Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Money Under False Pretences?
From LifeSiteNews
When is a hoax, not a hoax? They knew the study revealed ‘anomalies,’ not bodies.
A recent article appeared in the Western Standard admonishing conservatives for using the term “hoax” when referring to the Kamloops claim — namely the MAY 27, 2021 claim — that the remains of 215 former students had been discovered on the grounds of the local residential school.
The author of the article noted that many former residential school students might be offended by the use of the term. I agree with him that innocent people should not be unnecessarily hurt by writers trying to make a point. Everyone agrees that many people were hurt by their residential school experiences. That is no hoax.
However, what the author might not be aware of is the fact that what was claimed at Kamloops was patently false. It was a clear example of misinformation. That May 27, 2021 announcement claimed that the “remains of 215 former students” had been found.
This was false. No such “remains”, “bodies”, “graves”, or “mass graves” had been found.
And none have been found since that claim was first made. Only soil “anomalies”, were detected. “Anomalies” are basically radar signals that could be from rocks, tree roots, or other old excavations that have nothing to do with graves.
Thus, the people who made the claim that the “remains of 215 children had been found” were making a claim they knew was false. Although they have refused to release the ground penetrating radar report made by Sarah Beaulieu, we know with absolute certainty that Beaulieu reported finding only anomalies and not “remains”because Beaulieu said so.
She also said that only excavation would show what those anomalies were. And the people making the claim have refused to do any excavation.
“Anomalies” and “human remains” are two entirely different things. There is no excuse for Kamloops Chief Roseanne Casimir and her colleagues announcing that human remains had been found, when only anomalies, that could be from many different sources, had been detected.
On the basis of this false claim the claimants obtained $8 million from the federal government. That money may or may not have been spent — we don’t know because they won’t tell us.
That false Kamloops claim, and the $320,000,000 the Trudeau government was foolish enough to promise, then inspired copycat claims from other poor indigenous communities. Instead of focusing on their many very real problems, those communities are now engaged in a pointless exercise searching through old cemeteries for evidence of imagined secret burials. That original Kamloops claim has done a lot of harm.
So, the use of the term “hoax” might be offensive to some, but what should we call an application for $8 million from the federal government based on information that the applicants knew to be false? Perhaps there is a more polite term to describe deliberately obtaining money by false pretences.
Maybe “a patently false claim?”
Either term is probably accurate. Just to be clear — the people making this claim knew they had not discovered “remains.”
Despite that, they repeated their misinformation far and wide. And it took three years for those same leaders to formally admit that only “anomalies” — and no remains — were found.
While it is entirely possible that many, or even most, of the people in that Kamloops community believed, and still mistakenly believe, that the remains of 215 children had been found, the point is that the leaders who made that claim knew with absolute certainty when making the claim that only “anomalies” and no remains, bodies, or graves, were found. They used that false information to fool government officials into giving them $8 million in tax dollars.
Whether that is a “hoax” or a “patently false claim” I don’t know. But it is certainly one or the other.
Readers wanting to take a deep dive into the false Kamloops claim and its ramifications might want to read “Grave Error — How the Media Misled us” edited by Tom Flanagan and Chris Champion. Disclosure: I am a contributor to the book.)
So, if the point of the author is to stress the need to avoid unnecessarily offending innocent people who had a rough time at residential school, I completely agree with him.
However, if the suggestion is that the people who are responsible for making a false claim — a claim has cost this country billions of dollars, a humiliating downgrading of our international reputation, and internal division for decades to come, I do not.
The people responsible for creating this national and international mess should be held to account. We shouldn’t care a whit if they are offended by any particular term we use to describe their dishonest behaviour.
Those people responsible for keeping the “hoax”, or “patently false claim” alive are both indigenous and non-indigenous. They include not only the senior indigenous leadership, but senior non-indigenous leaders, like Justin Trudeau and Marc Miller. They include incompetent journalists . They also include a spineless RCMP leadership that has failed completely in its responsibility to investigate and report to the Canadian public.
As for those people the author refers to who are suffering from their residential school experiences, surely it can’t be helpful for their leaders to promote baseless stories about murderous priests secretly burying 215 indigenous children? Surely such wild stories — stories that have no credible evidence to support them — can only inflame their feelings of victimhood, fomenting church-burning rage among the less sophisticated. indigenous people? They deserve better than that from their leaders.
All Canadians deserve better from our elected leaders.
If the people responsible for obtaining $8 million from taxpayers on the basis of this false claim find themselves in a courtroom it will be up to the presiding judge to choose the appropriate terms to describe their behaviour. The court might use the term “hoax”, “a patently false claim” or perhaps a different term entirely. The important thing is that the opportunists who made these false claims be held accountable for their behaviour.
But those responsible for perpetuating the false Kamloops claim — whatever it is called — should not wait for a court date. They should immediately apologize to all Canadians, but particularly to their own community members whom they misled.
They should also apologize to the people they have falsely accused of horrible crimes — namely the many priests, nuns and teachers, indigenous and non-indigenous, who worked at residential schools, and did their best to provide educations to the indigenous children who needed them.
And a defence lawyer would also probably advise them to begin to work on a restitution plan that would repay the $8,000,000 of taxpayer dollars that they obtained under false pretences.
Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Canadians can now track in real time how much revenue the country is forfeiting to the United States by selling its oil at discounted prices, thanks to a new online tracker from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The tracker shows the billions in revenue lost due to limited access to distribution for Canadian oil.
At a time of economic troubles and commercial tensions with the United States, selling our oil at a discount to U.S. middlemen who then sell it in the open markets at full price will rob Canada of nearly $19 billion this year, said Marco Navarro-Genie, the VP of Research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Navarro-Genie led the team that designed the counter.
The gap between world market prices and what Canada receives is due to the lack of Canadian infrastructure.
According to a recent analysis by Ian Madsen, senior policy analyst at the Frontier Centre, the lack of international export options forces Canadian producers to accept prices far below the world average. Each day this continues, the country loses hundreds of millions in potential revenue. This is a problem with a straightforward remedy, said David Leis, the Centre’s President. More pipelines need to be approved and built.
While the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline has helped, more is needed. It commenced commercial operations on May 1, 2024, nearly tripling Canada’s oil export capacity westward from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels daily. This expansion gives Canadian oil producers access to broader global markets, including Asia and the U.S. West Coast, potentially reducing the price discount on Canadian crude.
This is more than an oil story. While our oil price differential has long been recognized, there’s growing urgency around our natural gas exports. The global demand for cleaner energy, including Canadian natural gas, is climbing. Canada exports an average of 12.3 million GJ of gas daily. Yet, we can still not get the full value due to infrastructure bottlenecks, with losses of over $7.3 billion (2024). A dedicated counter reflecting these mounting gas losses underscores how critical this issue is.
“The losses are not theoretical numbers,” said Madsen. “This is real money, and Canadians can now see it slipping away, second by second.”
The Frontier Centre urges policymakers and industry leaders to recognize the economic urgency and ensure that infrastructure projects like TMX are fully supported and efficiently utilized to maximize Canada’s oil export potential. The webpage hosting the counter offers several examples of what the lost revenue could buy for Canadians. A similar counter for gas revenue lost through similarly discounted gas exports will be added in the coming days.
What Could Canada Do With $25.6 Billion a Year?
Without greater pipeline capacity, Canada loses an estimated (2025) $25.6 billion by selling our oil and gas to the U.S. at a steep discount. That money could be used in our communities — funding national defence, hiring nurses, supporting seniors, building schools, and improving infrastructure. Here’s what we’re giving up by underselling these natural resources.
342,000 Nurses
The average annual salary for a registered nurse in Canada is about $74,958. These funds could address staffing shortages and improve patient care nationwide.
Source
39,000 New Housing Units
At an estimated $472,000 per unit (excluding land costs, based on Toronto averages), $25.6 billion could fund nearly 94,000 affordable housing units.
Source
About the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is an independent Canadian think-tank that researches and analyzes public policy issues, including energy, economics and governance.
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
A billionaire’s retail ambition might also serve Beijing’s global influence strategy. Canada must look beyond the storefront
When B.C. billionaire Weihong Liu publicly declared interest in acquiring Hudson’s Bay stores, it wasn’t just a retail story—it was a signal flare in an era where foreign investment increasingly doubles as geopolitical strategy.
The Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, remains an enduring symbol of Canadian heritage. While its commercial relevance has waned in recent years, its brand is deeply etched into the national identity. That’s precisely why any potential acquisition, particularly by an investor with strong ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), deserves thoughtful, measured scrutiny.
Liu, a prominent figure in Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian business community, announced her interest in acquiring several Hudson’s Bay stores on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (RedNote), expressing a desire to “make the Bay great again.” Though revitalizing a Canadian retail icon may seem commendable, the timing and context of this bid suggest a broader strategic positioning—one that aligns with the People’s Republic of China’s increasingly nuanced approach to economic diplomacy, especially in countries like Canada that sit at the crossroads of American and Chinese spheres of influence.
This fits a familiar pattern. In recent years, we’ve seen examples of Chinese corporate involvement in Canadian cultural and commercial institutions, such as Huawei’s past sponsorship of Hockey Night in Canada. Even as national security concerns were raised by allies and intelligence agencies, Huawei’s logo remained a visible presence during one of the country’s most cherished broadcasts. These engagements, though often framed as commercially justified, serve another purpose: to normalize Chinese brand and state-linked presence within the fabric of Canadian identity and daily life.
What we may be witnessing is part of a broader PRC strategy to deepen economic and cultural ties with Canada at a time when U.S.-China relations remain strained. As American tariffs on Canadian goods—particularly in aluminum, lumber and dairy—have tested cross-border loyalties, Beijing has positioned itself as an alternative economic partner. Investments into cultural and heritage-linked assets like Hudson’s Bay could be seen as a symbolic extension of this effort to draw Canada further into its orbit of influence, subtly decoupling the country from the gravitational pull of its traditional allies.
From my perspective, as a professional with experience in threat finance, economic subversion and political leveraging, this does not necessarily imply nefarious intent in each case. However, it does demand a conscious awareness of how soft power is exercised through commercial influence, particularly by state-aligned actors. As I continue my research in international business law, I see how investment vehicles, trade deals and brand acquisitions can function as instruments of foreign policy—tools for shaping narratives, building alliances and shifting influence over time.
Canada must neither overreact nor overlook these developments. Open markets and cultural exchange are vital to our prosperity and pluralism. But so too is the responsibility to preserve our sovereignty—not only in the physical sense, but in the cultural and institutional dimensions that shape our national identity.
Strategic investment review processes, cultural asset protections and greater transparency around foreign corporate ownership can help strike this balance. We should be cautious not to allow historically Canadian institutions to become conduits, however unintentionally, for geopolitical leverage.
In a world where power is increasingly exercised through influence rather than force, safeguarding our heritage means understanding who is buying—and why.
Scott McGregor is the managing partner and CEO of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting.
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