Opinion
From mass graves to mass hysteria

The grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where some believe Indigenous students may be buried — though there have not been any excavations. – Reuters
The Opposition with Dan Knight
A Canadian Teacher Fired for Challenging the Narrative on Residential Schools—Where’s the Evidence, Where’s the Justice?

I am a teacher buffeted daily by the chill winds of political indoctrination, censorship, conformity, and anti-education in schools.
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The New York Post reported this month that “after two years of horror stories about the alleged mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools across Canada, a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains.” In July 2021 the Assembly of First Nations claimed the “mass grave discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was proof of a “pattern of genocide against Indigenous Peoples that must be thoroughly examined.”
Yet the Canadian government already examined residential schools from 2008-15 through The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with Commission Chair Murray Sinclair telling the media the number of missing children “could be in the 15-25,000 range, and maybe even more.” To date there has not been a single missing child identified, and not a single document from a parent or chief indicating a child was missing from any of the almost 150 schools over almost 150 years.
I’m not ignorant of the subject of our past as I am informed on the subject of Indian Residential Schools as I am a member of the pan-Canadian Indian Residential Schools Research Group. I also did a Master’s degree in Educational History with specialization in Indian Educational Policy under the supervision of Dr. Robert Carney, who was once the leading expert on the schools. I also obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto where I argued A Case Against Censorship in Literature Education. Professionally, I have taught in high schools, elementary schools, and colleges and was for a time Principal of Neuchâtel Junior College in Switzerland. My last position was in Abbotsford as a senior French Immersion History teacher. It is to Abbotsford that I now turn, for that is where I was fired.
One fateful day in May 2021 I was teaching Calculus 12 at a high school named after the painter Robert Bateman where news was feverishly spread about the discovery of the remains of 215 children in a mass grave at the site of the long-shuttered Kamloops Indian Residential School. The principal used the PA system to ask teachers to stop their regular instruction to navigate the upsetting news with students. In this context, I spoke about the history of residential schools, the dislocation and despair of prairie First Nations (most residential schools being located in the Canadian west), the Indian Act (1876) and its authors’ intentions to support its most marginalized communities, the role of the church as teachers and proselytizers, and the reports of abuse and neglect.
As it was a math class, some of the students were uninterested or bored by my history soliloquy, but one girl spoke up to say the schools represented “cultural genocide.” I agreed with her by saying that modern western schooling was mandatory for indigenous children after 1920, and a third of these children were placed in residential schools (another third attending day schools, and the final third receiving no education at all).
I considered the discussion to be like any other, with some students engaged and others on their phone or quietly doing equations, until a second student, flush with anger and indignancy, reacted to my comment that children who died tragically while enrolled in residential schools did so mostly from disease. She said the Christian teachers in Kamloops (Oblate priests and brothers as well as nuns from the Catholic order The Sisters of St. Ann) were “murderers who tortured students to death by leaving them out in the snow to die.”
I didn’t say anything more, for I feared an argument, and directed students to return to their Calculus work. The class was given a break a few minutes later, and unbeknownst to me the girl complained to a counsellor, who told the principal, who told the district, and before class was over that day, I had a visit from two male administrators who commanded me in front of my students to gather my things and leave. While being frog-marched through the corridor I repeatedly asked what I had done wrong, but they wouldn’t answer. When I was close to the front door I turned to them and said I wouldn’t be leaving without hearing from the principal what I had done. This request was granted, but all the principal would say to me was that it was something I said.
My suspension ended after eight months when the district released its investigator’s report, to which senior management appended a charge of professional misconduct, as the following excerpts show:
“While acting as a TOC for a Calculus 12 class, Mr. McMurtry…inferring [sic] that many of the deaths were due to disease was in opinion inflammatory, inappropriate, insensitive, and contrary to the district’s message of condolences and reconciliation.”
“He left students with the impression some or all of the deaths could be contributed to ‘natural causes’ and that the deaths could not be called murder.”
“Both Mr. McMurtry and student accounts had some students passionately saying the deaths were murder, [and] the graves were mass graves.”
“[We] consider this to be extremely serious professional misconduct.”
While on suspension I dug into the grave story of murdered children and found I was right. Indeed, there was no discovery at all at the residential school in Kamloops in the middle of the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépemc reserve. No graves. No bodies. No murder weapons. No police investigation. No historical record or documentation from a parent or tribal leader of a missing child. Nonetheless, prime minister Justin Trudeau unilaterally ordered that our country lower its flag from coast to coast and in our embassies around the world for over five months, though all that Culture/Media professor Sarah Beaulieu (the sole source of the story) found, using ground-penetrating radar in an abandoned apple orchard on the reserve, were soil anomalies, likely sewage trenches or tiles from 1924. My judgment day was February 21, 2023. The Abbotsford School District trustees had to pronounce on a recommendation for termination from management. That very day I saw that the National Post featured my story on Page 1. I was suddenly under a deluge of support from many media platforms, especially Rebel News which sent a reporter to cover the disciplinary hearing. I boldly predicted in front of supporters that my case was strong and the tide in Canada was turning against cancel culture and its witch hunts, but I was wrong. I was fired and will likely never teach again. Canadian historian Marcel Trudel wrote:
“There is nothing more dangerous than history used as a defense; or history used for preaching; history used as a tool is no longer history.”
I would add that there is nothing more dangerous, in these times, than teaching history truthfully.
In my termination letter this February the case against me changed again, this time it was no longer about what I said but only my “inflammatory, inappropriate, and insensitive tone” that one day two years ago. Then this August I received a letter from the regulatory body for teachers, called the Teaching Regulation Branch (formerly the BC College of Teachers), which changed the case against me again. Now I am accused of “falsely suggesting that student deaths at the schools were comparable to the general child mortality rate and not the result of a government strategy of cultural genocide.” In the same letter the TRB calls for the cancellation of my teaching certificate for life… before my case has arrived at arbitration, before an arbitrator has been chosen or dates have even been set, and long before the merits of my case have been fairly determined.
In Kafka’s play The Trial there is a familiar quotation:
“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.”
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Automotive
Auto giant shuts down foreign plants as Trump moves to protect U.S. industry

MxM News
Quick Hit:
Stellantis is pausing vehicle production at two North American facilities—one in Canada and another in Mexico—following President Donald Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars. The move marks one of the first corporate responses to the administration’s push to bring back American manufacturing.
Key Details:
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In an email to workers Thursday, Stellantis North America chief Antonio Filosa directly tied the production pause to the new tariffs, writing that the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” but is “temporarily pausing production” at select assembly plants outside the U.S.
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Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario will be paused for two weeks, while the Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico will be offline for the entire month of April.
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These plants produce the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the new Dodge Charger Daytona EV, the Jeep Compass SUV, and the Jeep Wagoneer S EV.
Diving Deeper:
On Wednesday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs aimed at revitalizing America’s auto manufacturing industry. The 25% tariffs on all imported cars are part of a broader “reciprocal tariffs” strategy, which Trump described as ending decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out U.S. industry.
Just a day later, Stellantis became the first major automaker to act on the new policy, halting production at two of its international plants. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Stellantis North American COO Antonio Filosa said the company is “taking immediate actions” to respond to the tariff policy while continuing to evaluate the broader impact.
“These actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations,” Filosa wrote.
The Windsor, Ontario plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica and the newly introduced Dodge Charger Daytona EV, will shut down for two weeks. The Toluca facility in Mexico, responsible for the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S EV, will suspend operations for the entire month of April.
The move comes as Stellantis continues to face scrutiny for its reliance on low-wage labor in foreign markets. As reported by Breitbart News, the company has spent years shifting production and engineering jobs to countries like Brazil, India, Morocco, and Mexico—often at the expense of American workers. Last year alone, Stellantis cut around 400 U.S.-based engineering positions while ramping up operations overseas.
Meanwhile, General Motors appears to be responding differently. According to Reuters, GM told employees in a webcast Thursday that it will increase production of light-duty trucks at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant—where it builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. These models are also assembled in Mexico and Canada, but GM’s decision suggests a shift in production to the U.S. could be underway in light of the tariffs.
As Trump’s trade reset takes effect, more automakers are expected to recalibrate their production strategies—potentially signaling a long-awaited shift away from offshoring and toward rebuilding American industry.
Business
‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.
“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”
“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.
Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.
“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.
WATCH:
With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.
“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.
“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.
The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.
“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”
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