In a Globe and Mail article on 5 May 2023 the National Centre For Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) finally publicly admitted that its Memorial Register is not a list of thousands of missing children buried in unmarked graves. It turns out the entire claim of thousands...
Michelle Cyca’s article in The Walrus about residential school denialism of May 4, 2023, gets one thing right. She mentions tuberculosis. Once. Like many who write about those who suffered at residential schools, Cyca seems oblivious to the context of the times – in...
Winnipeg City Hall recently proclaimed that Bishop Grandin Boulevard, Bishop Grandin Trail, and Grandin Street will be renamed, respectively, Abinojii Mikanah (Ojibway for 'A Children's Way'), Awisasak Meskanow (Cree for 'A Children's Way'), and Taapeewin Way (Michif...
Politicians have a trick of responding to questions on how they are addressing a public policy challenge by listing off the dollar amounts they have “invested.”Looked at closely, this is not answering the question that was asked, but engaging in obfuscation....
Canada is struggling economically. From inflation and deficits to investment and employment, everything that should be up is down, and everything that should be down is up. One striking symptom of economic rot is household debt, which is rising faster than incomes....
Largely unique among state-owned enterprises, ‘SEOs’, worldwide, Canadian Crown corporations have two key advantages over current and future private sector competitors: non-taxable status and access to low-cost public sector borrowing rates. Other implicit edges...
Senator Lynn Beyak has been expelled from caucus by the Conservative Party. The reasons for her removal were that “she allowed” racist posts to be placed on her website and refused to remove them when ordered to do so. In fact, I am one of the people quoted on her...
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its report in 2015 saying that that Canada and the Churches that managed the majority of Indian Residential Schools treated Indigenous people as if they were sub-human. If this is true, then why did many...
It is getting close to Christmas. This makes it a good time to test our knowledge of Christianity and Christian charity. So, here is a question to ponder: When Christian churches founded schools in Canada, what names did they use? Perhaps you think that these schools...
Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Forced assimilation. Slavery. Racism. As much as mainstream history and traditional anthropology have shown these five phenomena to be near universal features of the human condition, they are mostly portrayed these days in the ivory tower,...
In recent years, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of Canadians who are entitled to claim and receive benefits that go along with holding “Indian status”. All indications are that this trend will continue—and probably accelerate—in the next few years....
Teachers in more than 40,000 classrooms across Canada are providing their students with false information about the tragic death of young Chanie Wenjack whose frozen body was found curled up beside a railway track in northwestern Ontario on October 23, 1966. The...
Canada’s sad Indian Residential School history is by now very familiar to Canadians, and it is increasingly being taught to our children in school. This is both necessary and proper. A caring and compassionate society should know its history, warts and all. But the...
Senator Lynn Beyak says in a letter that status Indians should give up their status cards and become true Canadians. The reaction to the letter has been fast and furious. She has been denounced by a host of worthies. As I write this, I am listening to a CBC radio...
Graham Lane Canada has had 150 years to deal with a clash of civilizations between a pre-existing indigenous population and a massive influx of, initially, Europeans. With newcomers quickly out-numbering the indigenous population, spreading into lands occupied by...