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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Let’s get the facts on the graves, with a public inquiry

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

Canada needs a public inquiry into what has become known as “The Kamloops Graves Hoax”.

The May 27, 2021 claim of the Kamloops Indian band was that “human remains” were found in the apple orchard area of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, resulting in what has been described both as a “national hysteria” and a “moral panic”. The band subsequently extended the claim to include other even more graphic  terms, such as “bodies”, “graves” and even “mass graves”. Emotional articles and books followed.

In a press release issued three years after those sensational claims were made, their chief, Roseanne Casimir, has finally admitted the truth – there were no “human remains”, “bodies” “graves” or “mass graves” found at Kamloops.

Only “soil anomalies” were detected. Those anomalies could just as easily be tree roots, rocks, or the result of any of the other previous excavations that had been done in that same area. (As it happens there was a previous excavation in the area that was apparently missed by the radar operator. It is almost certain that it was soil anomalies from a 1924 excavation that her radar detected.)

Those 2021 false claims sent the nation into a panic. There is no need to describe in detail the flag-lowering, church-burning shock and  frenzy that spread like wildfire through national and  international media, brought the ailing Pope to Canada, convinced shamed MPs to condemn their own country as genocidal, vote in regressive UNDRIP and other incredibly expensive legislation, and spend what will be billions of dollars on a futile search for “missing children” who never existed. Many fine writers, including Terry Glavin, have described these strange last three years.

That episode of national hysteria is now an embarrassing  part of Canada’s history.

A legitimate question to ask is why the Kamloops band made those false claims.

Chief Casimir said that they were based on Sarah Beaulieu’s report.

“But it would be shockingly unprofessional for a ground penetrating radar operator (GPR) to claim that graves had been found before excavation had taken place. It is well known that GPR can detect only soil anomalies or disturbances. It cannot detect “graves” or “human remains”. A simple Google search of the question “Can ground penetrating radar detect graves?” is all that is necessary to find that answer.

It therefore seems highly unlikely that Beaulieu would have made such a reckless claim. Almost certainly, Beaulieu properly reported only that soil disturbances, anomalies or reflections – that might be graves — were detected, and that excavation would be necessary to determine whether or not those disturbances were graves, or any of the hundreds of other possibilities.

But the answer to precisely what Beaulieu said can only be found by reading her report. And that is currently impossible, because the band is refusing to release the report. This is odd, because they had initially promised to release it, and only later reneged on that promise. They are are now steadfastly refusing to let the public see it.

The only reasonable explanation for this refusal is that they have something to hide – specifically that their claim of “graves” found was a claim they knew was false when they made it. Beaulieu’s report almost certainly did not say that graves had been found.

But on the strength of what appears to be a lie they made an application to the federal government for money to deal with what they said were “graves” containing the remains of 215 KIRS students – students they insisted had died under sinister circumstances, and were secretly buried by persons unknown, with the forced help of children – “as young as six”.

Exactly what representations the band made to the federal government in order to get the $8,000,000, or how the money was spent, is unknown, for the simple reason that both the band and the federal government have not released that information to the public.

Logic dictates that either Sarah Beaulieu, or Chief Roseanne Casimir, claimed that “graves” had been found, knowing that such information was false. Only one of them was telling the truth. $8,000,000 was obtained from the federal government on false information. Who made that false “grave” claim?

The Kamloops band refuses to release Beaulieu’s report – a report they initially promised to release. They are also refusing to provide any details about how the $8,000,000 was spent – despite not having put even one shovel in the ground. The RCMP is refusing to investigate anything involving the Kamloops claim, unless the Kamloops band requests their assistance. It is not likely that the band will ask the RCMP to investigate their own false claim. The federal government is refusing to release any details about the representations made by the band in order to obtain the $8,000,000.

And now, three years after that claim of “human remains” the Kamloops band has suddenly changed “remains” to exactly what they always were “anomalies”. They refuse to provide an explanation for that astounding reversal.

Meanwhile, there is absolutely no explanation from the Trudeau government about why they gave out millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and severely damaged Canada’s reputation at home and abroad, with a preposterous genocide confession, for allegations about secret graves that a simple Google search would have told them were false. There is also no explanation for the mainstream media’s failure to do that simple Google search, or ask even one obvious question about claims that were so highly improbable from the outset.

Hamlet’s “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” quote is apt here.

Except the smell is coming straight from Kamloops and Ottawa.

Most Canadians now believe at least some version of the original claim that priests secretly buried indigenous children at Kamloops. One in five believe that priests actually murdered the children.

Life in Canada has been severely disrupted by the false claims made on May 27, 2021. Canada’s reputation has been badly damaged. Canadian schoolchildren are being falsely taught that their ancestors were genocidal racists.

We have now reached the absurd point where a Justice Minister of Canada has seriously considered  criminalizing  anyone asking legitimate questions about these secret burial claims, Canada’s Senate has recommended that even writing an article disputing the original May 27, 2021 Kamloops claim should be outlawed – apparently making not only this article – but even Casimir’s recent correction to “anomalies” illegal. This madness must end. Canadians deserve to know how things went so horribly wrong.

A public inquiry is the only way to clear the air, and get the country back on track.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Economy

One Solution to Canada’s Housing Crisis: Move. Toronto loses nearly half million people to more affordable locations

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Wendell Cox

The largest CMA, Toronto, had by far the most significant net internal migration loss at 402,600, Montreal lost 162,700, and Vancouver lost 49,700.

Canadians are fleeing overpriced cities to find more affordable housing. And restrictive urban planning policies are to blame.

Canadians may be solving the housing crisis on their own by moving away from more expensive areas to areas where housing is much more affordable. This trend is highlighted in the latest internal migration data from Statistics Canada.

The data covers 167 areas comprising the entire nation, including Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), which have populations from 100,000 to seven million. It also includes the smaller Census Agglomerations (CAs), which have a core population of at least 10,000, as well as areas outside CMAs and CAs in each province and territory, which are referred to as “largely rural areas.”

Long-standing migration trends have been virtually reversed. Larger cities (CMAs) now see the highest loss of net internal migrants, while smaller cities (CAs) are experiencing solid gains. Between 2019 and 2023, Canada’s CMAs lost 273,800 net internal migrants to smaller areas, including CAs and largely rural areas. This contrasts sharply with the previous five-year period (2014 to 2018) when CMAs saw only a 1,000-person loss.

So, where did these people go? A significant portion – 108,100 – moved to CAs, which captured 39 per cent of the CMA losses. This is triple that of the previous five years (2014 through 2018).

However, the most notable shift occurred in largely rural areas, which gained 165,700 net internal migrants, representing 61 per cent of CMA losses. This is a dramatic increase compared to the 33,700 net loss in the previous five years.

Among the 167 areas, the migration data is stunning.

The areas experiencing the greatest net internal migration are outside CMAs and CAs. The largely rural area of Ontario saw the biggest gain, with a net increase of 78,300 people – nearly 40 times the number from the previous five years. Meanwhile, rural Quebec placed second, with a net gain of 76,200 people, more than 10 times the increase in the prior five years. The Calgary CMA ranked third (and first among CMAs) at 42,600, followed by the Ottawa Gatineau CMA (Ontario and Quebec) at 36,700 and the Oshawa CMA at 34,900.

The largest CMA, Toronto, had by far the most significant net internal migration loss at 402,600, Montreal lost 162,700, and Vancouver lost 49,700. Outside these CMAs, nearly all areas posted net gains.

People have also started moving to the Maritimes. The Halifax CMA tripled its previous gain (21,300). In New Brunswick, Moncton nearly quadrupled its gain (7,000). Modest gains were also made in Fredericton and Saint John as well as in Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island.

Meanwhile, housing affordability in Canada’s largest CMAs has become grim. Toronto’s median house price to median household income has doubled in less than two decades. Vancouver’s prices have tripled relative to incomes in five decades. Montreal’s house prices nearly doubled relative to incomes over two decades.

These CMAs (and others) have housing policies typical of the international planning orthodoxy, which seeks to make cities denser. In effect, they have declared war against “urban sprawl,” trying to stop any material expansion of urbanization. These urban containment policies, which include greenbelts, agricultural reserves, urban growth boundaries and compact city strategies, are associated with the worst housing affordability. Land prices are skewed upward throughout the market. Demand continues to increase ahead of incomes, but the supply of low-cost suburban land, so crucial to controlling costs, is frozen.

Regrettably, some areas where people have fled are also subject to urban containment and housing affordability has deteriorated rapidly. Between 2015 and 2022, prices in Ontario CMAs London, Guelph, Brantford and St. Catharines have about doubled. BC’s Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island have seen similar increases. Those moving to these areas are ahead financially, but the rapidly rising house prices are closing opportunities.

There are proposals to restore housing affordability, though none tackle the urban containment policies associated with the price increases. Indeed, we have not found a single metropolitan area where housing affordability has been restored with the market distortions of the intensity that have developed in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal (not in our Demographia International Housing Affordability report or elsewhere). Such markets have become unsustainable for most new entrant households because they cannot afford to live there.

Housing is not a commodity. Households have varying preferences, from ground-oriented housing (detached and townhomes) to high-rise condos. Indeed, a growing body of literature associates detached housing with higher total fertility rates. According to Statistics Canada, Canadians have favoured lower densities for decades, a trend that continued through the 2021 Census, a trend that continued through the 2021 Census, according to Statistics Canada.

With governments (virtually around the world) failing to maintain stable and affordable housing markets, it’s not surprising people are taking matters into their own hands. Until fundamental reforms can be implemented in the most expensive markets, those seeking a better quality of life will have no choice but to leave.

First published in the Financial Post.

Wendell Cox is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the author of Demographia International Housing Affordability.

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The Destructive Legacy of Gender Theory’s Popular Pioneer

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

The idea that gender is disconnected from sex was popularized by psychologist John Money. Perverted minds produce perverted ideas. Unfortunately, Money’s legacy of destruction continues.

The idea that sex drives come out of nowhere and have nothing to do with biology should be dismissed out of hand, given the countless generations of procreated human and even animal species. Yet, in 1961, Money claimed that “erotic outlook and orientation is an autonomous psychological phenomenon independent of genes and hormones.”

Money later said that “like hermaphrodites, all the human race follow the same pattern, namely, of psychological undifferentiation at birth.”

In other words, no one is born heterosexual, and there are no biology-based differences in how men and women act. By 1973, even Money had to acknowledge a wide body of research that showed “fetal gonadal hormones . . . have an influence on neural pathways in the brain.” Still, he emphasized nurture over nature.

Money had a chance to test his theories after the birth of Winnipeg twin brothers Bruce and Ron Reimer, born in 1965. A botched circumcision left Bruce’s penis almost severed, seemingly damaged beyond function. Their parents saw Money on TV in 1967 and went to his gender clinic at Johns Hopkins University.

The clinic was the first of its kind and specialized in cross-sex surgeries. Money convinced the parents to have Bruce’s penis and testes removed, rename him Brenda, and raise him as a girl. Both twins visited Money annually, and Money used their example on a lecture circuit to insist that gender roles were instilled and not innate.

This was complete fiction, but the truth didn’t come out until it was exposed by psychologist H. Keith Sigmundson and biologist Milton Diamond in a medical journal in 1997.

The twins’ mother Janet recalled how Brenda hated dresses, sewing, and dolls. Instead, the child preferred to play soldier, dress in men’s clothes, tinker with tools and gadgets, and even stand up to pee. When Brenda told doctors “she” felt she wasn’t a girl, they discounted it.

It turns out Money made the twins inspect each other’s genitals. His therapy involved forcing the twins into a simulation of sexual positions and motions, something Money justified as healthy childhood sexual exploration. Money photographed this while as many as six colleagues looked in person. If either child resisted orders, the doctor responded with anger and verbal abuse.

This disturbing account is not entirely surprising. Money participated in nudism and group sex as part of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. He advocated open marriages and even compiled a pornographic presentation for students at Johns Hopkins Medical School called “Pornography in the Home.”

In his 1975 book Sexual Signatures, Money wrote, “[E]xplicit sexual pictures can and should be used as part of a child’s sex education…. [to] reinforce his or her own gender identity/role,” Money explained.

By the age of 13, Brenda so dreaded the annual visit to Money that she threatened suicide. Her parents sent her anyway. Consultants at the Baltimore clinic recruited male-to-female transsexuals to convince Reimer it was better to be female and have a vagina. This so disturbed Reimer, that she ran away from the hospital and hid on the roof of a nearby building.

In 1980, Reimer begged her father to know the truth and he finally admitted her birth as a male. The family moved and the child took the name David. Next, endocrinologists, psychologists, and surgeons did their best to reconstruct Reimer’s manliness. Money stopped talking about the twins on the lecture circuit but did not confess how woefully wrong he was.

In 1979, Dr. Paul McHugh, chief psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, investigated whether their sex reassignment surgeries helped the psycho-social problems of patients. The answer was so clearly “no” that the clinic stopped doing them.

In 2004, McHugh recalled that those operated on “had much the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before.” He added, “I concluded that Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness. We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia.”

When the gender clinic was shut down in 1980, Money started another clinic at Johns Hopkins for gender “paraphilias,” a polite term for deviancies. That year, he told Time magazine, “A childhood sexual experience, such as being the partner of a relative or of an older person, need not necessarily affect the child adversely.”

In 1991, Money told Paidika, a pro-pedophilia journal in the Netherlands that a mutually acceptable sexual relationship between a ten-year-old boy and a man in his 30s was not “pathological in any way.” He said efforts to keep children from sexual activity, including sexual consent laws, was “really a diabolically clever ploy to establish anti-sexualism on a big scale.”

David Reimer killed himself in 2004, while Money died in 2006. Too bad the psychologist’s warped ideas didn’t die with him. In practice, they lead to futility and failure.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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