Rise in arson coincides with residential school murders claim

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Staggering Number of Churches Burned, More Than Thought

Blacklocks reports that since 2010, when the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) commissioners began making the claim in interviews and in interim reports that thousands of indigenous children had died at residential schools under suspicious circumstances, more than 400 Christian churches have burned in Canada.

Those allegations were false, and based on a conspiracy theory.

But, the church burnings increased significantly after the May 27, 2021 Kamloops announcement ramped up that claim to an actual accusation by the Tk’emlups Indian band that 215 children had died under sinister circumstances, and were buried by priests in secrecy on the school grounds — “with the forced help of children, as young as six”.

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

The conspiracy theory that launched the entire missing children claim was largely created out of whole cloth by a defrocked United Church minister, named 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 Vancouver east side street residents, polish them up, and present them as fact to the world.

For example, he repeated the story that Queen Elizabeth had kidnapped ten children from the Kamloops school, and those children were never seen again. He also repeated stories about priests clubbing students to death and throwing them into graves dug by other students, dead boys hanging on meathooks 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.

But they did. 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 look into Annett’s claims.

The newly appointed TRC commissioners unwisely accepted this new area of study, despite that 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.

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.

He even alleged — on absolutely no evidence — that so many deaths occurred at residential schools that the federal government conspired to keep the information from the Canadian public after 1920. Then he upped his death number — again with no evidence to support his claim — to over 6,000. All of this alarming rhetoric was heard across Canada, but particularly within increasingly outraged indigenous communities.

Following the Kamloops announcement he took this rhetoric up to alarming new heights — suggesting that “15-25,000, maybe more” deaths, some deliberate — took place at the schools.

For her part, Commissioner Marie Wilson actively promoted the myth that thousands of children came to the schools, and were never seen again. According to Wilson these children simply disappeared. (She did not explain why there was not even one complaint from a parent that their child had gone missing or discuss cause of death.)

The mainstream media, meanwhile, did not question any of these always improbable claims. 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.

So, it should really come as no surprise that on May 27, 2021 when Chief Casimir made her false claim — that the “remains of 215 former students of KIRS” had been found — there was absolutely no pushback or questioning of what should have seemed to Canadians like a bizarre claim. Instead, the media – including the once prestigious New York Times — actively amped up the rhetoric, and added their own claims about “mass graves found.”

Trudeau and his ministers — especially 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.

All along, there have been a few brave souls who have tried to question a residential school narrative that was increasingly getting out of control.

Remember Senator Lynn Beyak? She was forced out of the senate essentially for telling the truth — namely that many children benefitted from their residential school educations, and that the TRC should have said so. She acknowledged that many children were hurt by their experiences there, but insisted that both the good and the bad should have been told. For that bit of common sense she was relentlessly attacked by a partisan media, expelled from the Conservative caucus, and forced into retirement.

Most recently, a retired professor emeritus, Rod Clifton, who spoke about his positive experiences working at a northern residential school, and explained why the claims that residential school students were murdered and secretly buried could not possibly be true, had his True North interview removed by a social media company on the grounds that it was “hate speech”.

Never mind that he was recounting his personal experience at the school. Never mind that his wife and son are indigenous. The professor dared to speak against an orthodoxy that tolerates no dissent.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media reporting about residential schools has become increasingly extreme. Fabulists, like Kevin Annett and other opportunists, have built careers for themselves writing exaggerated, or even completely made up stories about residential school “horrors” and “atrocities.” Instead of being accurately portrayed as the flawed attempts at indigenous education that they were, they are now presented as virtual charnel houses, where children were tortured and murdered.

As stated, all of this heated rhetoric went into overdrive on May 27, 2021, when Chief Rosanne Casimir falsely claimed that “the remains of 215 children” had been found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS). In fact, no such remains had been found. The only “evidence” for her claim were stories the people in the community had told themselves, and radar blips (soil anomalies) that an inexperienced radar operator had misinterpreted as possible graves.

There was absolutely no reason why Casimir’s claim should have been taken seriously in 2021. Historical records clearly show that the children who died of disease or accident while attending residential school were all given Christian burials, with their deaths properly recorded. Most were buried by their families in their home communities. In short, there is no historical evidence that even one residential school student died under sinister circumstances, or was buried in secrecy.

But instead of refuting Casimir’s claim, or asking even the most basic questions, the Trudeau government and its CBC ally simply accepted the claim as true.

And since that time, both the Trudeau government and CBC have doubled down on their refusal to correct the misinformation that they have promoted.

In fact, the Senate is now considering ways to make people like Senator Lynn Beyak and Professor Clifton criminals. They want to criminalize any “residential school denier” who dares to doubt the truth of anything that a residential school “survivor” has alleged.

This would include, for example, anyone who dared to disagree with the two Tk’emlups people who claim that they were the “children as young as six” who in the 1960s were forced to dig graves for priests who had somehow killed their comrades, and were now burying them in secrecy.

Those two people are still alive. Have they been interviewed by the RCMP? We do not know.

Why are their identities not being revealed by Casimir and her associates? Again, we do not know. Why has CBC, or others not interviewed these two people about their sensational claim? Again, we are offered no explanation by CBC.

This would also mean that anyone disagreeing with any of the claims of “survivors” such as Billie Coombes, or any of Kevin Annett’s wild stories could face criminal prosecution.

And why did Chief Casimir claim that the “remains of 215 children” had been found, when that was clearly a false claim. Only soil anomalies, which are almost certainly from a 1924 sewage trench were found. Why did it take three years for the T’Kumlups band to confess that no human remains were found?.

Instead, we are left in limbo on the most sensational crime story in Canadian history. 215 — then thousands — of indigenous children were somehow killed and secretly buried at residential schools all across the country? (Former National Chief RoseAnne Archibald says “tens of thousands”, former TRC Commissioner Murray Sinclair says “15-25,000, maybe more.”) Rather than trying to investigate this story by vigorously questioning people making these sensational claims the RCMP sit on their hands in their offices, CBC steadfastly refuses to ask any questions. And our own government threatens to make criminals of any retired professors or others who dare to ask questions about it.

Meanwhile, the Tk’emlups band received (and apparently spent) $8,000,000 from the federal government for making a false claim.

The 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. But it is even more shocking that the accusation was made with no real evidence to support it. Chief Rosannne Casimir went even further. She accused those people —who are no longer here to defend themselves — of murder and secret burial. Now, the federal government wants to stop Canadians from even talking about these sensational and baseless claims.

The next logical step for them is to stop Canadians from even knowing about it. That’s exactly what they are doing in every school in the country — misinforming every Canadian school child by telling them that the Kamloops claim is true.

And that is probably what Ottawa has in mind, with the new “digital safety officer” contemplated in Trudeau’s truly frightening Online Harms Act. Truth-telling senators and professors will be silenced. Then the truth will be what lies in unmarked graves.

The church burnings are only the outward manifestation of this larger evil. Canadians are being deliberately deceived by their own government, the indigenous leadership, and our own media. The Trudeau Liberals have actively pursued a policy that has both encouraged, and then kept alive a conspiracy theory — namely, that residential school priests, nuns and teachers were responsible for the deaths and secret burials of the children placed in their care. The indigenous leadership has exploited an obviously false claim — pocketing a mountain of tax dollars, while our moribund mainstream media sits in silence.

Lewis Carroll wrote about an upside down world in Alice in Wonderland. He would immediately understand what is happening in Canada today.

We have a sitting government actively promoting a conspiracy theory, while threatening to criminalize anyone who tries to expose it. We have an RCMP that refuses to do its job, and conduct an investigation that would quickly tell Canadians that there are no secretly buried children at Kamloops. We have CBC and most of the mainstream media asking no questions about the biggest news story in Canadian history. And we have countless grifter writers and academics who are building their careers repeating ghost stories, and pretending that they are telling the truth.

And the Tk’emlups band gets $8,000,000 for lying, while a professor and senator get cancelled for telling the truth.

As Jon Kay notes in his recent Quillette essay, an officially sanctioned lie — and that is exactly what the Kamloops claim has become — cannot endure forever.

At some point Canada must come to its senses.

First published in the Western Standard here.

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

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Censorship Industrial Complex / 2 hours ago

WEF ranks ‘disinformation’ as greater threat to world stability than ‘armed conflict’

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Censorship Industrial Complex

WEF ranks ‘disinformation’ as greater threat to world stability than ‘armed conflict’

Published on January 21, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Misinformation and disinformation, along with societal polarization, are catalysts that amplify all other global risks, including armed conflict and climate change, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

On Wednesday, the WEF published its annual Global Risks Report with very few changes from last year’s edition.

For the second year in a row, the number one global risk over the next two years is misinformation and disinformation, which have cascading effects on other leading risks, according to the WEF “Global Risks Report 2025”:

Similar to last year, Misinformation and disinformation and Societal polarization remain key current risks […] The high rankings of these two risks is not surprising considering the accelerating spread of false or misleading information, which amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events

According to the Global Risks 2025 report, polarization “continues to fan the flames of misinformation and disinformation, which, for the second year running, is the top-ranked short- to medium-term concern across all risk categories.”

“Efforts to combat this risk are coming up against a formidable opponent in Generative AI-created false or misleading content that can be produced and distributed at scale,” which was the same assessment given in the 2024 report.

Apart from inflation and economic downturn, there isn’t much of a difference in global risks between 2024 and 2025.

Compare the top 10 short-term and long-term global risks from 2024 with those for 2025 in the images below.

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2025

WEF Top 10 Global Risks 2024

Rising use of digital platforms and a growing volume of AI-generated content are making divisive misinformation and disinformation more ubiquitous. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The Global Risks Report 2025 says that misinformation, coupled with algorithmic bias, leads to a situation where you and I should accept giving up some of our privacy for convenience, which subsequently makes it easier for us to be monitored and controlled:

Despite the dangers related to false or misleading content, and the associated risks of algorithmic bias, citizens need to strike a balance between privacy on one hand and increased online personalization and convenience on the other hand.

While data governance and regulation vary worldwide, it is becoming easier for citizens to be monitored, enabling governments, technology companies and threat actors to reach deeper into people’s lives.

Those with access to rising computing power and the ability to leverage sophisticated AI/GenAI models could, if they choose to, exploit further the vulnerabilities provided by citizens’ online footprints.

What else can we blame on misinformation?

I know! Climate change:

The accelerating spread of false or misleading information […] amplifies the other leading risks we face, from State-based armed conflict to Extreme weather events.

WEF Global Risks 2025

While the term “climate change” is mentioned several times in the Global Risks Report 2025, it does not appear anywhere in the actual list of 33 global risks.

Instead of using the term “climate change,” the full list of global risks uses several climate-adjacent terms, such as:

Extreme weather events
Pollution
Critical change to Earth systems
Natural resource shortages
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse
Involuntary migration or displacement

The unelected globalists are now lumping terms like the ones above to push their climate policies and agendas, and they even go so far as to claim that misinformation amplifies extreme weather events, which actually might be true, just not in the way they imagined:

For example, on Tuesday WEF president and CEO Børge Brende blamed the California fires, which we may consider to be examples of extreme weather events or biodiversity loss, to climate change while not addressing how the state cut funding to fight fires, how the Los Angeles fire chief said the city failed her agency, or the role of arsonists.

By blaming the fires on just climate change while ignoring the rest, could Brende himself be engaging in disinformation?

WEF President and CEO Børge Brende blames California fires on climate change. Says global cooperation is needed to tackle bird flu, climate, and cybercrime. https://t.co/0vN997sdY6 pic.twitter.com/wMkiJE60fe

— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) January 14, 2025

Climate change is also an underlying driver of several other risks that rank high. For example, Involuntary migration or displacement is a leading concern. — WEF Global Risks Report 2025

The WEF Global Risks Report 2025 lumps many global risks together with the belief that they are all interconnected.

For example, it says that misinformation and polarization amplify armed conflict, extreme weather events, involuntary migration or displacement, and all the risks in-between.

It’s the same tactic the unelected globalists use when they conflate misinformation and disinformation with hate speech, so they can use one as an excuse to go after the other.

For the WEF and partners, global problems require global solutions with global governance through public-private partnerships – the merger of corporation and state, which is also known as fascism or corporatism.

In the end, the global risks report is just a survey, and the risks may or may not materialize.

In January 2023, the WEF announced the results of a survey of cyber leaders that said a “catastrophic cyber event” was likely to occur within the next two years.

Here we are exactly two years later and that never happened.

For the unelected globalists, misinformation and disinformation are words they throw out to try to crush narratives that don’t align with their own, and they will use any threat, whether real or perceived, to advance their agendas and policies.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

Censorship Industrial Complex

Carbon tax tripping up Liberal leadership hopefuls

Published on January 21, 2025

Duane Rolheiser

The Liberals and progressives everywhere were so close. At the height of their influence, no one, certainly anywhere in the English speaking world could make this claim: “Climate change IS NOT an existential threat to planet earth.” Those who did were immediately sidelined, ostracized by their cohorts, dismissed by corporate media and social media behemoths. Sure the battle still rages, but only in their information world where you still see phrases like “climate change denialist”.

You see their information world has not yet realized something new has happened. History writers will say Elon Musk stopped the progressives in their tracks by buying Twitter, releasing the Twitter files and eventually with Donald Trump, swinging the information world in the direction of X. If you have doubts just look at this picture. While the Twitter files reveal the new information world was under the, let’s say ‘secret influence’ of the White House, this photo shows those same tech power brokers are publicly, and happily celebrating the man they worked secretly to bring down. Or at least they’re not ashamed to publicly text their friends about it. The fact they’re not hiding probably reveals their eager support.

Sometimes we find it’s the people we look down our noses at who make all the difference. Like those overweight beer-guzzling hunter types who wear the red hats. (No not the Roman Cardinals, but the Appalachian trailer house occupants). These conspiracy theorists started to proclaim that the world would in fact not burn up by next weekend. Sure many of these seemed to be the same people who claim the world is flat and their neighbor is from another planet. But then more people stepped forward. Not about ‘pancake Earth’, but about the existential threat of climate change.

Family members and friends scorned and ridiculed them, and many still do. They were outraged that a regular citizen would dare to share information from a completely sane climate scientist or researcher who did not agree with the majority. They’d lose their marbles on those silly enough to cite a peer reviewed scientific paper. IF anyone was bold enough to take the time to read an entire report from NASA or Environment Canada, well you’d certainly hear someone say “You fool! You can’t do your own research!! You’re not a scientist!!”

Fortunately, funny man podcaster Jimmy Dore has the perfect comeback for these situations. Dore says when his own friends warned him only a Conspiracy Theorist would do his own research, he replied “You know before COVID doing your own research used to be called… reading”. It’s really worth two minutes to check this out. If you don’t find it funny, really funny, then I’m sorry. One day you will.

Jimmy Dore on the shaming of doing your own research and questioning the narrative during the Covid era…pic.twitter.com/PxCRVgklbj

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) January 2, 2024

Speaking of reading, in the days before the printing press the Church and various wildly wealthy monarchs had a stranglehold on information sharing. Those who contradicted the party line could have their heads chopped off by a guillotine bought and paid for with their meagre tax offerings, or, they could expect to be publicly shamed and eternally condemned by their local preacher. Sure some of them probably deserved it but who am I to judge?

Then the printing press was invented. At first the Church leaders said, “Great now everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!” Eventually some of those same leaders said, “THIS IS A DISASTER! Everyone can be educated, learn to read and even write themselves, and study the Bible on their own!” After a few centuries the power structures in Europe completely changed. The Church divided into thousands of Protestant movements and the Catholic Church forever lost the political clout it never should have appreciated. Universities sprung up around libraries. Monarchs handed over power to early democratic governments. Books about science lead to scientific innovations. Average Joe’s eventually moved from underground mud huts to middle class condos in the sky.

Well the same thing is happening now with the internet. Except at breakneck speed. What took the printing press hundreds of years to accomplish, takes the internet a few months. The emergence and re-emergence of Trump Presidencies, revolutions against power structures, could not have been accomplished without the way we get information on the internet.

Sure there’s a lot of murky confusion as corporate media used to their powerful podiums of the printing press and cable tv are moving their content over to the new medium. But they’re being (sorry it’s all over, they have been) overtaken by the new form of information sharing. We’ve gone from headlines and ten second sound bites, to three hour long conversations with plenty of time for explaining and context. That’s something cable tv just didn’t have enough bandwidth to deliver.

So what does this mean for people trying to buy 1,200 square foot condos in Canada today?

Well we get to watch the power brokers struggle to retain their grip on / over our lives.

Those running to replace the son of … Hmm. Here’s a perfect example. Depending upon where you get your information from he’s either the son of Pierre, or he has an incomprehensively uncanny and impossibly accidental resemblance to a close personal family friend.

Those running to replace Liberal Leader Justin (let’s leave the last name out until the DNA results are back) definitely believe his father is Pierre. They believe Russians are our enemies. They think COVID vaccines saved the world. They think NATO is protecting Ukraine. And they certainly believe if we pay higher taxes in Canada we’ll save the world from the temperatures many of us pay thousands of dollars to escape to for a few days for six months of the year.

Carney, Gould, and Freeland don’t seem to realize everyday Canadians are simply done with the idea that a Carbon Tax in any form is going to save the world. Thanks to the internet, regular folks/voters have had time to do a little reading and listen to a few long conversations about this. Average people are understanding that CO2 makes up not 40% or 60% of the atmosphere, but .04%. Of that .04%, less than 4% is caused by humans. Mathematically it’s silly to think that paying more for food and groceries and everything else in Rosetown, Saskatchewan or Red Deer, Alberta is going to stop, slow down, or make any difference at all to global temperatures in 20 years.

It’s ironic that it’s the modern progressive movement who are stuck in the old information age. You’d think the slower thinking conservatives would hold on to the old ways and they’d be the ones trying to enforce restrictions on the new communication movement. Somehow the self proclaimed forward looking progressives are the ones trying to censor. Maybe it does make sense. Conservatives are more likely to read their history. They know the ones who censor are always trying to retain their failing grasp on power. New information consumers are ready, willing, and annoyingly attempting to debate. But there’s no debate for those who say “The science is settled.” I guess that means they’re all finished learning things.

Sorry to the Liberal Leadership hopefuls. They haven’t heard the news. Well actually they have and that’s the problem. Instead of paying attention to what’s really happening, they’re dismissing everything and everyone who doesn’t appear on the cable news channels.. other than to be ridiculed that is.

I leave you with this short video from Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Franco explains how those vying for control of the PMO are tripping over their new versions of an old and failed Carbon Tax. Pity them. They don’t realize voters have moved on.