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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Why is Trudeau sticking to the unmarked graves falsehood?

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

There is simply no possibility that Trudeau didn’t know on June 17th, 2024 that he was spreading misinformation when he said that unmarked graves were found. In plain English — he knew he was lying.

The claim made by Chief Rosanne Casimir on May 27th, 2021, that the remains of 215 children, former students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) had been found in unmarked graves on the school grounds, was false.

Only soil anomalies were detected by a radar device. Those anomalies could be tree roots, previous excavations, or almost anything. In fact, research since that time makes it clear that the anomalies were almost certainly the trenches of a former septic field installed in 1924 to dispose of the school’s sewage.

No “unmarked graves”, “human remains”, “bodies” or “mass graves” were found.

Chief Casimir finally confessed to making that false claim three years after making it. She admitted what was known to most of all along: no graves, human remains, or bodies were found — only 215 “anomalies”.

So, everyone in Canada now knows that the May 27th, 2021 claim of unmarked graves containing human remains found at Kamloops was false. Everybody except the prime minister it seems, and his former Indigenous Affairs Minister, Marc Miller.

However on June 17th, 2024, Prime Minister Trudeau — instead of taking the opportunity to set the record straight — repeated at an indigenous event the whopper that “unmarked graves” have been found. He has been spreading that misinformation for three years.

One would think that now that the person who originally made the false claim has admitted that no graves were found — only anomalies — that Trudeau would take the opportunity to clear up the confusion and go with the truth, instead of repeating the original lie.

One would be wrong.

There is simply no possibility that Trudeau didn’t know on June 17th, 2024 that he was spreading misinformation when he said that unmarked graves were found. In plain English — he knew he was lying.

So, why would he do such a thing? Doesn’t a prime minister have a duty to refrain from deliberately lying to Canadian citizens? After all, the great majority of Canadians know by now that no graves were found at Kamloops.

The only answer that makes sense is that the Prime Minister was not speaking to all Canadians on June 17th, 2024. He was speaking only to indigenous Canadians when he falsely stated that unmarked graves had been found at Kamloops. He was repeating a lie they believed. They believed that lie in large part because he and Marc Miller were doing their best to keep the lie alive.

Everything that he and his colleagues have done since May 27, 2021 — lowering flags, kneeling with a teddy bear in an ordinary community cemetery, lavishing money on indigenous communities to search for missing children he knows were never “missing” — has been done to pander to an indigenous community that largely believes those false stories about evil priests and secret burials. I repeat  — believes that anti- Catholic bilge in large part because the Trudeau Liberals have encouraged them to believe it.

What has come to be known as the “Kamloops Graves Hoax” is now known to most Canadians for what it is — a false claim. However, we have a prime minister who, for his own reasons,  seems intent on keeping the hoax going within the indigenous community. The deception being practiced by the prime minister will have serious consequences in the years ahead. And those consequences are all negative.

Prime ministers come and go. Some remain popular throughout their term, but some become increasingly unpopular. For example, the late Brian Mulroney was so unpopular with Canadians toward the end of his term that the Conservatives, led by his successor, Kim Campbell, were  virtually wiped in the election following his retirement.

Trudeau’s fate remains to be seen.

However, that is just politics. But what Trudeau is doing, in deliberately lying to an already marginalized demographic that has a history of being lied to by indigenous and non-indigenous politicians, is not just politics. It is reprehensible conduct. Those people are going to be very angry when they realize that they have been deceived.

Under Trudeau’s watch, we have already seen churches burn, statues topple, and other mayhem as a result of a claim that the PMO knows is false.

Exactly why he is practicing this deception we do not know. We do know with certainty that Indigenous Affairs Minister Marc Miller spoke with Chief Rosanne Casimir on the evening of May 27, 2021, immediately after she made her false claim that the remains of 215 children, who were students at KIRS, had been found. Here’s what he said about his May 27, 2021 telephone conversation with Casimir, according to Hansard:

“On Thursday evening, I spoke to Chief Casimir and assured her of my steadfast support for the grieving and reconciliation process over the coming weeks. We have been in contact since then as well. We will be there with them as they lead this initiative, and we will help meet their needs in the coming weeks and months.”

Unless Chief Casimir told Miller that “remains” had been found, and not the truth — that only anomalies had been detected — the Trudeau government and the Kamloops band together, for reasons unknown, created the false narrative that the remains of 215 children had been found, knowing that their claim was false. Why did this happen?

The prime minister is now keeping this false narrative alive, knowing that it was, and is, false. Why is he doing this?.

And why are the CBC and our mainstream media not even trying to find out?

Something is very wrong here.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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2025 Federal Election

The Cost of Underselling Canadian Oil and Gas to the USA

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Canadians can now track in real time how much revenue the country is forfeiting to the United States by selling its oil at discounted prices, thanks to a new online tracker from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The tracker shows the billions in revenue lost due to limited access to distribution for Canadian oil.

At a time of economic troubles and commercial tensions with the United States, selling our oil at a discount to U.S. middlemen who then sell it in the open markets at full price will rob Canada of nearly $19 billion this year, said Marco Navarro-Genie, the VP of Research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Navarro-Genie led the team that designed the counter.

The gap between world market prices and what Canada receives is due to the lack of Canadian infrastructure.

According to a recent analysis by Ian Madsen, senior policy analyst at the Frontier Centre, the lack of international export options forces Canadian producers to accept prices far below the world average. Each day this continues, the country loses hundreds of millions in potential revenue. This is a problem with a straightforward remedy, said David Leis, the Centre’s President. More pipelines need to be approved and built.

While the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline has helped, more is needed. It commenced commercial operations on May 1, 2024, nearly tripling Canada’s oil export capacity westward from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels daily. This expansion gives Canadian oil producers access to broader global markets, including Asia and the U.S. West Coast, potentially reducing the price discount on Canadian crude.

This is more than an oil story. While our oil price differential has long been recognized, there’s growing urgency around our natural gas exports. The global demand for cleaner energy, including Canadian natural gas, is climbing. Canada exports an average of 12.3 million GJ of gas daily. Yet, we can still not get the full value due to infrastructure bottlenecks, with losses of over $7.3 billion (2024). A dedicated counter reflecting these mounting gas losses underscores how critical this issue is.

“The losses are not theoretical numbers,” said Madsen. “This is real money, and Canadians can now see it slipping away, second by second.”

The Frontier Centre urges policymakers and industry leaders to recognize the economic urgency and ensure that infrastructure projects like TMX are fully supported and efficiently utilized to maximize Canada’s oil export potential. The webpage hosting the counter offers several examples of what the lost revenue could buy for Canadians. A similar counter for gas revenue lost through similarly discounted gas exports will be added in the coming days.

What Could Canada Do With $25.6 Billion a Year?

Without greater pipeline capacity, Canada loses an estimated (2025) $25.6 billion by selling our oil and gas to the U.S. at a steep discount. That money could be used in our communities — funding national defence, hiring nurses, supporting seniors, building schools, and improving infrastructure. Here’s what we’re giving up by underselling these natural resources. 

342,000 Nurses

The average annual salary for a registered nurse in Canada is about $74,958. These funds could address staffing shortages and improve patient care nationwide.
Source

39,000 New Housing Units

At an estimated $472,000 per unit (excluding land costs, based on Toronto averages), $25.6 billion could fund nearly 94,000 affordable housing units.
Source

About the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is an independent Canadian think-tank that researches and analyzes public policy issues, including energy, economics and governance.

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Business

Hudson’s Bay Bid Raises Red Flags Over Foreign Influence

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

A billionaire’s retail ambition might also serve Beijing’s global influence strategy. Canada must look beyond the storefront

When B.C. billionaire Weihong Liu publicly declared interest in acquiring Hudson’s Bay stores, it wasn’t just a retail story—it was a signal flare in an era where foreign investment increasingly doubles as geopolitical strategy.

The Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, remains an enduring symbol of Canadian heritage. While its commercial relevance has waned in recent years, its brand is deeply etched into the national identity. That’s precisely why any potential acquisition, particularly by an investor with strong ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), deserves thoughtful, measured scrutiny.

Liu, a prominent figure in Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian business community, announced her interest in acquiring several Hudson’s Bay stores on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (RedNote), expressing a desire to “make the Bay great again.” Though revitalizing a Canadian retail icon may seem commendable, the timing and context of this bid suggest a broader strategic positioning—one that aligns with the People’s Republic of China’s increasingly nuanced approach to economic diplomacy, especially in countries like Canada that sit at the crossroads of American and Chinese spheres of influence.

This fits a familiar pattern. In recent years, we’ve seen examples of Chinese corporate involvement in Canadian cultural and commercial institutions, such as Huawei’s past sponsorship of Hockey Night in Canada. Even as national security concerns were raised by allies and intelligence agencies, Huawei’s logo remained a visible presence during one of the country’s most cherished broadcasts. These engagements, though often framed as commercially justified, serve another purpose: to normalize Chinese brand and state-linked presence within the fabric of Canadian identity and daily life.

What we may be witnessing is part of a broader PRC strategy to deepen economic and cultural ties with Canada at a time when U.S.-China relations remain strained. As American tariffs on Canadian goods—particularly in aluminum, lumber and dairy—have tested cross-border loyalties, Beijing has positioned itself as an alternative economic partner. Investments into cultural and heritage-linked assets like Hudson’s Bay could be seen as a symbolic extension of this effort to draw Canada further into its orbit of influence, subtly decoupling the country from the gravitational pull of its traditional allies.

From my perspective, as a professional with experience in threat finance, economic subversion and political leveraging, this does not necessarily imply nefarious intent in each case. However, it does demand a conscious awareness of how soft power is exercised through commercial influence, particularly by state-aligned actors. As I continue my research in international business law, I see how investment vehicles, trade deals and brand acquisitions can function as instruments of foreign policy—tools for shaping narratives, building alliances and shifting influence over time.

Canada must neither overreact nor overlook these developments. Open markets and cultural exchange are vital to our prosperity and pluralism. But so too is the responsibility to preserve our sovereignty—not only in the physical sense, but in the cultural and institutional dimensions that shape our national identity.

Strategic investment review processes, cultural asset protections and greater transparency around foreign corporate ownership can help strike this balance. We should be cautious not to allow historically Canadian institutions to become conduits, however unintentionally, for geopolitical leverage.

In a world where power is increasingly exercised through influence rather than force, safeguarding our heritage means understanding who is buying—and why.

Scott McGregor is the managing partner and CEO of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting.

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