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Opinion

Peace-keeping veteran says only the red poppies please

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4 minute read

Submitted by Mark E. Meincke

About those white, and rainbow poppies……

Here is what the poppy means, and why I implore people to STOP with both the white poppy, and the rainbow infused poppy.  Contaminating the poppy through co-opting, is NOT ok.

The Poppy was first adopted as a symbol of recognition, and remembrance for soldiers in WW1 and was inspired by the poem, In Flanders Fields. Since then, the poppy has become such a sacred symbol, that it has formed part of the Canadian Military uniform during Remembrance Day ceremonies.

The poppy is a very specific symbol, meant to be used exclusively to respect the ineffable sacrifice of our Military and Veterans, especially the soul gouging sacrifice associated with battle. Any co-opting of the hallowed flowered symbol can do nothing but diminish the original intentions for the poppy.

The White Poppy, though arguably ill conceived from it’s outset, is almost as old as the Veteran’s poppy. The altruistic original intent of the white poppy however, stands in opposition to the unwelcome perceived meaning which it tends to emit. Today the white poppy stands as a beacon of anti-veteran sentiment, which makes it very disrespectful to wear on November 11th.

Pro-Peace is a noble pursuit, however wearing a white poppy to promote peace is a risk free lip-service which spits in the face of those who actually risked it all to physically fight for peace.

If you wish to promote peace, wear a white dove on your lapel, or better yet, sign up for the Military Reserves and jump aboard the next peace-keeping mission that comes along. The dove offends no one, so please wear that instead of slapping Veterans and Military members in the face.

And now, about that rainbow infused Poppy….

Seriously, WTH? Is the point of this sacrilegious co-opting to acknowledge the fact that within the military, and Veteran community, we too have a segment who identify themselves as being within the LGBTQ+ community? If so, then you have NO idea what being a soldier is all about. We are the most pro-LGBTQ advocates ever!

When a soldier is in battle, NOTHING could matter less than the sexual, or gender orientation of their fellow soldier. All we care about is whether or not you have buddies six. The rest is totally irrelevant. Co-opting the poppy by infusing the rainbow creates DIVISION, not inclusion.

The battle field is the most inclusive environment on earth. If you are shooting in the same direction, then you are included as an equal…period. Nobody cares about who you are attracted to, or which gender you identify as, the only salient measure is your character, and ability to do your job. Be brave, do your job, and you have the respect of your peers. It’s that simple.

So, wear your rainbow flag, get a rainbow tattoo, commemorate the LGBTQ+ community any which way you wish, and we will ALL stand firm for your right to do so. But, please leave our poppy alone. The poppy is a hallowed symbol which must remain pure.

Mark E. Meincke
Peace-Keeping Veteran

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

They spent $8,000,000 without putting one shovel in the ground

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

That’s how much money the Kamloops Band spent on…..exactly what we have no idea. If you remember, that indigenous band claimed that the people running the local residential school had, for unexplained reasons, secretly buried 215 of the students under their care. They had no evidence that would have stood up in any court in the western world to back up that highly unlikely claim. But the federal government immediately gave them $8,000,000 to……well, that’s the mystery. What did they spend that money on? They have not put one shovel in the ground, but apparently they have somehow spent the $8,000,000 of taxpayers’ hard earned money. It was claimed that the money would be used to uncover the “heartbreaking truth”. But the only heartbreaking truth seems to be the complete waste of tax dollars.But it gets worse. A whole lot worse.

Because the Trudeau government- in addition to lowering the flag for six months, and performing teddy bear pantomimes in community ceremonies – then went on to promise not just $8,000,000, but $320,000,000 – to any other indigenous community that wanted to make similar claims.

It should come as no surprise to any sentient being that dozens of poor indigenous communities immediately took the bait and claimed the prize.

So, the result is that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent somehow. But with no graves found. In fact, none have even put a spade in the ground.

Well, that’s not completely correct. The Pine Creek community in Manitoba was absolutely convinced that the stories about indigenous children dying under sinister circumstances, and being secretly buried under the local church, must be true. After all, they had all heard those stories.

The stories weren’t true. Excavations went ahead, and what was found? Stones.

The stories about priest murders and secret burials are just that. Stories. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars that should be spent on useful endeavours – like providing better health care for indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians – are being wasted. Rural paramedic services are being constantly cut back, for example. How many rural residents- indigenous as well as non-indigenous- will die from heart attacks because the paramedics were simply too far away from them to get them to the hospital in time to save their lives.There’s no money to improve rural medical services because millions are being wasted searching for phantom “missing children” and “unmarked graves”?

Canadians are beginning to wake up to the fact that they have been had. Somebody is getting rich on all of this government largesse. But it’s not poor indigenous Canadians. They remain stuck on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. And medical and other essential services go wanting, because of this complete waste.

So, are there people in “unmarked graves”?

Absolutely. Billions of them in fact. This planet is basically one huge graveyard. The number of marked graves, with headstones naming the person interred, is a tiny fraction of the billions of people who have died on this planet.

Are the remains of some of the children who died from disease while attending residential school in unmarked graves? Absolutely. For that matter, so are the remains of many of the children who attended day schools, or no school at all in unmarked graves. There is nothing sinister about this fact of life. It simply means that the families of those children did not keep up the graves and cemeteries where the children were interred. (The vast majority of children who died while enrolled in residential schools are buried on their home reserves). This is not a criticism of those families. In fact, some of those families might have died out, and cemetery upkeep became impossible. Others just had different priorities.

So, what we have is just a sad fact of life. Many children died of diseases a hundred plus years ago who would not have died today. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. And indigenous children died in much greater numbers, for many different reasons. Tuberculosis, in particular, was a major killer of indigenous people.

In fact, tuberculosis is still 290 times higher in the indigenous community than in the mainstream community.

But the fact that death from disease was so much higher in the indigenous community than in the non-indigenous community has nothing to do with residential schools. It has nothing to do with the people running the schools, many of whom devoted their lives to working with indigenous people.

So, we come around to the question – why is $320,000,000 being spent to find the long lost burial places of children, simply because their families decided – for reasons of their own – to not keep up their gravesites? Because it is not true that there are thousands of “missing children” as alleged. Rather, as Professor Tom Flanagan puts it, in “Grave Error”, there are thousands of “forgotten children”. And as the special interlocutor, Kimberley Murray puts it, “These children are not missing, they are buried in local cemeteries”.

Perhaps that’s the reason that Murray’s upcoming National Gathering on Unmarked Burials has been postponed. Because there is nothing to say. Her six figure salary, and those of all of her staff and associates – to say nothing of the $320,000,000 that has been spent – somehow – on searching for phantom graves and phantom “missing children” – could have been better spent on the real needs of living children.

We are approaching the three year anniversary of the Kamloops claim that 215 children from the local residential school had been somehow killed and secretly buried in the apple orchard on the school grounds. There was no good reason to believe that highly improbable claim in the first place. It was only the foolish and emotional reaction of the Trudeau government, and the incompetence of the media that persuaded Canadians that they should take that nonsensical claim seriously in the first place.

It is time to get back to sanity. Treat those who claim – with no real evidence – that priests murdered and secretly buried children – exactly the same way that we treat those who claim that the Martians have landed, or that aliens have abducted their mothers.

Be polite. But don’t finance their delusions.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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Great Reset

Canadian MP warns new WHO pandemic treaty may enshrine COVID-era freedom restrictions

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MP Colin Carrie

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Colin Carrie recounted the freedom-throttling measures the Canadian government took during the COVID outbreak, warning that the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement may help make such measures permanent.

Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) Colin Carrie warned this week that proposed World Health Organization (WHO) agreements with a passing deadline of late May could “institutionalize” freedom-throttling COVID “pandemic mistakes.”

Carrie recounted the liberty-crushing COVID-era events that took place in Canada as well as around the world during the first-ever Sovereignty Summit held at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, an event protesting the WHO’s pending threat to the sovereignty of its member nations, attended virtually by political leaders from around the world.

“Since COVID-19’s lockdowns and mandates, Canadians have seen our sovereignty, our charter rights and our civil liberties tested,” said Carrie, going on to point out that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has  admitted that he admires the “basic dictatorship” of China.

It was under such a leader as Trudeau that “freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of consent and freedom of medical treatment were all enthusiastically challenged” by the government through “COVID dictates centrally controlled and communicated by the WHO,” Carrie noted.

Trudeau, moreover, “intentionally created an identifiable minority group — anti-vaxxers — and gleefully used all the power of the Canadian government to marginalize, dehumanize and keep over 6 million Canadians from fully participating in Canadian society,” Carrie declared.

He recalled how the Emergencies Act was “used to freeze bank accounts” while “businesses were shattered, seniors and loved ones died alone,” “children’s education was compromised and churches were closed,” affirming that Canadians do not want to relive this scenario during another real or supposed health emergency according to the dictates of the WHO.

Carrie went on to question why the WHO is saying the new Pandemic Agreement is “non-binding” when, according to the MP, the term “non-binding” was removed from the definitions of the treaty.

“Why would any country sign on to a new treaty when we haven’t conducted a serious evaluation of the last pandemic policy response? Will this treaty institutionalize WHO’s COVID pandemic mistakes?”

In a March 20 press release, the WHO called for an “urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord … to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics.”

A growing number of public figures as well as U.S. states and elected officials have raised the alarm about the so-called Pandemic Agreement in recent months.

In a letter dated May 22, almost half the U.S. governors, all of them Republicans, signed a letter to President Joe Biden declaring that they will resist any efforts of the WHO to control public policy in America through its proposed “Pandemic Agreement” and amended International Health Regulations (IHRs).

Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also rallied every Republican in the U.S. Senate to sign an open letter imploring the Biden administration to reject the pending agreements being considered at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in late May.

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