OneBC has announced that a British Columbia teacher fired over his comments on residential schools will be their first candidate.
Jim McMurtry told the Western Standard he was ” so excited” to join the party and praised leader Dallas Brodie for tackling head on issues that others have been afraid to skirt around.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew recently announced a $20 million dollar grant to the University of Manitoba for the construction of a new National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba. In 2022, the federal government committed $60 million for the same project.
The University’s National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is considered a key component of reconciliation in Canada, partly because, among other functions, the NCTR staff maintain a Memorial Register of student deaths at Indian residential schools.
(Incognito)
When the Toronto Star recently linked the rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to the “discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools,” it echoed a familiar trope of moral reckoning born from tragedy.
The paper conspiratorially theorized that “a push for more inclusive policies in many countries was sparked by the 2020 death of George Floyd … and in Canada by the discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools.”
Another National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (NDTR) has come and gone. This is the fifth since the shocking Kamloops claim was made on May 27, 2021. The orange shirts worn by those who believe in the truth of the claim pay tribute to the 215 indigenous students at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) they believe died under sinister circumstances, and were buried by priests to hide their crime with the forced help of children — as young as six. That’s the Kamloops claim.
(Incognito)
Only 14 of the 94 Calls to Action have been implemented. Criminalizing residential school denialism is the only way forward
… The key roadblock to true reconciliation however, is Residential School Denialism. In 2023, despite complete rejection by the publishing industry, a book titled “Grave Error,” a vitriolic and hateful diatribe denying the truth about residential schools and the intergenerational harms they caused, was self-published by a gaggle of hard-core denialists, determine to shore up the myth that residential schools were well-intentioned, abuses suffered there exaggerated or fabricated and that intergenerational harms do not exist. It is deeply disturbing that in this day and age, and in the face of indisputable evidence in the form of government documentation, this book rose to the level of a bestseller.
Confronting denialists is critically important. It is also exhausting and largely a waste of time. Taking a page out of the MAGA playbook the denialists, though with other words, posit the notion of “alternative facts” or “fake news.”
The Star. Batshit Crazy doesn’t begin to describe it.
Taxpayer money squandered on ‘unmarked graves,’ while hospitals crumble and kids go without. Time to bury this hoax for good.
Here we go again, another “National Day for Truth and Reconciliation” is upon us. The federal government shuts down for the day. Flags are at half-mast. Across the country, Canadians are supposed to pause, reflect, and feel guilty for a manufactured fake holiday.
But pause we must, not to bow before this altar of invented outrage, but to ask when does this madness end?
Smoky Lake RCMP have arrested two people in connection with a string of vehicle thefts and a fire that destroyed the All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bellis, Alta.
The arrests come after a dramatic police pursuit involving erratic driving, bear mace, and a vehicle ramming a police car.
h/t Auntie Polly (Incognito)
As the end of September approaches, my Facebook feed is suddenly awash with paid ads for orange shirts and caps with an array of designs inspired by West Coast indigenous art.
This social media sales frenzy has been growing in recent years, since the concept of Orange Shirt Day was officially adopted and promoted by the BC government and others. I’ve encouraged this advertising blitz by clicking on several of the offerings, not to purchase but to check their origin and validity. Facebook’s user algorithm picks up on that activity, directing more ads to me and getting a cut from the action.
Premier Wab Kinew announced Friday that Manitoba will spend $20 million to help build a permanent home for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba.
Kinew, who is also minister responsible for indigenous reconciliation, said the centre will provide a place for Manitobans to honour survivors of residential schools and support ongoing healing.
(Incognito)
Finally, the 2003 Final Report of British Columbia’s RCMP Native Indian Residential School Task Force, also called Project E-NIRS, was released on August 26 thanks to an access to information request by the Investigative Journalism Foundation.
The task force was created in 1995 to investigate sexual and other abuse in the province’s Indian Residential Schools after the Alberni RCMP met on November 3, 1994, with unnamed representatives of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council who claimed that 100 of its people had reported alleged abuse during their time at BC’s Indian residential schools.
(Incognito)
No graves have been found but the spending hasn’t stopped—and no one in Parliament is asking the hard questions
The “Kamloops Hoax” is the largest misuse of taxpayer dollars in Canadian history, yet, unlike past scandals, the Official Opposition has failed to challenge it.
Critics use the term “Kamloops Hoax” because, more than three years after the 2021 announcement that 215 Indigenous children’s remains had been detected at Kamloops, no human remains have been recovered and no forensic evidence has confirmed the claim.
It is unfortunate that First Nations are reluctant, or unable, to provide precise details in these cases, since they almost certainly warrant some kind of criminal investigation
Here we go again. More announcements that “graves” have been found at former Indian Residential Schools, more flags lowered in mourning and more uncritical press coverage.
And yet times have changed. There is less news coverage of these events, there’s no federal flags flying at half-staff and there appears to be a marked lack of national angst.
“Garbage in, garbage out” is a well-known aphorism that refers to the idea that the quality of the input determines the quality of output in any system. For example, if a mathematical equation is improperly stated, the answer is unlikely to be correct. The same applies to public opinion polling. If the questions asked come from biased researchers, are not given to a randomized sample of the larger population, or exceed the knowledge level of the survey participants, the results are likely to be incorrect.
In an August 12 media advisory, the government agency Parks Canada announced a plaque unveiling ceremony scheduled for August 14 to commemorate the “historic significance” of Manitoba’s former Portage La Prairie Indian Residential School (Portage IRS).
According to the advisory, the long-shuttered Portage IRS was built in 1914-1915 as part of a system “whereby the federal government and certain churches and religious organizations worked together to assimilate Indigenous children as part of a broad set of efforts to destroy Indigenous cultures and identities and suppress Indigenous histories.”
