In 1999 I worked on the BC Gas southern crossing pipeline expansion on a partnership with the okanagan nation alliance, based out of the Osoyoos Indian Band office. During that project we formed good friendships with the administrators, some of which were band members. One of the things that a native administrator shared with me was that he had attended the catholic school in Kamloops. He was taken from his home as a child by the chief and taken to the government agent to be placed with foster parents because his parents were alcoholics. He considered his foster mom as his “white” mom and still loves her and says she was the reason he was a success. But upon completing his schooling he had a calling to go back to his band to make a difference for his people. One of the things he said that always stayed with me was this, look around this office, most of us natives that work here are either former foster family or residential school kids. He wasn’t saying everything was perfect but he said it changed his life for the better.
The residential school era is much more complicated than we are led to believe. Trudeau being who he is tried to make it all about himself, he was desperate for Canada to have a George Floyd moment. He has been the most toxic PM of all time, he has found issue after issue to divide citizens.
As citizens we have to find ways to come together as a nations despite the efforts of our govt to divide us, otherwise the idea of Canada is finished.
Perhaps this is all a matter of projection. We know that First Nations engaged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. We know they kept slaves and slaughtered people to inaugurate totem poles and longhouses, and in celebration of potlatches. The only graves of murder victims are likely to be found there, not in Catholic or Anglican schoolyards. What the Europeans brought to this continent was the abolition of slavery and the imposition of respect for human life.
Each day we slip further and further down into a Soviet-like rabbit hole created by those disgusting political cynics and opportunists, Trudeau and his cult. And sheep-like Canadians are too apathetic and cowardly to demand an end to it. If Trudeau wins again in 2025, we are well and truly done as a free nation.
The world is littered with unmarked graves. Chances are there is one in your backyard. People just die and they have done so for over a million years. Lacking any evidence or excavation we must assume that these sites may not be graves at all and even if they are, where is the evidence of wrongdoing? These days, with political correctness, we have to sing to the tunes of the conspirator composers. Any person who asks for evidence is painted as a denier, a bigot, and any other objectionable name under the sun. Now there are even voices heard which promote criminalizing second thought.
Jesus, obviously the desire to know the truth wanes on this topic as soon as it was possible that there was not some mass wrongdoing on it. Much more profitable to milk the myth.
Regarding the desire to criminalize this, wtf is Canada literally Germany? But in this case instead of holocaust denial being illegal, it's on the level of questioning something we literally don't know the answer to.
It isn't about whether or not there are actually unmarked graves, or more likely, cemeteries that were not maintained; it is about controlling what the narrative is. Going forward in our society, there will be less and less tolerance about individuals holding contrarian views. Matt Taibbi has been writing
extensively about this. The people who are in charge do not want anyone that they don't agree with obtaining any kind of political power. The pandemic, for example, just provided them with more more opportunities to shout down anyone that disagreed with them. It is going to get worse before it gets better as well.
If they really believed the residential-school experience was comparable to the Holocaust, they would be looking for the equivalent of "righteous gentiles" to honour. In this case, it would be those selfless nuns, priests and Anglican clerics who devoted their lives not only to providing as good an education as they could (like the teacher in Tomson Highway's memoir who taught him the piano), but many of whom learned their languages and were the first to write them down, nursed them through illness and encouraged their ambitions. We have letters from former students attesting to their love of these teachers and their gratitude for the decency and good faith they experienced in their care. Holocaust survivors clung to these examples of human goodness with gratitude for the proof they provided that goodness is a choice, and helped them to envisage a better future. That those of us who want to see these righteous teachers and administrators recognized and given their due acknowledgement are vilified as "denialists" speaks to the inhumanity and moral corruption in the alleged "truth and reconciliation" camp.
Some news outlets have picked up ‘denialism’ and are using it uncritically, such as this recent headline from The Tyee:
“Residential School Denialism Is on the Rise. What to Know”.
I am quite certain the taboos were in place but not the loaded terminology, not until folks like Marc Miller started with it. Of course, it’s absurd. Name-calling is virtually all they have.
In 1999 I worked on the BC Gas southern crossing pipeline expansion on a partnership with the okanagan nation alliance, based out of the Osoyoos Indian Band office. During that project we formed good friendships with the administrators, some of which were band members. One of the things that a native administrator shared with me was that he had attended the catholic school in Kamloops. He was taken from his home as a child by the chief and taken to the government agent to be placed with foster parents because his parents were alcoholics. He considered his foster mom as his “white” mom and still loves her and says she was the reason he was a success. But upon completing his schooling he had a calling to go back to his band to make a difference for his people. One of the things he said that always stayed with me was this, look around this office, most of us natives that work here are either former foster family or residential school kids. He wasn’t saying everything was perfect but he said it changed his life for the better.
The residential school era is much more complicated than we are led to believe. Trudeau being who he is tried to make it all about himself, he was desperate for Canada to have a George Floyd moment. He has been the most toxic PM of all time, he has found issue after issue to divide citizens.
As citizens we have to find ways to come together as a nations despite the efforts of our govt to divide us, otherwise the idea of Canada is finished.
Perhaps this is all a matter of projection. We know that First Nations engaged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. We know they kept slaves and slaughtered people to inaugurate totem poles and longhouses, and in celebration of potlatches. The only graves of murder victims are likely to be found there, not in Catholic or Anglican schoolyards. What the Europeans brought to this continent was the abolition of slavery and the imposition of respect for human life.
Each day we slip further and further down into a Soviet-like rabbit hole created by those disgusting political cynics and opportunists, Trudeau and his cult. And sheep-like Canadians are too apathetic and cowardly to demand an end to it. If Trudeau wins again in 2025, we are well and truly done as a free nation.
The world is littered with unmarked graves. Chances are there is one in your backyard. People just die and they have done so for over a million years. Lacking any evidence or excavation we must assume that these sites may not be graves at all and even if they are, where is the evidence of wrongdoing? These days, with political correctness, we have to sing to the tunes of the conspirator composers. Any person who asks for evidence is painted as a denier, a bigot, and any other objectionable name under the sun. Now there are even voices heard which promote criminalizing second thought.
Where is Freedom of speech?
Jesus, obviously the desire to know the truth wanes on this topic as soon as it was possible that there was not some mass wrongdoing on it. Much more profitable to milk the myth.
Regarding the desire to criminalize this, wtf is Canada literally Germany? But in this case instead of holocaust denial being illegal, it's on the level of questioning something we literally don't know the answer to.
It isn't about whether or not there are actually unmarked graves, or more likely, cemeteries that were not maintained; it is about controlling what the narrative is. Going forward in our society, there will be less and less tolerance about individuals holding contrarian views. Matt Taibbi has been writing
extensively about this. The people who are in charge do not want anyone that they don't agree with obtaining any kind of political power. The pandemic, for example, just provided them with more more opportunities to shout down anyone that disagreed with them. It is going to get worse before it gets better as well.
Good piece, but I think many commentators are getting *way* ahead of their skis in dismissing Kamloops as a "hoax."
If they really believed the residential-school experience was comparable to the Holocaust, they would be looking for the equivalent of "righteous gentiles" to honour. In this case, it would be those selfless nuns, priests and Anglican clerics who devoted their lives not only to providing as good an education as they could (like the teacher in Tomson Highway's memoir who taught him the piano), but many of whom learned their languages and were the first to write them down, nursed them through illness and encouraged their ambitions. We have letters from former students attesting to their love of these teachers and their gratitude for the decency and good faith they experienced in their care. Holocaust survivors clung to these examples of human goodness with gratitude for the proof they provided that goodness is a choice, and helped them to envisage a better future. That those of us who want to see these righteous teachers and administrators recognized and given their due acknowledgement are vilified as "denialists" speaks to the inhumanity and moral corruption in the alleged "truth and reconciliation" camp.
Some news outlets have picked up ‘denialism’ and are using it uncritically, such as this recent headline from The Tyee:
“Residential School Denialism Is on the Rise. What to Know”.
I am quite certain the taboos were in place but not the loaded terminology, not until folks like Marc Miller started with it. Of course, it’s absurd. Name-calling is virtually all they have.