Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

National

Retired judge slams Trudeau gov’t for promoting ‘false’ accusation about residential school deaths

Published

10 minute read

Retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht observed that allegations were made with ‘no real evidence’ and that reports ‘that thousands of indigenous children had died at residential schools under suspicious circumstances’ are patently ‘false.’

A retired Canadian judge blasted what he said is a “conspiracy theory” lie and “shocking” yet unproven “accusation” being pushed by the Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and legacy media that thousands of Indigenous residential school kids died due to negligence by the Catholic priests and nuns.

“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) accused Canadian priests, nuns, teachers, and staff at residential schools of somehow being responsible for the disappearance of thousands of indigenous children who attended the schools. That is a shocking accusation,” retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht wrote in a commentary piece published in the Western Standard last week.

“But it is even more shocking that the accusation was made with no real evidence to support it.”

Giesbrecht observed that reports from TRC commissioners that “that thousands of indigenous children had died at residential schools under suspicious circumstances” are patently “false.”

“Those allegations were false, and based on a conspiracy theory,” Giesbrecht said.

The judge lamented the fact that hundreds of Christian (mostly Catholic) churches have been burned to the ground since the first TRC report came out in 2010, with more than 100 being reduced to ashes since 2021.

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media and federal government 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 First Nation now has changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.”

“Where did that Tk’emlups story come from? Most importantly, why would anyone believe such obvious nonsense?” he wrote.

According to Giesbrecht, the “conspiracy theory that launched the entire missing children claim” came from a “largely created” claim by defrocked United Church minister Kevin Annett.

“For reasons that defy rational explanation this unusual man made it his life’s work to take the alcoholic ramblings of a few Vancouvers east side street residents, polish them up, and present them as fact to the world,” the retired justice wrote.

Giesbrecht gave an example of how Annett repeated the story that “Queen Elizabeth had kidnapped 10 children from the Kamloops school, and those children were never seen again,” but was later exposed by an investigative reporter.

According to Giesbrecht, Annett “repeated stories about priests clubbing students to death and throwing them into graves dug by other students, dead boys hanging on meat hooks in barns, and babies thrown into furnaces by priests and nuns.”

“Respected investigative reporter Terry Glavin exposed Annett as a crank and debunked Annett’s wild stories in detail in a 2008 Tyee article. Annett’s stories are so obviously fake that it seems incredible that anyone believed them,” he said.

Giesbrecht noted that it is “hard” to believe that anyone thought the defrocked pastor’s tales were true, but the truth is, people “did” fall for it.

“In fact, some of the people who fell for these stories occupied important positions. One was Gary Merasty, a Member of Parliament. Merasty became so convinced that these claims, as presented in Kevin Annett’s most famous documentary, ‘Unrepentant’ were true, that he was able to convince the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and other important politicians that the newly appointed TRC commissioners must investigate Annett’s claims,” he said.

According to Giesbrecht, the newly appointed TRC commissioners had “unwisely accepted this new area of study, despite the fact that they had no mandate to do so.”

“When the federal government refused their request for a mandate and funds to search for these phantom ‘missing children’ they ignored the rebuff, and pursued the subject anyway,” he wrote.

“It appears from their statements on the subject that they completely bought into the Annett conspiracy theory. Commissioner Murray Sinclair gave many interviews about these supposedly “missing children” and hinted frequently that dark forces were at play.

LifeSiteNews reported last week that Leah Gazan, backbencher MP from the New Democratic Party, brought forth a new bill that seeks to criminalize the denial of the unproven claim that the residential school system once operating in Canada was a “genocide.”

Media and Trudeau feds worked together to create unproven claims, says judge

Giesbrecht observed that the mainstream media, meanwhile, did not “question any of these always improbable claims,” and “quite the contrary, they not only played along with these baseless claims, but actively encouraged them.”

“It did not seem to occur to them that they were actively supporting a conspiracy theory,” he noted.

The retired judge noted that “Trudeau and his ministers,” notably Marc Miller, “made matters immeasurably worse by immediately ordering all federal flags to be flown at half mast and promising enormous amounts of money to any other indigenous community that wanted to make a similar claim.”

“The truth is that the TRC’s missing children wild goose chase had thoroughly captivated journalists and entire indigenous communities to the extent that the baseless Tk’emlups claim seemed to make sense to them. Justin Trudeau and his ministers were in that gaggle of gullibles. Canada became the laughing stock of the world for dumbly accepting these wild claims,” he wrote.

Giesbrecht observed how since the unfounded claims exploded on the Canadian media and political scene, both the “Trudeau government” and the state-funded “CBC have doubled down on their refusal to correct the misinformation that they have promoted.”

He warned that the next “logical step” for the Trudeau Liberals and mainstream media “is to stop Canadians from even knowing about” the truth of residential schools, as well as for those who have been muzzled or speaking out.

LifeSiteNews reported in August that Trudeau’s cabinet said it will expand a multimillion-dollar fund geared toward documenting claims that hundreds of young children died and were clandestinely buried at now-closed residential schools, some of them run by the Catholic Church.

Canadian indigenous residential schools, run by the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were set up by the federal government and were open from the late 19th century until 1996.

While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the unproved “mass graves” narrative has led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment since 2021.

Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Jamil Jivani has urged support from his political opponents for a bill that would give stiffer penalties to arsonists caught burning churches down, saying the recent rash of destruction is a “very serious issue” that is a direct “attack” on families as well as “religious freedom in Canada.”

2025 Federal Election

‘I’m Cautiously Optimistic’: Doug Ford Strongly Recommends Canada ‘Not To Retaliate’ Against Trump’s Tariffs

Published on

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Cohen

Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to avoid retaliation against the tariffs President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

Trump announced in the White House Rose Garden that he would impose “a minimum baseline tariff of 10%” on all goods entering the United States, with Canada not being included on the list of countries with higher rates. When asked about what Canada’s response would be on “Bloomberg: Balance of Power,” Ford said he was “cautiously optimistic” about Canada’s omission from the higher-tier tariffs and emphasized the importance of a cooperative relationship with the U.S.

WATCH:

“Well, let’s see where these tariffs go. I’m cautiously optimistic that I never saw Canada or Mexico on that list. And it just goes to show you two great countries working together, collaborating together and building relationships,” Ford said. “So again, I’m cautiously optimistic. I think if that’s the case, it’s the right thing for both the U.S and Canada.”

Host Kailey Leinz noted that there are currently tariffs on Canada in place as well as an exemption for goods that are in compliance with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“Does that mean, sir, at least in your mind, that it wouldn’t be appropriate for Canada to retaliate for this at this time?” Leinz asked.

“That is correct. If that’s the case, then I would highly recommend to the prime minister not to retaliate. And let’s carry on a strong relationship,” Ford answered. “Let’s build the American-Canadian fortress around both countries and be the wealthiest, most prosperous, safest two countries in the world.”

Trump declared a national emergency to levy a slew of reciprocal tariffs on what he has deemed “Liberation Day.”

“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” Trump said.

The president also announced that he would proceed with implementing a 25% tariff on “all foreign-made automobiles” that will take effect at midnight.

Ford in March had imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity to New York, Michigan and Minnesota, but promptly rescinded the policy and apologized to Americans on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio show the following day. The tariffs were a retaliatory measure against Trump’s flurry of tariffs against Canada since starting his second term.

Continue Reading

2025 Federal Election

Liberal MP resigns after promoting Chinese government bounty on Conservative rival

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty,” he said at a recent rally. “What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?”

Liberal MP candidate Paul Chiang has dropped out of the running after being exposed for suggesting Canadians turn in a Conservative Party candidate to the Chinese consulate to collect a bounty placed on the man by the communist regime.

In an March 31 statement, Chiang, the Liberal candidate for the Markham-Unionville riding, announced his departure from the race after a video of him suggesting a bounty could be claimed for Conservative candidate Joe Tay by handing him over to Chinese authorities circulated on social media. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have announced they are “probing” the comments.

“I am proud of what we have achieved together and I remain deeply grateful for the trust placed in me,” he said. “This is a uniquely important election with so much at stake for Canadians. As the Prime Minister and Team Canada work to stand up to President Trump and protect our economy, I do not want any distractions in this critical moment.”

 

“That’s why I’m standing aside as our 2025 candidate in our community of Markham-Unionville,” he announced.

Chiang’s resignation follows backlash from Conservatives and Canadians alike when a January video from a news conference with Chinese-language media in Toronto resurfaced.

In the video, Chiang jokingly suggested that Tay, his then-Conservative rival for the Markham–Unionville riding, could be turned over to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto in return for $1-million Hong Kong dollar bounty, about $183,000 CAD.

 

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was quick to call out Chiang’s suggestion and blasted Prime Minister Mark Carney for keeping him on the ballot.

Chiang has since apologized for his suggestion on both social media and personally to Tay.

“Today, I spoke with Joseph Tay, the Conservative candidate for Don Valley North, to personally apologize for the comments that I made this past January,” he wrote in a March 30 X post.

 

“It was a terrible lapse of judgement. I recognize the severity of the statement and I am deeply disappointed in myself,” he continued.

Carney has said remarkably little regarding the situation. First, he refused to fire the Liberal candidate, referring to Chiang’s statement as a “terrible lapse of judgment.”

“He’s made his apology. He’s made it to the public, he’s made it to the individual concerned, he’s made it directly to me, and he’s going to continue with his candidacy,” Carney said. “He has my confidence.”

Then, following the announcement of Chaing’s resignation, Carney told reporters that it was time to “move on” and that he would “leave it at that.”

Continue Reading

Trending

X