Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Trudeau ‘finished what his father started’ driving Canada into failing freefall
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
In 2015 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scorned Canada — a country that afforded him so much, yet to which he had contributed nothing of notable significance. His disdain for those on whose backs Canada was built was clear. History and European national origins had to be blotted out.
Canada was a “post-national” nation with “no core identity,” he arrogantly told the New York Times. The reckless socialist ideology he spat out was an omen of the division, fear and attack on so-called privileged (white) Canadians that hit like a storm. It hovers over us like a choking toxic cloud.
If Trudeau’s vision was a Canada “completely splintered,” with Quebec a nation unto itself “separate and distinct,” English-speaking provinces “fractured into oblivion” and breaking up our “common culture” — then mission accomplished.
“He’s finished what his father started,” said Lt. Col. Dave Redman (ret’d), who served 27 years with the Canadian Armed Forces and headed Alberta’s Emergency Management Agency.
The Trudeau concept of a post-national state is “dangerous and misleading.”
“It implies that democratically elected national governments are no longer relevant.”
Redman explained Canada’s “shifting socio-political landscape” with powerful clarity in Canada 2024: A Confident Resilient Nation or a Fearful Fracture Country? in the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Canadians know something has gone terribly wrong beyond mounting financial struggles and trampled rights. Our nation’s rife with “apologies and internal divisions,” said Redman.
“Confidence has been turned into fear and shame. Canada has become irrelevant on the world stage.”
Canada’s in a “failing” freefall.
“Why will no one invest economically in Canada? Why are people leaving Canada? Why are people not believing that Canada has a future? Why are our allies ignoring us and holding us in disdain? Because we are a threat to their national security because China can get to them through us.”
Canada’s at a “critical juncture.” Until politicians and Canadians unite with common values and defended borders —necessary for a successful nation — Canada will be “stumbling from one crisis to another.”
Until Canadians hold them to account, politicians will fixate on minor “wedge” issues — such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — to divert attention from critical national concerns they want us to ignore.
Convincing people to feel bad about themselves makes it easier to manipulate guilt and usher in destructive, ideological programs with obscene price tags.
Canada must foster national pride, prioritize national interests and protect national security to secure its future, said Redman.
“A nation is successful when a group of people live in one country with defended borders and share common values, even if they vary in cultures and languages.”
Redman’s six-point framework for national interests includes unity, national security, good governance, protection of rights and freedoms, economic prosperity and growth and personal and community well-being. He offers strategies on how to achieve these critical objectives.
“I believe the current sitting government truly does believe that the World Economic Forum’s concepts and ideals of post-national states is what Canada should be and they have started it.”
“I believe the current government of Canada is intentionally walking each of those six national interests away from Canada in a way that will allow Canada to become part of a broken world.”
It’s up to Canadians to decide what direction we head in.
“The reason I wrote this paper was to make people think about our country in a 20-to-25-year vision. And not let the current government which loves to use divisive, tactical issues to destroy the larger picture conversation. And in doing so, destroy our economy, destroy our unity, destroy our national security by focussing on tactical issues,” said Redman.
A vision for Canada involves citizens who are optimistic about the future, have self-respect to follow through on their ideas, and courage to stand up for their culture and ideals, he said.
Trudeau and his band of self-serving renegades unleashed an ideological curse on Canada.
But we let them.
Then COVID-19 demonstrated how quickly rights and freedoms “can be trampled on, eviscerated and dismissed.”
For a glorious moment in time Freedom Convoy truckers rejuvenated Canadian pride, united Canadians and emboldened us to fight for freedom. Peaceful protesters who waved the Canadian flag were punished.
Yet the silence is deafening as people who despise Canada’s core identity — yes, Trudeau, we have one — hijack our nation and our children’s future.
Redman points to “diaspora marching routinely in the streets of our cities supporting illegal terrorist organizations demanding the death of both citizens here and abroad.”
They wave flags but never the Maple Leaf. They support other countries “but do not march for Canada.”
“Unity is the core value for a country. A cultural unity is based on common shared ethics, values and beliefs. People wishing to become citizens of a country must understand these principles of belief and join the country because they wish for the same to be the foundation of their daily lives.”
“Many who come to a country, not wishing to join the cultural unity of that country, are enemies, intentional or otherwise, who work to erode or destroy this unity.”
Immigration is part of national security.
“You’re pouring people into our country who do not share our ethics and values. And you’re doing it intentionally. That will destroy unity and while it’s destroying unity it will destroy economic prosperity and growth.”
“Our police and courts take no action or in fact support these illegal acts.”
“Our current federal government, many of our provincial territorial governments and our municipal governments stand silently by, or in some cases support the destruction of our values, laws and national interests.”
Redman said the question is, what do Canadians want Canada to be? Will we stand up and root out infectious ideology? Is it too late?
“My paper is about how to overcome what’s happened. It’s happened, we can’t change that. But it’s how to get politicians and Canadians to change how they think about our country. And to have a process to put in place, a vision for our country and have elected officials explain what they see the vision to be. Canadians can make a choice between visions.”
Citizens, academia, public and private sector organizations, unions, religious and non-religious groups need to get involved to break down national interests into “clear and attainable objectives.”
Politicians must explain what unity and democracy means to them. That’s not happening.
Many Canadians are pinning hopes on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre forming the next federal government.
“My line to Poilievre is I understand his tactical four bullet plan you know that inflation’s up, the cost of living’s up, that housing’s bad and people need more money in their pocket.”
“I get it. He’s beating that drum over and over. But we’ve got a year before the election, he needs to start talking about his vision for Canada.”
Canada was once internationally respected, trusted and consulted. Now we are pitied by shocked outsiders witnessing woke ideology and crushed free speech forced upon us.
“We’ve been taught to be ashamed of our history instead of proud of it, or even to learn from it.”
“We have completely shattered democratic institutions. Our election system is in question. Our legislatures are in turmoil, our courts, our schools, our medical system. The mainstream media is completely partisan. Our economy is broken. People can’t meet bills at the end of the month and we’re ignored and shunned by our allies.”
Redman addressed good governance, offering guidelines on how to “strengthen and preserve the democratic way of life in Canada.”
“Good governance to me means defence of democracy, where in other countries it can mean absolute control of a totalitarian government.”
Redman’s suggestions to stop Canada from being completely “shattered” include a 100% immigration policy review; halting funding to universities that are “domestic threats” and removing Marxists professors; establishing a monitored election process; and ending government-funded media.
Agencies that counter external threats must be “equipped to work individually and cooperatively, with each other and our allies.”
Stop foreign aid that counters our interests and national security.
“While Canadians are challenged to put food on the table and to have a house, they watch as the federal government sends hundreds of millions of dollars to international organizations and specific countries that do not share our democratic aims or our national interests.”
There must be “a wall of people hitting” politicians telling them to listen or face defeat.
“In 25 years will Canada be a democracy? Or will it become a country led by an authoritarian government that uses fear and threats to remove imaginary risks from the daily lives of Canadians who have lost their self-respect and courage?”
Look at what eight years did.
First published here.
Linda Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard based out of Winnipeg. She has been an investigative columnist for the Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, and Alberta Report.
No. One outrageous lie was quickly discounted, yet another lives on, to the detriment of everybody involved.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
The Kamloops claim didn’t come out of the blue. The TRC’s well-publicized “missing children” wild goose chase thoroughly indoctrinated indigenous communities. It convinced foolish people, like Casimir, Leah Gazan and Kimberley Murray, that thousands of “missing children” had been secretly buried all across Canada.
“My brother Rufus saw them take all those children and stand them up next to a big ditch, and then the soldiers shot them all and they all fell into that ditch. Some of the kids were still alive and they just poured the dirt in on top of them. Buried them alive.”
This mass murder happened in 1943 — not in Nazi-held Europe, but in Brantford, Ontario.
So, there you have it — the personal story of a residential school “survivor” describing the day the Canadian Army lined up 43 Indian children in front of a residential school at Brantford, Ontario, shot them and dumped their bodies into a mass grave. The May 27, 2021 announcement that the remains of 215 former students of the Kamloops residential school wasn’t the first time that a claim about sinister residential school deaths and clandestine burials had been made.
This Brantford story is obviously untrue. Any reasonably well-informed person with a lick of sense would know that at a glance.
But that didn’t stop the claim from making the social media rounds for years. According to the fact-check tens of thousands of people have read this bogus claim over the years, and many appear to have believed it completely. In fact, despite the fact checks proving that the claim was entirely false it continues to circulate today.
Both the Kamloops and Brantford claims came basically from the same place — the strange mind of a defrocked United Church Minister, Kevin Annett. It was Annett who created the bogus Brantford claim. In a strange twist, the picture at the top of the page — said to be from Brantford — is actually a photo of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, as it looked in the 1920s.
And it was Annett who inspired the TRC’s misguided “missing children/unmarked graves” wild goose chase that, in turn, inspired Chief Rosanne Casimir to make the Kamloops claim. Both claims were equally and obviously false: The Kamloops claim was that the “remains of 215 children were found.” In fact, only radar blips (anomalies) were detected- blips that turned out. to most likely be from previous excavations, and not graves. Casimir and Annett both knew that they were making false claims.
Annett’s bogus claims come from his imaginative reworking of stories of “survivors” that he publicized in his blogs, books, interviews and movies.
His most famous movie is Unrepentant. This movie has been viewed by tens of thousands of Canadians, particularly in indigenous communities, such as the Tk’emlups community at Kamloops.
It has won awards, and been praised by eminent people, such as Noam Chomsky. Despite being every bit as false as the claim that the Canadian army shot 43 indigenous children, it actually convinced Member of Parliament, Gary Merasty, that it was accurate history. It is nothing short of amazing that this highly suggestible MP was then able to convince the equally gullible, and newly appointed TRC commissioners that there were many thousands of such “missing children”, as Annett alleged.
The TRC commissioners then launched their “missing children/unmarked graves” campaign despite having no mandate from the federal government to do so. (Independent researcher, Nina Green, describes this in detail here.)
You see, the Kamloops claim didn’t come out of the blue. The TRC’s well-publicized “missing children” wild goose chase thoroughly indoctrinated indigenous communities. It convinced foolish people, like Casimir, Leah Gazan and Kimberley Murray, that thousands of “missing children” had been secretly buried all across Canada.
Indigenous people became hooked on these stories.
Annett’s most famous book is his 393 page opus, “Hidden No Longer.” That book introduced the idea that the deaths of these thousands of “missing children” (his estimates range from 50,000 to 250,000, depending on the telling) constituted genocide. It is absolutely shocking that our MPs actually voted to condemn Canada of genocide based essentially on Kevin Annett’s bogus claims.
Based on those same bogus claims Annett was hired by the Brantford Mohawk community in 2011 to dig up the graves that he claimed existed in the apple orchard area of their residential school. According to Annett, these were the graves of indigenous students who had been secretly killed and buried in the apple orchard at the school, with the forced help of fellow students.
Sound familiar? It should. That was essentially the same grisly tale repeated by Chief Rosanne Casimir years later in Kamloops. (See above.)
Except that the wiser folks within the Brantford Mohawk community twigged on to Annett’s tricks. And when Annett was found on the streets of Toronto, waving around chicken bones, and pretending that they were the bones of children he had unearthed at Brantford, the Mohawk elders came together and publicly denounced Annett as a fraud at a community meeting. They then banished him from their community.
Unfortunately, Casimir became a useful idiot for Annett — just as the gullible TRC commissioners did — and no such leadership has yet come forward from the wiser elements within the Kamloops indigenous community. Those folks are silent, while the more vocal contingent are still sticking to their story that the soil anomalies are the “remains of 215 children,” and not what they almost certainly are — 1924 septic excavations.
So, the questions should be asked: Is the claim that the Canadian army shot 43 indigenous children, and dumped them in a mass grave, any more or less believable than the claim that priests killed and secretly buried 215 children at Kamloops, (or any of the copycat claims that followed it?)
What is it about that Mohawk claim that gives it appeal to only the most gullible among us, while the equally improbable Kamloops claim is still taken seriously by so many people?
On the surface, both claims are outrageous, and have no real evidence to support them. Quite the contrary, every Canadian history book ever written is cogent evidence that both stories are false. But the Mohawk claim was dismissed as the nonsense it obviously was, while the Kamloops claim lives on.
At least part of the answer to those questions appears to be in the response of the government in power, and the media to the claims. If the Brantford claim had been met by a prime minister who immediately ordered that flags be lowered, and offered hundreds of millions of dollars to any other indigenous communities who wanted to make similar claim, no doubt that Brantford claim would have been taken seriously.
Or, if the Brantford claim had been made in a time when a highly ideological CBC would ask no questions, and blindly promote the claim, the results might have been entirely different. As it is, the Brantford claim died a merciful death, while the equally specious Kamloops genocide claim still languishes like a stinking albatross around the neck of every Canadian.
Although the international community is increasingly broadcasting the obvious fact that the Kamloops claim is bogus Canada’s media remains asleep. That is not likely to change until leadership changes in Ottawa, and at the CBC. Pierre Pollievre, when questioned on this topic, stated clearly that he stands for historical truth, accuracy, and a full investigation into all questions pertaining to claims about residential school deaths. Hopefully, that means that excavation and a full inquiry will follow.
But Tk’emlups indigenous elders better wake up, like the Mohawk elders did. You are not doing your communities a favour by letting politicians and journalists treat you like children, by pretending to believe your bizarre claims. These false claims are already doing great damage.
Fortunately, there are many thoughtful indigenous people who do not blindly accept the claims about murderous priests and secret burials.
Here is one such wise indigenous person. He is a priest, and he is willing to do what our federal government and our CBC failed to do from the beginning namely to intelligently discuss the issue.
Thoughtful people like this need to be involved in a full investigation that will clear the air about the Kamloops claim, and get Canada back on track.
Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Hungarian Revolution of 1956: A Valiant Effort to Overthrow Communist Rule
Civilians wave Hungary’s national flag from a captured Soviet tank in Budapest’s main square during the anti-communist uprising of October 1956. AP Photo
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Gerry Bowler
For a time, Moscow seemed willing to accept change in Hungary, but when Nagy announced that his country would leave the Warsaw Pact and become neutral in the Cold War, that was a bridge too far for Khrushchev.
After World War II ended in the summer of 1945, the Soviet Red Army found itself to be in possession of Eastern Europe. In the next few years, the USSR extinguished the young democracies in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, while imposing Stalinist governments on autocracies such as Bulgaria and Hungary. With Marxist regimes taking over in eastern Germany, and Albania and Yugoslavia as well, Winston Churchill spoke truly when he said that “from Stettin the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
In many of these countries, there was considerable resentment over the Russian occupation. In the Baltic republics, Romania, Croatia, Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine, doomed anti-Soviet guerilla movements with names like the “Forest Brothers,” the “Cursed Soldiers,” or “Crusaders,” fought underground wars that\ lasted for years. In June 1953 in East Berlin, workers rose up in protests against their communist masters, sparking a short-lived rebellion that spread to hundreds of towns before being crushed by Russian tanks. The most serious of these insurrections was the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. By 1956, there were stirrings of discontent in the Hungarian People’s Republic. Under the state control of industry, forced agricultural collectivization, and the shipping of produce to the Soviet Union, the economy was in bad shape. The supply of consumer goods was low and standards of living were dropping. Secret police surveillance of the population was harsh, while many Hungarians resented the suppression of religion and the mandatory instruction of the Russian language in schools. As news leaked out about Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in the so-called “Secret Speech,” hopes grew that reform of the communist system was possible.
Marxist intellectuals began to form study circles to discuss a new path for Hungarian socialism, but their cautious proposals were suddenly overtaken by demands for change by young people. On Oct. 22, 1956, students at the Technical University of Budapest drew up a list of demands for change known as the “Sixteen Points.” They included free elections, a withdrawal of Soviet troops, free speech, and an improvement in economic conditions.
On the afternoon of the next day, these points were read out to a crowd of 20,000 who had gathered at the statue of a leader of the Hungarian rebellion of 1848. By 6 p.m., when the students marched on the Parliament Building, the crowd had grown to around 200,000 people. This alarmed the government, and later that evening Communist Party leader Erno Gero took to the radio to condemn the Sixteen Points. In reaction, mobs tore down an enormous statue of Stalin.
People surround the decapitated head of a huge statue of Josef Stalin in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Daniel Sego (second L), who cut off the head, is spitting on the statue. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
On the night of Oct. 23, crowds gathered outside the state broadcaster, Radio Budapest, to demand that the Sixteen Points be sent out over the air. The secret police fired on the protesters, killing a number of them. This enraged the demonstrators who set fire to police cars and seized arms from military depots. Army units ordered to support the secret police rebelled and joined the protest. The government floundered; on the one hand, they called Soviet tanks into Budapest; on the other hand, they appointed Imre Nagy, seen as a popular reformer, as prime minister.
As barricades were being erected by protesters and shots were being exchanged with secret police units, Nagy was negotiating with the Soviets who agreed that they would withdraw their tanks from the capital. Over the next few days, the rebellion spread; factories were seized, Communist Party newspapers and headquarters were attacked, and known communists and secret police agents were murdered. The new prime minister released political prisoners and promised the establishment of democracy, with freedom of speech and religion.
For a time, Moscow seemed willing to accept change in Hungary, but when Nagy announced that his country would leave the Warsaw Pact and become neutral in the Cold War, that was a bridge too far for Khrushchev. Fearing the collapse of the entire Soviet bloc, he made plans for an invasion of Hungary. By Nov. 3, the Red Army had surrounded Budapest, and the next day heavy fighting erupted as armoured columns entered the city. Some units of the Hungarian army fought back, joined by thousands of civilians, but the end was predictable. After a week of battles, with over 20,000 dead and wounded, resistance crumbled. A new Soviet-approved government under János Kádár purged the army and Communist Party, arrested thousands, and executed rebel leaders including Nagy.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled, many of them settling in Canada and the United States. World condemnation of the USSR was strong; critics of the Soviets included many communists in the West who resigned their party membership. Not until the collapse of the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe in 1989 did Hungarians get another taste of freedom.
Published in the Epoch Times.
Gerry Bowler, historian, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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