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Graves and school murders? What were we thinking?

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

The year 2021 was the year of the Kamloops graves.

It was the top news story of the year. It was reported by CBC and all mainstream media that ground penetrating radar had detected remains of 215 indigenous children who were found buried in the old apple orchard on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The burials had taken place in secrecy in the middle of the night. Priests and nuns, who were apparently responsible for the deaths, wanted to hide the results of their crimes and forced students, “as young as six” to dig the graves of their dead classmates.

Indigenous leaders claimed there were tens of thousands more murdered and secretly buried indigenous children across the length and breadth of Canada — children who “went to residential school and never returned.”

The Trudeau government ordered flags flown at half mast, where they remained for six months. It made $320,000,000 available to indigenous communities that wanted to search for more missing children. Many accepted the offer.

2023 was the year this whole story fell apart.

There were no secretly buried children.

There were no “thousands of missing children.”

The junior ground penetrating radar operator, Sarah Beaulieu, who made her sensational claim in 2021, had most likely mistaken the remnants of 1924 septic field trenches for graves.

The indigenous children who died at residential schools mostly died of tuberculosis, as did those who never attended a residential school. Most were buried on their home reserves and their burial places had simply been forgotten.

Simply put, all of the hysteria of 2021 over secret burials and missing children was for nothing. Canada had fallen for the biggest fake news story in the history of the nation.

A new book of essays by Professor Tom Flanagan and CP Champion examines how this false story took hold and how it was debunked.

Tom Flanagan is Canada’s foremost expert on indigenous issues. Champion is the editor of the Dorchester Review, where many of these valuable essays can be found.

The essays tell the story of how Canadians fell for a story that made no sense from the outset. Why would priests kill and secretly bury children? There was no historical record of any such events ever happening.

If the children went to the residential school “and never returned” wouldn’t there be some record of such a thing happening — a parent complaining, a police report, a complaint to a chief etc.? But there was no such thing.

The odd thing is that neither CBC nor practically any other reporter asked any such questions. They not only repeated the false claims, they amplified and exaggerated them. So 215 “soil disturbances” (which is what the radar had detected) became “human remains,” “bodies,, “graves” and even “mass graves.”

Conrad Black wrote the foreword to the book. Black is one of the few Canadians who recognized from the outset the Kamloops claim was absurd. Black was also one of the few writers who has consistently denounced the disgraceful claim that Canada is guilty of any kind of genocide.

He properly criticized former Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin when she first put forward the baseless claim in 2015 and he has consistently defended Canada against such slander.

The writers (disclosure: I am one) systematically take apart the false Kamloops and copycat claims. Professor Jacques Rouillard, using research done by Nina Green proves the deaths of the KIRS students who died while enrolled at the school were properly documented, that the deaths were mainly from the diseases of the day and that the children were almost all buried on their home reserves.

These children had not been buried in secrecy, they were never “missing” and there was absolutely nothing sinister about their deaths.

Children from the community who attended day schools, or didn’t attend school at all, died in similar numbers from the same diseases. Death from disease was simply a sad fact of life and had nothing to do with whether or not a child attended a residential school.

The only “evidence” that could possibly support the secret burial thesis — apart from the usual conspiracy theories that are told in every community — was the report from Sarah Beaulieu of soil disturbances detected by ground penetrating radar that she opined could be possible graves.

However, on closer inspection these claims fall apart. The authors expose Beaulieu’s negligence in failing to research previous excavations before recklessly venturing an opinion on such an important matter.

Her other mistaken assumptions, such as false reports about a child’s tooth and bone, are also exposed. It is noteworthy the T’kemlups Band originally promised to release Beaulieu’s report to the public but reneged on that promise when it became apparent the report was unreliable, just  as they have reneged on their stated intention to excavate.

The other essays examine the other claims made about evil priests, secret burials and missing children. The authors systematically dissect the claims, and expose them as the false claims that they are.

As for the claim there are “thousands of missing children” who are alleged to have entered residential schools “and never returned” to their parents, and now lie in “unmarked graves” Professor Flanagan puts it succinctly: These are not “missing children” — they are “forgotten children.” They now lie in unmarked graves for the simple reasons that their families didn’t keep up their gravesites and forgot about them.

The current grave-searching mania now occurring in indigenous communities is fueled by the $320,000,000 that then Indigenous Affairs Minister Marc Miller dangled before poor indigenous communities like golden carrots.

Other essays in the book examine other common misconceptions about residential schools, generally. One of the most persistent is the claim — consistently made by CBC for two decades — that “150,000 children were forced to attend” residential schools.

This claim is completely untrue.

Prior to 1920, status Indian parents were not required by law to send their children to any school — and most didn’t. After 1920, status Indian parents could choose between sending their children to day schools or residential schools. It is only where no day school was available that parents were required to send their children to residential schools.

But even then, there was seldom enforcement of that law. Only in the case of orphans or severe child neglect (usually due to alcohol abuse) was parental consent dispensed with (for obvious reasons).

CBC has been advised of their repeated reporting error, but continues to push this misinformation. Their justification for doing so is a word salad of obfuscation that is either meant to mislead or shows incompetence on their part.

In sum, the hysteria following the May 2021 announcement 215 “graves” had been discovered at Kamloops is not something that is easily explained. Why most Canadians seemed willing to accept such a preposterous claim in the first place will be a subject for historians and psychologists for decades.

Why the Trudeau government — without a shred of real evidence — ordered flags lowered for months; why the CBC and other mainstream media failed to ask even the most elementary questions about claims that they must have known were false; why indigenous leaders decided to put forward a false narrative that they must have known would eventually be exposed as a fraud — these are all questions examined in the revealing essays in this important book.

Although CBC — and even government publications — continue to put out fatuous claims about “graves,” “probable graves” and “human remains” the international community concluded some time ago that Canada succumbed to some kind of mass hysteria in May 2021, when the preposterous Kamloops claim was first made.

Was this national gullibility related to the strange lockdown years? Was it “Canada’s George Floyd moment? Was it “Canada’s woke nightmare?”

These are questions readers can ask themselves when reading these essays. Professor Flanagan and Chris Champion deserve a lot of credit for swimming against a tide of wokeness to put out this important book.

They are part of a research group  — not afraid to be called “deniers” — who wrote the essays published in the book and initiated the Indian Residential School Research Group where additional information can be found.

For original documents and primary sources readers can go to indianresidentialschoolrecords.com.

In May of 2021, Canadians fell for “fake news”.  There is an old saying: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”.

This book should be read with that saying in mind.

Together with the question: “What were we thinking?”

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

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2025 Federal Election

Carney’s budget means more debt than Trudeau’s

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By Franco Terrazzano

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney’s budget plan for adding another $225 billion to the debt.

“Carney plans to borrow even more money than the Trudeau government planned to borrow,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Carney claims he’s not like Trudeau and when it comes to the debt, here’s the truth: Carney’s plan is billions of dollars worse than Trudeau’s plan.”

Today, Carney released the Liberal Party’s “fiscal and costing plan.” Carney’s plan projects the debt to increase consistently.

Here is the breakdown of Carney’s annual budget deficits:

  • 2025-26: $62 billion
  • 2026-27: $60 billion
  • 2027-28: $55 billion
  • 2028-29: $48 billion

Over the next four years, Carney plans to add an extra $225 billion to the debt. For comparison, the Trudeau government planned on increasing the debt by $131 billion over those years, according to the most recent Fall Economic Statement.

Carney’s additional debt means he will waste an extra $5.6 billion on debt interest charges over the next four years. Debt interest charges already cost taxpayers $54 billion every year – more than $1 billion every week.

“Carney’s debt binge means he will waste $1 billion more every year on debt interest charges,” Terrazzano said. “Carney’s plan isn’t credible and it’s even more irresponsible than the Trudeau plan.

“After years of runaway spending Canadians need a government that will cut spending and stop wasting so much money on debt interest charges.”

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2025 Federal Election

Campaign 2025 : The Liberal Costed Platform – Taxpayer Funded Fiction

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The Opposition with Dan Knight Dan Knight's avatar Dan Knight

Carney is trying to redefine the deficit by splitting it into two categories: “operating” and “capital”—a little trick borrowed from UK public finance to confuse voters and dodge political accountability. It’s not something Canada has ever used in federal budget reporting, and there’s a reason for that: it’s misleading by design.

Mark Carney, the unelected banker-turned-savior of the Liberal Party, stood on a stage at Durham College on April 19 and did what professional economic grifters do best—he smiled politely, gestured at some numbers, and attempted to sell Canadians on a $130 billion illusion.

He called it a “costed platform.” What it really was, was a pitch deck for national decline—a warmed-over slab of recycled Trudeauism, backed by deficit delusion and framed as “bold leadership.”

And yes, the numbers are real. Terrifyingly real.

The Liberal platform promises $130 billion in new spending over four years, while running deficits of $62.3 billion this year, $59.9 billion next year, and still sitting at $48 billion in the red by 2028. To balance all of this out? A magical $28 billion in “unspecified cuts.” Not outlined. Not itemized. Just floated in the air like a promise from a door-to-door vacuum salesman.

Carney, in his perfectly rehearsed banker tone, assures us it’s not spending. No, it’s “investment.” Which is hilarious, because that’s exactly what Justin Trudeau said when he kicked off a decade of reckless spending, capital flight, and housing inflation. Carney has simply pulled off the Liberal magic trick of rebranding debt as growth.

But this isn’t just fiscal mismanagement. This is coordinated, high-level dishonesty.

Let’s be clear: Mark Carney is not new to any of this. He isn’t some white knight riding in to clean up Trudeau’s mess. He is the mess. He was Trudeau’s economic consigliere. He sat in the backrooms when they passed Bill C-69, which throttled Canada’s energy sector. He championed ESG, oversaw the implosion of GFANZ (his climate finance alliance), and helped drive $500 billion in investment out of this country.

Now he’s back—wearing a new title, making the same promises, using the same playbook. Only this time, he’s brought a spreadsheet.

In one breath, Carney says we need to “diversify trade.” In the next, he’s counting on $20 billion in one-time countertariff revenues to prop up his platform. In one paragraph, he says Canada will be “fiscally responsible.” In the next, he admits the deficit will nearly double this year. He claims he’ll spend 2% of GDP on defense—but not until 2029, because, of course, there’s no urgency when you’re protected by the American military umbrella you secretly resent.

And his housing plan? If you thought things couldn’t get worse than Justin Trudeau’s housing disaster, buckle up. Carney’s solution is modular housing—yes, government-subsidized, prefabricated micro-boxes dropped onto federally controlled land.

Mark Carney will never live in modular housing. His children will never live in modular housing. But for you, the taxpayer? That’s the future he envisions—managed housing, managed economy, managed speech, managed life.

He’s not here to lift Canadians up. He’s here to lock them down—into a permanent, bureaucratically engineered middle class, dependent on state subsidies and grateful for whatever dignity Ottawa hasn’t yet taxed away.

And when asked how he’ll find the $28 billion in cuts needed to make this plan remotely plausible, his answer was priceless:

“Technology, attrition, and a review of consultant contracts.”

Translation: “We don’t know.”

And here’s where the grift goes full throttle—the accounting scam.

Carney is trying to redefine the deficit by splitting it into two categories: “operating” and “capital”—a little trick borrowed from UK public finance to confuse voters and dodge political accountability. It’s not something Canada has ever used in federal budget reporting, and there’s a reason for that: it’s misleading by design.

Here’s how it works: Carney claims that by 2028, the government will run an “operating surplus.” Sounds responsible, right? Like the books are balanced?

Wrong.

Because even while he’s claiming an “operating surplus,” the federal government will still be running a $48 billion deficit overall. That’s real debt—borrowed money the country doesn’t have.

So how does he square the circle?

Simple: he relabels infrastructure and program spending as “capital investment”, pushes it off to the side, and tells you the main budget is in good shape.

But guess what?

You still owe the money.
The debt still grows.
And interest payments still stack up.

It’s like maxing out your credit card, then saying “no problem—I only overspent on long-term purchases, not day-to-day expenses.”

Try that line with your bank. Let me know how it goes.

This isn’t honest budgeting. It’s spreadsheet manipulation by a guy who knows how to massage the optics while the house burns down.

And let’s not forget who we’re talking about here.

This is the man who moved his financial headquarters to New York while lecturing Canadians about economic sovereignty.

This is the guy with a Cayman Islands tax haven, who built his fortune offshore and now wants to manage your budget while shielding his own.

This is the architect of GFANZ—the so-called climate finance alliance—that imploded under his leadership. The same alliance that saw JPMorgan, Citigroup, and the Big Six Canadian banks bail because Carney couldn’t keep the cartel together without running afoul of antitrust laws.

This is the same man mentioned in Marco Mendicino’s Emergencies Act texts—the man who said, Move the tanks on the protesters.

That’s right.

He wasn’t calling for dialogue. He wasn’t calling for democracy. He was calling for force—on peaceful Canadians exercising their rights. That’s who this is.

So let’s drop the fantasy.

Mark Carney isn’t here to save you.

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