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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One would think that now that the person who originally made the false claim has admitted that no graves were found — only anomalies — that Trudeau would take the opportunity to clear up the confusion and go with the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

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

New Book Warns The Decline In Marriage Comes At A High Cost

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Travis D. Smith

Travis Smith reviews I… Do? by Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell, showing that marriage is a public good, not just private choice, arguing culture, not politics, must lead any revival of this vital institution.

Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell, in I… Do?, write that the fading value of marriage is a threat to social stability

I… Do? by Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell manages to say something both obvious and radical: marriage matters. And not just for sentimental reasons. Marriage is a public good, the authors attest.

The book is a modestly sized but extensively researched work that compiles decades of social science data to make one central point: stable marriages improve individual and societal well-being. Married people are generally healthier, wealthier and more resilient. Children from married-parent homes do better across almost every major indicator: academic success, mental health, future earnings and reduced contact with the justice system.

The authors refer to this consistent pattern as the “marriage advantage.” It’s not simply about income. Even in low-income households, children raised by married parents tend to outperform their peers from single-parent families. Mrozek and Mitchell make the case that marriage functions as a stabilizing institution, producing better outcomes not just for couples and kids but for communities and, by extension, the country.

While the book compiles an impressive array of empirical findings, it is clear the authors know that data alone can’t fix what’s broken. There’s a quiet but important concession in these pages: if statistics alone could persuade people to value marriage, we would already be seeing a turnaround.

Marriage in Canada is in sharp decline. Fewer people are getting married, the average age of first marriage continues to climb, and fertility rates are hitting historic lows. The cultural narrative has shifted. Marriage is seen less as a cornerstone of adult life and more as a personal lifestyle choice, often put off indefinitely while people wait to feel ready, build their careers or find emotional stability.

The real value of I… Do? lies in its recognition that the solutions are not primarily political. Policy changes might help stop making things worse, but politicians are not going to rescue marriage. In fact, asking them to may be counterproductive. Looking to politicians to save marriage would involve misunderstanding both marriage and politics. Mrozek and Mitchell suggest the best the state can do is remove disincentives, such as tax policies and benefit structures that inadvertently penalize marriage, and otherwise get out of the way.

The liberal tradition once understood that family should be considered prior to politics for good reason. Love is higher than justice, and the relationships based in it should be kept safely outside the grasp of bureaucrats, ideologues, and power-seekers. The more marriage has been politicized over recent decades, the more it has been reshaped in ways that promote dependency on the impersonal and depersonalizing benefactions of the state.

The book takes a brief detour into the politics of same-sex marriage. Mrozek laments that the topic has become politically untouchable. I would argue that revisiting that battle is neither advisable nor desirable. By now, most Canadians likely know same-sex couples whose marriages demonstrate the same qualities and advantages the authors otherwise praise.

Where I… Do? really shines is in its final section. After pages of statistics, the authors turn to something far more powerful: culture. They explore how civil society—including faith communities, neighbourhoods, voluntary associations and the arts can help revive a vision of marriage that is compelling, accessible and rooted in human experience. They point to storytelling, mentorship and personal witness as ways to rebuild a marriage culture from the ground up.

It’s here that the book moves from description to inspiration. Mrozek and Mitchell acknowledge the limits of top-down efforts and instead offer the beginnings of a grassroots roadmap. Their suggestions are tentative but important: showcase healthy marriages, celebrate commitment and encourage institutions to support rather than undermine families.

This is not a utopian manifesto. It’s a realistic, often sobering look at how far marriage has fallen off the public radar and what it might take to put it back. In a political climate where even mentioning marriage as a public good can raise eyebrows, I… Do? attempts to reframe the conversation.

To be clear, this is not a book for policy wonks or ideologues. It’s for parents, educators, community leaders and anyone concerned about social cohesion. It’s for Gen Xers wondering if their children will ever give them grandchildren. It’s for Gen Zers wondering if marriage is still worth it. And it’s for those in between, hoping to build something lasting in a culture that too often encourages the opposite.

If your experiences already tell you that strong, healthy marriages are among the greatest of human goods, I… Do? will affirm what you know. If you’re skeptical, it won’t convert you overnight, but it might spark a much-needed conversation.

Travis D. Smith is an associate professor of political science at Concordia University in Montreal. This book review was submitted by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Carbon Tax

Canada’s Carbon Tax Is A Disaster For Our Economy And Oil Industry

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Lee Harding exposes the truth behind Canada’s sky-high carbon tax—one that’s hurting our oil industry and driving businesses away. With foreign oil paying next to nothing, Harding argues this policy is putting Canada at a major economic disadvantage. It’s time to rethink this costly approach.

Our sky-high carbon tax places Canadian businesses at a huge disadvantage and is pushing investment overseas

No carbon tax will ever satisfy global-warming advocates, but by most measures, Canada’s carbon tax is already too high.

This unfortunate reality was brought to light by Resource Works, a B.C.-based non-profit research and advocacy organization. In March, one of their papers outlined the disproportionate and damaging effects of Canada’s carbon taxes.

The study found that the average carbon tax among the top 20 oil-exporting nations, excluding Canada, was $0.70 per tonne of carbon emissions in fiscal 2023. With Canada included, that average jumps to $6.77 per tonne.

At least Canada demands the same standards for foreign producers as it does for domestic ones, right? Wrong.

Most of Canada’s oil imports come from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, none of which impose a carbon tax. Only 2.8 per cent of Canada’s oil imports come from the modestly carbon-taxing countries of the U.K. and Colombia.

Canada’s federal consumer carbon tax was $80 per tonne, set to reach $170 by 2030, until Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced it to zero on March 14. However, parallel carbon taxes on industry remain in place and continue to rise.

Resource Works estimates Canada’s effective carbon tax at $58.94 per tonne for fiscal 2023, while foreign oil entering Canada had an effective tax of just $0.30 per tonne.

“This results in a 196-fold disparity, effectively functioning as a domestic tariff against Canadian oil production,” the research memo notes. Forget Donald Trump—Ottawa undermines our country more effectively than anyone else.

Canada is responsible for 1.5 per cent of global CO2 emissions, but the study estimates that Canada paid one-third of all carbon taxes in 2023. Mexico, with nearly the same emissions, paid just $3 billion in carbon taxes for 2023-24, far less than Canada’s $44 billion.

Resource Works also calculated that Canada alone raised the global per-tonne carbon tax average from $1.63 to $2.44. To be Canadian is to be heavily taxed.

Historically, the Canadian dollar and oil and gas investment in Canada tracked the global price of oil, but not anymore. A disconnect began in 2016 when the Trudeau government cancelled the Northern Gateway pipeline and banned tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast.

The carbon tax was introduced in 2019 at $15 per tonne, a rate that increased annually until this year. The study argues this “economic burden,” not shared by the rest of the world, has placed Canada at “a competitive disadvantage by accelerating capital flight and reinforcing economic headwinds.”

This “erosion of energy-sector investment” has broader economic consequences, including trade balance pressures and increased exchange rate volatility.

According to NASA, Canadian forest fires released 640 million metric tonnes of carbon in 2023, four times the amount from fossil fuel emissions. We should focus on fighting fires, not penalizing our fossil fuel industry.

Carney praised Canada’s carbon tax approach in his 2021 book Value(s), raising questions about how long his reprieve will last. He has suggested raising carbon taxes on industry, which would worsen Canada’s competitive disadvantage.

In contrast, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre argued that extracting and exporting Canadian oil and gas could displace higher-carbon-emitting energy sources elsewhere, helping to reduce global emissions.

This approach makes more sense than imposing disproportionately high tax burdens on Canadians. Taxes won’t save the world.

Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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