By Mark Milke

The effort by MP Leah Gazan to criminalize residential school views she labels “denialist” is a mistake. Gazan’s Bill C-413, if passed, would criminalize any statement that might be interpreted as “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada through statements communicated other than in private conversation.”

Let’s start with examples of whose speech Gazan’s bill would criminalize, if repeated in the future: indigenous Canadians who have publicly “condoned,” or at least partly justified, residential schools.

In 1998, Rita Galloway, a teacher who grew up on the Pelican Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan and then-president of the First Nations Accountability Coalition, was interviewed about residential schools. She noted that she had “many friends and relatives who attended residential schools,” and argued, “Of course there were good and bad elements, but overall, their experiences were positive.”

In 2008, the late Richard Wagamese, an Ojibwe author and journalist, wrote in the Calgary Herald about the many abuses that took place at residential schools. He then straightforwardly argued that positive stories needed to be told, too, including his mother’s.

After praising her neat, clean home and cultured lawn on a reserve outside Kenora, Ont., Wagamese noted how his 75-year-old mother “credits the residential school experience with teaching her domestic skills.” Critically, “My mother has never spoken to me of abuse or any catastrophic experience at the school.”

Wagamese argued the then-forthcoming Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) “needs to hear those kinds of stories, too,” and that telling “the good along with the bad” will “create a more balanced future for all of us.”

That’s not because such schools were perfect — or even optimal. As has been extensively documented, physical and sexual abuses occurred in some schools, and that is something that no one should downplay.

But it’s too easy to forget the limited choices that existed for 19th- and early 20th-century Canadians. As we do today, most people back then believed in the value of universal education. Many Canadians, indigenous and non-indigenous, lived in poverty, had rudimentary transportation links, limited job opportunities and thus limited possibilities for day schools in remote areas, such as reserves.

Imagine the outcry today if earlier generations of parishioners, parents (including Indigenous parents) and politicians mostly ignored remote reserves and failed to provide indigenous communities with educational opportunities. The same voices today who accept no nuance on residential schools would likely excoriate that choice to deny education to Indigenous children.

The choices in the 19th and 20th centuries were not between perfection and its opposite; they represent a trade-off between suboptimal choices. Understanding this requires nuance, which is in short supply these days.

As an example, consider the perspective of Manitoba school trustee Paul Coffey, a Metis man who made a presentation to the Mountain View School Division board meeting in Dauphin, Man., about racism in April and was pilloried for it. His remarks included comments about residential schools. Coffey tried to argue that residential schools had good and bad aspects, but he was roundly criticized for his views.

In a July interview, Coffey again offered nuance about the schools, noting what much of the media missed in their initial firestorm coverage: “I said they were nice. I then also said they weren’t. I said treaties were nice and then they weren’t. I said even TRC is a good idea, until it isn’t.”

Criminalizing these stories and opinions would mean that these three indigenous voices, and many others, could face fines or jail time. This is precisely why speech, unless urging violence, should never be criminalized.

Another reason not to criminalize speech is because it makes it even more difficult to correct bad ideas and lingering injustices. An open society requires open discourse. It’s the only way errors can only be corrected. That disappears if one becomes subject to fines and imprisonment for thinking out loud, including when one is ultimately proved to be in error.

Gazan’s bill is the latest attempt by Canadian politicians to suppress views and conclusions with which they disagree. That suppression is illiberal and unhelpful. Mandating a single point of view damages the accumulation of knowledge that’s necessary for progress, prevents a useful dissection of why abuses occurred in residential schools and will prevent the open discrediting of wrongheaded positions.

No one person will be right every time. Open, public debate is critical to exposing errors and advancing human progress.

Mark Milke is the president of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

The WHO’s Fides network consists of some 800 creators and was launched in 2020 with the purpose of “mobilizing health content creators to counter misinformation and elevate evidence-based content.”

TikTok and the World Health Organization (WHO) are entering a one-year partnership to train influencers and promote regime-approved content concerning public health on the social media platform.

TikTok put out a press release on the partnership last Thursday, saying that it was a way for the social media company “to create reliable content and combat misinformation.”

Today, we’re partnering with the World Health Organization (WHO) to create reliable content and combat misinformation through the Fides network, a diverse community of trusted healthcare professionals and content creators. — TikTok press release, September 2024

Working with the WHO’s Fides network, TikTok will provide training on how to best disseminate WHO propaganda.

“Through our collaboration with WHO, we will be engaging Fides creators to translate complex scientific research into relatable and digestible video content, expanding across various health topics.

READ: Democrat senators urge several Big Tech companies to censor election ‘misinformation’

“To further equip creators, we will be working closely with WHO to provide access to creator training programs and resources,” the TikTok press release reads.

The WHO’s Fides network consists of some 800 creators and was launched in 2020 with the purpose of “mobilizing health content creators to counter misinformation and elevate evidence-based content.”

Today, Fides boasts reaching 150 million users across various platforms.

Another part of the WHO-TikTok partnership is to suppress any information that doesn’t align with the unelected globalist health body.

People are increasingly being targeted with misinformation and malinformation on these digital channels. The new collaboration between WHO and TikTok is to help addressing these challenges by promoting evidence-based content and encourage positive health dialogues. — World Health Organization (WHO) press release, September 2024

WHO and @TikTokComms announce a year-long collaboration aimed at providing people with reliable, science-based information on health and well-being.

In an increasingly digitized world, harnessing the power of digital platforms is vital to reach people globally, promote health… pic.twitter.com/1ZnhteTVJA

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) September 26, 2024

This is where WHO can step in to support influencers in delivering evidence-based information, ensuring that health conversations on platforms like TikTok are both impactful and informed. — Dr. Alain Labrique, WHO Director of Digital Health and Innovation, September 2024

The WHO also put out a press release on the partnership, explaining how certain influencers would be chosen and targeted to be propagandists for the regime:

“The collaboration will expand efforts around a number of relevant health topics, translating science-based information into relatable and digestible video content, with more support for influencers provided through TikTok’s creator training programs.”

According to the WHO, the goal of the partnership is to leverage “multiple digital communication platforms to increase outreach to people globally, to promote health literacy, healthy behaviors and actions in an increasingly digitized world.”

This isn’t the first time a UN organization has partnered with big tech to deliver its messaging.

We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do. — UN Communications Director Melissa Fleming, World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Meetings, September 2022

During the pandemic, the UN deployed 'influencers who were much more trusted than the UN' on health messaging while working with TikTok to give UN-trained doctors 'verified ticks': UN Comms Chief to WEF, Sept 2022 pic.twitter.com/zCQ2GjUD8c

— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) August 17, 2023

In September 2022, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming told a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on disinformation that the UN had partnered with TikTok on a project called “Team Halo” to boost COVID messaging coming from medical and scientific communities.

“Another really key strategy we had was to deploy influencers,” she said, adding, “influencers who were really keen, who have huge followings, but really keen to help carry messages that were going to serve their communities, and they were much more trusted than the United Nations telling them something from New York City headquarters.”

“We had another trusted messenger project, which was called ‘Team Halo’ where we trained scientists around the world and some doctors on TikTok, and we had TikTok working with us,” she added.

In the same panel, Fleming declared, “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do” while bragging about how the UN partnered with Google to manipulate search results, so that only UN-approved messaging would appear at the top.

With this partnership, TikTok continues its role as a propaganda arm of the United Nations, of which the WHO is a part.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.