Residential school skeptics should be jailed, says Trudeau advisor
Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray endorsed a private New Democrat bill to jail residential school ‘denialists’ for two years.
Attempts to censor dissenting views on “unmarked graves” remain alive and well after a cabinet advisor said accusations of deliberate deception are hateful.
“…when you say there are no burials, that First Nations people or the Indians are lying because they want you to go burn down churches or they want to take away your cottages, that is inciting hate against Indigenous people,” said Kimberly Murray, Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves.
The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that 4,100 children died at residential schools, a claim that has not been independently verified to date. That counters Murray’s personal convictions, reported Blacklock’s.
The Liberal's special adviser wants to criminalize members of the public for engaging in 'residential school denialism' and 'minimizing.'
— Rebel News Canada (@RebelNews_CA) December 6, 2023
MORE: https://t.co/8YYp4Yv3Qv pic.twitter.com/Zb9BmtY15L
In testimony at the Senate Indigenous Peoples committee, Murray endorsed a private New Democrat bill opposing dissent of Indigenous “mass graves." Bill C-413, An Act To Amend The Criminal Code, would outlaw residential school “denialism” under threat of two years in jail.
“We have lots of death records,” said Murray. “There are lots of death certificates of the kids who died at Indian residential schools.”
A 2023 Senate committee report described those who question the claim of 215 alleged mass graves at a Kamloops former residential school as “residential school denialism.”
Senators previously called on the Trudeau government to “take every action necessary” to counter this "denialism," though a prior federal memo says the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has not defined the term.
A woman who attended a residential school approached Rebel News to share her story and her thoughts on how politicians and the media are approaching the allegation of 'mass graves'.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) July 27, 2022
FULL REPORT by @ATSoos: https://t.co/TKbP02XUKs pic.twitter.com/Hz2uj4mmEz
Nevertheless, Murray maintains that “Hate speech is… getting worse in the country.”
“We need to ensure survivors and communities are safe. We need to send a clear message to Canadians that it is not okay to incite this kind of hate,” she said.
Governor General Mary Simon previously blamed unnamed media for propagating “denialism.” Unidentified media are trying to “control the story of Indigenous peoples,” she said.
Media and politicians first popularized the term "mass grave," reported the National Post. The outrage generated by this claim propelled the destruction of over 60 churches in the summer of 2021 after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the Peace Tower flag lowered for 161 days when the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the discovery of “unmarked graves” in Kamloops, British Columbia.
Once again, we all did it. Not the Liberals' residential school system.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) March 30, 2022
Justin Trudeau says the discovery of unmarked graves is a horror of Canada's past, "for which we all bear a certain responsibility."
MORE: https://t.co/FKZrAtZGEm pic.twitter.com/r94MW1CpsQ
“I think Canadians have seen with horror those unmarked graves across the country, and realize what happened … is an irrefutable part of our present,” he told reporters then.
Band Chief Roseanne Casimir said that ground penetrating radar results were “very preliminary” at the time. She later clarified: “This is not a mass grave, but rather unmarked burial sites that are, to our knowledge, also undocumented.”
The First Nation distanced itself from the popularized “mass grave” claim this past May, referring to their preliminary findings as roughly 200 "anomalies" instead, “some of which might be unmarked graves of former students.”
Chief Casimir employed similar language in a May statement, replacing the term “children” from the 2021 declaration with “anomalies.”
The Trudeau government confirmed Wednesday it spent millions to uncover the “heartbreaking truth” of unmarked graves at a former residential school, but no remains have been found to date.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) May 10, 2024
MORE by @WestCdnFirst: https://t.co/4IqmZLyqYQ pic.twitter.com/cRZ5vF1em7
Even still, Murray says Indigenous leaders want Canada to criminalize anyone questioning this narrative. Rebel News tried contacting Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation for comment on criminalizing dissent but did not receive a response.
Crown-Indigenous Relations earlier said investigations were ongoing. “The truth about residential school unmarked burials continues to be revealed,” reads the June 19 note Unmarked Burials, which noted that “Funding is available.”
The Trudeau government has spent $7.9 million to uncover “unmarked graves” at the former residential school, yet no remains have been recovered.
PM Trudeau repeats the false claim of “unmarked graves” found at residential schools, despite the fact that there has been no evidence of human remains found. pic.twitter.com/s908B4f1eO
— True North (@TrueNorthCentre) June 18, 2024
An updated incident map from True North showed at least 96 churches had been destroyed, burned or vandalized in Canada since the spring of 2021 when the news of alleged '"unmarked graves" first broke.
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
COMMENTS
-
Bruce Atchison commented 2024-11-29 19:32:14 -0500Who does Kimberly Murray think she is? If she has proof of graves on residential school property, let her show skeptics. But she, being a censorious thug, wants people imprisoned for two years because they don’t believe her narrative. She should be ashamed but I’m sure she isn’t.
And why is it only indigenous boarding schools are sectioned out with the name residential? I went to a residential school for deaf and blind people in Vancouver. Wasn’t my six-year exile from my family equal to indigenous children’s experience? Deaf children were routinely abused sexually. We had mean supervisors at that school too. And Victoria paid no mind to complaints until 300 deaf alumni took the BC province to court for those preventable sexual molestations.. I have a better case for my beliefs than this flake wanting “deniers” imprisoned for wrong think.
