Over 100 churches have been burned or vandalized since the Trudeau government and mainstream media promulgated, without any physical evidence, the narrative that mass ‘unmarked graves’ had been discovered at Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Canada’s Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has confirmed it has spent millions searching for “unmarked graves” at a now-closed residential school once run by the Catholic Church, despite the fact that no human remains have been found.
In total, some $7.9 million was earmarked for a search of unmarked Indian Residential School graves in Kamloops, British Columbia. According to the spokeswoman for the Crown-Indigenous Relations, Carolane Gratton, the community got the money “for field work, records searches and to secure the Residential School grounds.”
“Details of initiatives taken by Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation are best directed to the community,” noted Gratton.
To date, the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has not given a financial accounting under the Access To Information Act as to where the money went. According to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation, it “continues to grieve children that are in our care and are focused on the scientific work that needs to be done,” but made no mention of the $7.9 million.
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.
The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation was more or less the reason there was a large international outcry in 2021, when it claimed it had found 215 “unmarked graves” of kids at the Kamloops Residential School. The claims of remains, however, were not backed by physical evidence, but were rather disturbances in the soil picked up by ground-penetrating radar.
The money given to the First Nation was done so to find the “heartbreaking truth” of the residential school system, according to a 2022 Indian Residential School Sites: Unmarked Burials department briefing note.
“Our thoughts are with survivors, their families and communities as the heartbreaking truth about Residential Schools’ unmarked burials continues to be unveiled,” read the note.
“Funding is available to support communities, survivors and their families on their healing journey through researching, locating and memorializing those children who died while attending Indian Residential Schools.”
Canadian indigenous residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set-up by the federal government and ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.
While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the past wrongs led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment, which boiled over in the summer of 2021 after the discovery of the 215 so-called “unmarked” graves in Kamloops.
While some children did die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children tragically passed away as a result of unsanitary conditions due to the federal government, not the Catholic Church, failing to properly fund the system.
No human remains have been found
Soon after the Kamloops announcement in 2021, other regions claimed the presence of “unmarked graves,” which prompted Canada’s House of Commons under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with the help of all other parties including the Conservatives, to declare the residential school program a “genocide” despite the lack of evidence.
The reality is that to date, no human remains have been found at the Kamloops site or other sites.
In fact, in August 2023, the Pine Creek Residential School, located in Pine Creek, Manitoba, underwent a four-week excavation and yielded no remains.
The excavation was led by a First Nation’s tribe called Minegoziibe Ashinabe, and came after a total of 14 abnormalities were found at the former school by ground-penetrating radar.
There have been other excavations conducted at residential schools that have likewise turned up no human remains.
Since the spring of 2021, over 100 churches, mostly Catholic, have been burned or vandalized across Canada. The attacks on the churches came shortly after the “unmarked graves” narrative began.
Despite the church burnings, the federal government under Trudeau has done nothing substantial to bring those responsible to justice or to stem the root cause of the burnings.
“I think Canadians have seen with horror those unmarked graves across the country and realize that what happened decades ago isn’t part of our history, it is an irrefutable part of our present,” Trudeau had earlier remarked to reporters.
The unmarked graves controversy also spurred a Senate committee in 2023 to claim that anyone who questions the graves is engaged in “Residential School denialism.”
“Denialism serves to distract people from the horrific consequences of Residential Schools and the realities of missing children, burials and unmarked graves,” said a Senate Indigenous peoples committee report titled Honouring The Children Who Never Came Home.
The Senate committee report said that the Canadian government should “take every action necessary to combat the rise of Residential School denialism.”
Jordan Peterson tells Pope Francis to ‘take note’
Responding to reports about the Trudeau government spending nearly $8 million without finding a single body, renowned anti-woke Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson took a shot at Pope Francis.
“Pope Francis take note @Pontifex,” wrote Peterson on X (formerly Twitter) last Thursday.
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) May 9, 2024
Peterson’s remarks likely came in light of the fact that Francis visited Canada in the summer of 2022 for the purpose of apologizing for churchmen’s role in the operation of the residential school program.
During his July 2022 trip, Francis visited First Nations in Alberta and Quebec. While in Quebec, he seemed to join in on a pagan “smudging” ritual before giving a lengthy speech where he conveyed “deep shame and sorrow” for the role played by Catholic Church members in government-funded residential school abuses.
While Francis seemed to go along with the mainstream narrative regarding residential schools, others have spoken out.
Last year, retired Bishop of Calgary, Frederick Henry, blasted the blatant “lie” that thousands of missing indigenous children who attended residential schools run by the Catholic Church were somehow “clandestinely” murdered by “Catholic priests and nuns.”
The founder of the National Post, Conrad Black, also made similar statements as Henry in an opinion piece for his former paper, calling the entire narrative a “fraud.”
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A new Ontario-wide survey conducted by Nanos Research on behalf of Canada Action finds strong public consensus that Canadian oil and gas revenues are critical to jobs, economic growth, and trade – and that Canada should lean into its energy advantage at home and abroad.
“Our polling feedback shows that a majority of Ontarians recognize the vital, irreplaceable role oil and gas has to play in our national economy. Canadians are telling us they want to see more support for the oil and gas sector, which is foundational to our standard of living and economy at large,” said Canada Action spokesperson, Cody Battershill.
The online survey of 1,000 Ontarians shows that more than four in five (84 per cent) respondents believe oil and gas revenues are important for creating jobs for Canadians and building a stronger economy. Additionally, four-in-five (80 per cent) support Canada developing a strategy to become a preferred oil supplier to countries, while Ontarians are more than eight times as likely to support as to oppose Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
“Building new trade infrastructure, including pipelines to the coasts that would get our oil and gas resources to international markets, can help Canadians diversify our trading partners, maximize the value of our resources, and secure a strong and prosperous future for our families,” Battershill said.
Also, nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
“Our poll is just one of many in Canada since the start of 2025 that show a majority of Canadians are supportive of oil and gas development. It’s time we get moving forward on these projects without delay and learn from the lessons of our past, where we saw multiple pipelines cancelled to the detriment of Canada’s long-term economic success.”
Additional findings include:
Four-in-five (80 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada supplying oil and gas, provided it remains a major source of energy worldwide.
Four-in five (80 per cent) of Ontarians believe oil and gas revenues are important when it comes to building stronger trading partnerships.
Nearly four-in-five (79 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important for keeping energy costs manageable for Canadians.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada stepping up to provide our key NATO allies with secure energy sources.
Nearly four-in-five (78 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, about six and a half times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly four-in-five (77 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada providing Asia and Europe with oil and gas so that they are less reliant on authoritarian suppliers.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians support Canada increasing oil and gas exports around the world, five times more likely than to oppose.
Nearly three-in-four (74 per cent) of Ontarians say oil and gas revenues are important to reducing taxes for Canadians.
More than seven-in-ten (71 per cent) of Ontarians support building new energy infrastructure projects without reducing environmental protections and safety.
More than six-in-ten (63 per cent) of Canadians say they are important for paying for social programs, including health care, education, and other public services.
Respondents were nine times more likely to say the government approval process for energy infrastructure projects is too slow (46 per cent) rather than too fast (5 per cent).
About the survey
The survey was conducted by Nanos Research for Canada Action using a representative non-probability online panel of 1,000 Ontarians aged 18 and older between December 10 and 12, 2025.
While a margin of error cannot be calculated for non-probability samples, a probability sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Pathways Alliance CEO Kendall Dilling is interviewed at the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Carbon capture gives biggest bang for carbon tax buck CCS much cheaper than fuel switching: report
Canada’s climate change strategy is now joined at the hip to a pipeline. Two pipelines, actually — one for oil, one for carbon dioxide.
The MOU signed between Ottawa and Alberta two weeks ago ties a new oil pipeline to the Pathways Alliance, which includes what has been billed as the largest carbon capture proposal in the world.
One cannot proceed without the other. It’s quite possible neither will proceed.
The timing for multi-billion dollar carbon capture projects in general may be off, given the retreat we are now seeing from industry and government on decarbonization, especially in the U.S., our biggest energy customer and competitor.
But if the public, industry and our governments still think getting Canada’s GHG emissions down is a priority, decarbonizing Alberta oil, gas and heavy industry through CCS promises to be the most cost-effective technology approach.
New modelling by Clean Prosperity, a climate policy organization, finds large-scale carbon capture gets the biggest bang for the carbon tax buck.
Which makes sense. If oil and gas production in Alberta is Canada’s single largest emitter of CO2 and methane, it stands to reason that methane abatement and sequestering CO2 from oil and gas production is where the biggest gains are to be had.
A number of CCS projects are already in operation in Alberta, including Shell’s Quest project, which captures about 1 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the Scotford upgrader.
What is CO2 worth?
Clean Prosperity estimates industrial carbon pricing of $130 to $150 per tonne in Alberta and CCS could result in $90 billion in investment and 70 megatons (MT) annually of GHG abatement or sequestration. The lion’s share of that would come from CCS.
To put that in perspective, 70 MT is 10% of Canada’s total GHG emissions (694 MT).
The report cautions that these estimates are “hypothetical” and gives no timelines.
All of the main policy tools recommended by Clean Prosperity to achieve these GHG reductions are contained in the Ottawa-Alberta MOU.
One important policy in the MOU includes enhanced oil recovery (EOR), in which CO2 is injected into older conventional oil wells to increase output. While this increases oil production, it also sequesters large amounts of CO2.
Under Trudeau era policies, EOR was excluded from federal CCS tax credits. The MOU extends credits and other incentives to EOR, which improves the value proposition for carbon capture.
Under the MOU, Alberta agrees to raise its industrial carbon pricing from the current $95 per tonne to a minimum of $130 per tonne under its TIER system (Technology Innovation and Emission Reduction).
The biggest bang for the buck
Using a price of $130 to $150 per tonne, Clean Prosperity looked at two main pathways to GHG reductions: fuel switching in the power sector and CCS.
Fuel switching would involve replacing natural gas power generation with renewables, nuclear power, renewable natural gas or hydrogen.
“We calculated that fuel switching is more expensive,” Brendan Frank, director of policy and strategy for Clean Prosperity, told me.
Achieving the same GHG reductions through fuel switching would require industrial carbon prices of $300 to $1,000 per tonne, Frank said.
Clean Prosperity looked at five big sectoral emitters: oil and gas extraction, chemical manufacturing, pipeline transportation, petroleum refining, and cement manufacturing.
“We find that CCUS represents the largest opportunity for meaningful, cost-effective emissions reductions across five sectors,” the report states.
Fuel switching requires higher carbon prices than CCUS.
Measures like energy efficiency and methane abatement are included in Clean Prosperity’s calculations, but again CCS takes the biggest bite out of Alberta’s GHGs.
“Efficiency and (methane) abatement are a portion of it, but it’s a fairly small slice,” Frank said. “The overwhelming majority of it is in carbon capture.”
From left, Alberta Minister of Energy Marg McCuaig-Boyd, Shell Canada President Lorraine Mitchelmore, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden, Marathon Oil Executive Brian Maynard, Shell ER Manager, Stephen Velthuizen, and British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake open the valve to the Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan Alta, on Friday November 6, 2015. Quest is designed to capture and safely store more than one million tonnes of CO2 each year an equivalent to the emissions from about 250,000 cars. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Credit where credit is due
Setting an industrial carbon price is one thing. Putting it into effect through a workable carbon credit market is another.
“A high headline price is meaningless without higher credit prices,” the report states.
“TIER credit prices have declined steadily since 2023 and traded below $20 per tonne as of November 2025. With credit prices this low, the $95 per tonne headline price has a negligible effect on investment decisions and carbon markets will not drive CCUS deployment or fuel switching.”
Clean Prosperity recommends a kind of government-backstopped insurance mechanism guaranteeing carbon credit prices, which could otherwise be vulnerable to political and market vagaries.
Specifically, it recommends carbon contracts for difference (CCfD).
“A straight-forward way to think about it is insurance,” Frank explains.
Carbon credit prices are vulnerable to risks, including “stroke-of-pen risks,” in which governments change or cancel price schedules. There are also market risks.
CCfDs are contractual agreements between the private sector and government that guarantees a specific credit value over a specified time period.
“The private actor basically has insurance that the credits they’ll generate, as a result of making whatever low-carbon investment they’re after, will get a certain amount of revenue,” Frank said. “That certainty is enough to, in our view, unlock a lot of these projects.”
From the perspective of Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers like Vancouver’s Svante, there is one policy piece still missing from the MOU: eligibility for the Clean Technology Manufacturing (CTM) Investment tax credit.
“Carbon capture was left out of that,” said Svante co-founder Brett Henkel said.
Svante recently built a major manufacturing plant in Burnaby for its carbon capture filters and machines, with many of its prospective customers expected to be in the U.S.
The $20 billion Pathways project could be a huge boon for Canadian companies like Svante and Calgary’s Entropy. But there is fear Canadian CCS equipment manufacturers could be shut out of the project.
“If the oil sands companies put out for a bid all this equipment that’s needed, it is highly likely that a lot of that equipment is sourced outside of Canada, because the support for Canadian manufacturing is not there,” Henkel said.
Henkel hopes to see CCS manufacturing added to the eligibility for the CTM investment tax credit.
“To really build this eco-system in Canada and to support the Pathways Alliance project, we need that amendment to happen.”
