“Liberal Party Anti-Christian Pogrom”

Remember the big fad a few years back for “evidence-based decision-making”? It always made me wonder what other basis might exist. And mutter, “Many talk of Robin Hood who never pulled his bow” because people fond of intoning it often seemed to use it as a substitute for rigorously checking their opinions against facts not a pointed reminder to do so. For instance in the vexed issue in Canada of all those unmarked graves of aboriginal kids who died, or maybe even were killed, in residential schools.

Progressive Canada has a dark side – its ‘silent genocide’ is proof

For more than a decade, Canada has successfully cultivated a pristine image of liberalism, progression and inclusivity, presenting itself as everything that its brash neighbour is not.

When Donald Trump built the wall, Justin Trudeau threw open his country’s doors to the world’s refugees. While Americans continue to grapple with relentless gun violence, Canadians have proactively tightened their firearms regulations. And where the US resists renewable energy, Canada has embraced all things green.

But scratch beneath this veneer and the nation’s darker side starts to surface.

Unbeknown to much of the world, a culture of extreme violence against indigenous women and girls – amounting to “genocide” in the government’s own words – has become deeply entrenched in Canadian society.

Canada, we’re just genociding 24/7.

It was a terrible scandal: Ground penetrating radar proved that hundreds, maybe thousands, of Canadian indigenous children died…or, really, were cruelly killed…at Christian and government residential schools, and then had their bodies tossed into unmarked graves. Churches (of course) burned. Now, though, it’s becoming clear that those “graves” are not yielding up bodies.

A retired Canadian bishop has challenged claims that hundreds of indigenous children died and were buried in unmarked mass graves at “residential schools” administered by the Church.

He has charged his fellow bishops to do more to defend the Church’s record.

Residential School Denialism Is on the Rise. What to Know

May 27, 2023 marked the two-year anniversary of the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc’s announcement about the location of 215 potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in the Interior of British Columbia.

In recognition of the anniversary, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, used its Twitter account to post a series of tweets — viewed by almost two million users — in support of Indigenous communities searching for unmarked graves at former Indian residential school sites across the country.

After George E. Pachano left residential school, he swore he would never return.

But decades later, the 62-year-old, who was forced to spend four years of his childhood at St. Philip’s Indian Residential School (Anglican) of Fort George Island, is now helping co-ordinate the search for unmarked graves in the Cree Nation of Chisasibi.

In July, Pachano was on site as two dogs — trained to sniff out historic human remains — and their handlers from the Ottawa Valley Search and Rescue Dog Association searched the grounds.

As he lay in a Calgary hospital bed in late July, retired Bishop Fred Henry summoned the energy to publicly break the silence around what he considers the prevailing “lie” about missing Indian residential school children.

“Why is the Catholic Church not asking the federal government for proof that even one residential child is actually missing in the sense that his (or) her parents didn’t know what happened to their child at the time of the child’s death?” he demanded in an e-mail.

The query itself was posed to both The Catholic Register and a former Register columnist who has challenged political accounts of Indian residential school history. Bishop Emeritus Henry apparently went to Catholic media because he has not yet received a response to an initial group e-mail he sent to his brother bishops six weeks ago.

The Senate Standing Committee on Indigenous Peoples has released a 30-page report titled “Honouring the Children Who Never Came Home: Truth, Education and Reconciliation.” The report includes a recommendation “that the Government of Canada take every action necessary to combat the rise of residential school denialism.”

In similar fashion, Stephanie Scott, the executive director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, says that support for “denialism” must be dealt with by legislation.