sharp contrast to the American experience.

Have treaty obligations been perfectly adhered to?  Of course not, and that is a discussion worth having.  However, such discussions are difficult when emotionally charged claims of genocide are being bandied about.

Similarly, no credit is given to Macdonald and his government for the use of treaties and the establishment of the North-West Mounted Police (precursor to the RCMP) to address the settlement of Western Canada, which stands in sharp contrast to the American experience of direct military conflict.  Indeed, when one considers the historical record, one is struck by the British Crown’s preference of using treaties with the various Aboriginal tribes rather than military means to further colonial policy.

Real Obstacle to Truth and Reconciliation

Currently, the biggest obstacle to honest reconciliation is the myth of mass graves and thousands of missing children.  The “mass grave” allegations were given fresh impetus 2021, when the “discovery” was announced of a ”mass grave containing the bodies of 215 children” in an apple orchard at the former Residential School at Kamloops, B.C..  The “discovery” was based on the results of ground penetrating radar.  As of October 2024, however, not one grave, let alone a “mass grave” or one body has been recovered.  Moreover, there have been no excavations at the site and the RCMP investigation into the matter has been effectively closed down.

To cloak the question of Residential Schools with this and related tales is nothing but attempting to cloak a political agenda with Moral invulnerability.  It has nothing to do with the truth, let alone reconciliation, and everything to do with political power and control which rewrites Canadian History, something the AGIC accuses “white European settlers” of doing.

Respect for Other Knowledge Keepers

Remembering that hatred is the partner of ignorance, it behoves us all to familiarize ourselves with the full truth of Canada’s past and base policies for moving forward on historical truth that is accurate and has been fully and transparently investigated.  For those really interested in the truth, the following sources will provide a much-needed balance to the prevailing political narrative: C. P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, eds., Grave Error: How The Media Misled Us (And The Truth About Residential Schools) Second Edition, (True North and Dorchester Books, 2024); Tom Flanagan, First Nations? Second Thoughts, Third edition, (Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2019); Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, (Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2008); Jeff Fynn-Paul, Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World, (Bombardier Books: New York, 2023); Mark Milke, Editor, The 1867 Project: Why Canada Should Be Cherished—Not Cancelled, (Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy: Calgary, Alberta, 2023); Nina Green, “’Our Dear Children’: Sisters’ Chronicles of Indian Residential School”, Dorchester Review, April 2022; and Nina Green’s articles at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy at https://fcpp.org/by/nina-green/   No list of source materials would be complete without mention of the website, Indian Residential School Records https://indianresidentialschoolrecords.com/  This website provides easy access to thousands of documents covering more than a century of the residential school system’s existence.

These sources and their documentary evidence tells quite a different story from the one presented in the TRC’s 2015 Report or Kimberly Murray’s “Final Report” of 2024.  If we are serious about moving forward, we need to do so in the clear light of historical truth and not the myth of political propaganda.