Connect with us

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Money Under False Pretences?

Published

9 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Brian Giesbrecht

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

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Education

Our Kids Are Struggling To Read. Phonics Is The Easy Fix

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Michael Zwaagstra

One Manitoba school division is proving phonics works

If students don’t learn how to read in school, not much else that happens there is going to matter.

This might be a harsh way of putting it, but it’s the truth. Being unable to read makes it nearly impossible to function in society. Reading is foundational to everything, even mathematics.

That’s why Canadians across the country should be paying attention to what’s happening in Manitoba’s Evergreen School Division. Located in the Interlake region, including communities like Gimli, Arborg and Winnipeg Beach, Evergreen has completely overhauled its approach to reading instruction—and the early results are promising.

Instead of continuing with costly and ineffective methods like Reading Recovery and balanced literacy, Evergreen has adopted a structured literacy approach, putting phonics back at the centre of reading instruction.

Direct and explicit phonics instruction teaches students how to sound out the letters in words. Rather than guessing words from pictures or context, children are taught to decode the language itself. It’s simple, evidence-based, and long overdue.

In just one year, Evergreen schools saw measurable gains. A research firm evaluating the program found that five per cent more kindergarten to Grade 6 students were reading at grade level than the previous year. For a single year of change, that’s a significant improvement.

This should not be surprising. The science behind phonics instruction has been clear for decades. In the 1960s, Dr. Jeanne Chall, director of the Harvard Reading Laboratory, conducted extensive research into reading methods and concluded that systematic phonics instruction produces the strongest results.

Today, this evidence-based method is often referred to as the “science of reading” because the evidence overwhelmingly supports its effectiveness. While debates continue in many areas of education, this one is largely settled. Students need to be explicitly taught how to read using phonics—and the earlier, the better.

Yet Evergreen stands nearly alone. Manitoba’s Department of Education does not mandate phonics in its public schools. In fact, it largely avoids taking a stance on the issue at all. This silence is a disservice to students—and it’s a missed opportunity for genuine reform.

At the recent Manitoba School Boards Association convention, Evergreen trustees succeeded in passing an emergency motion calling on the association to lobby education faculties to ensure that new teachers are trained in systematic phonics instruction. It’s a critical first step—and one that should be replicated in every province.

It’s a travesty that the most effective reading method isn’t even taught in many teacher education programs. If new teachers aren’t trained in phonics, they’ll struggle to teach their students how to read—and the cycle of failure will continue.

Imagine what could happen if every province implemented structured literacy from the start of Grade 1. Students would become strong readers earlier, be better equipped for all other subjects, and experience greater success throughout school. Early literacy is a foundation for lifelong learning.

Evergreen School Division deserves credit for following the evidence and prioritizing real results over educational trends. But it shouldn’t be alone in this.

If provinces across Canada want to raise literacy rates and give every child a fair shot at academic success, they need to follow Evergreen’s lead—and they need to do it now.

All students deserve to learn how to read.

Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Continue Reading

Economy

Support For National Pipelines And LNG Projects Gain Momentum, Even In Quebec

Published on

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Joseph Quesnel

Public opinion on pipelines has shifted. Will Ottawa seize the moment for energy security or let politics stall progress?

The ongoing threats posed by U.S. tariffs on the Canadian economy have caused many Canadians to reconsider the need for national oil pipelines and other major resource projects.

The United States is Canada’s most significant trading partner, and the two countries have enjoyed over a century of peaceful commerce and good relations. However, the onset of tariffs and increasingly hostile rhetoric has made Canadians realize they should not be taking these good relations for granted.

Traditional opposition to energy development has given way to a renewed focus on energy security and domestic self-reliance. Over the last decade, Canadian energy producers have sought to build pipelines to move oil from landlocked Alberta to tidewater, aiming to reduce reliance on U.S. markets and expand exports internationally. Canada’s dependence on the U.S. for energy exports has long affected the prices it can obtain.

One province where this shift is becoming evident is Quebec. Historically, Quebec politicians and environmental interests have vehemently opposed oil and gas development. With an abundance of hydroelectric power, imported oil and gas, and little fossil fuel production, the province has had fewer economic incentives to support the industry.

However, recent polling suggests attitudes are changing. A SOM-La Presse poll from late February found that about 60 per cent of Quebec residents support reviving the Energy East pipeline project, while 61 per cent favour restarting the GNL Quebec natural gas pipeline project, a proposed LNG facility near Saguenay that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets. While support for these projects remains stronger in other parts of the country, this represents a substantial shift in Quebec.

Yet, despite this change, Quebec politicians at both the provincial and federal levels remain out of step with public opinion. The Montreal Economic Institute, a non-partisan think tank, has documented this disconnect for years. There are two key reasons for it: Quebec politicians tend to reflect the perspectives of a Montreal-based Laurentian elite rather than broader provincial sentiment, and entrenched interests such as Hydro-Québec benefit from limiting competition under the guise of environmental concerns.

Not only have Quebec politicians misrepresented public opinion, but they have also claimed to speak for the entire province on energy issues. Premier François Legault and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have argued that pipeline projects lack “social licence” from Quebecers.

However, the reality is that the federal government does not need any special license to build oil and gas infrastructure that crosses provincial borders. Under the Constitution, only the federal Parliament has jurisdiction over national pipeline and energy projects.

Despite this authority, no federal government has been willing to impose such a project on a province. Quebec’s history of resisting federal intervention makes this a politically delicate issue. There is also a broader electoral consideration: while it is possible to form a federal government without winning Quebec, its many seats make it a crucial battleground. In a bilingual country, a government that claims to speak for all Canadians benefits from having a presence in Quebec.

Ottawa could impose a national pipeline, but it doesn’t have to. New polling data from Quebec and across Canada suggest Canadians increasingly support projects that enhance energy security and reduce reliance on the United States. The federal government needs to stop speaking only to politicians—especially in Quebec—and take its case directly to the people.

With a federal election on the horizon, politicians of all parties should put national pipelines and natural gas projects on the ballot.

Joseph Quesnel is a senior research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Continue Reading

Trending

X