Brian Giesbrecht is a retired Manitoba judge. He was recently named the 'Western Standard Columnist of the Year'As Western Standard’s Jen Hodgson has reported Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray wants those of us who deny that thousands of indigenous children were “disappeared” from residential schools prevented from continuing to express those views by having the federal government enact criminal laws that target “deniers.” Here’s how Murray describes those of us who are providing proof that her claim that thousands of indigenous children went “missing,” or were “disappeared” from residential schools are 100% false:“That’s your opinion and you can have freedom of speech to say that. But 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. That’s the type of speech we need to stop.”Except that she (deliberately?) gets every bit of that wrong.In the first place, it is not “deniers” who have been burning down churches.The arsonists are more likely the unsophisticated folk who believe Murray’s misinformation about thousands of “disappeared” and “missing” children, that she and her colleagues have been spreading for the last decade.And no one denies that there were burials. Many children died of diseases in those early days — particularly indigenous children. Some attended residential schools. Most didn’t.Here’s one example of many of the kind of completely baseless stories that Murray is responsible for spreading. She told this to a BuzzFeed reporter in 2018:“Kimberly Murray, an assistant deputy attorney general in Ontario who led the Missing Children Project, told me about former residents who recalled witnessing other children beaten to death or pushed from a window.”What Murray knows well is that she is repeating the thoroughly debunked tales of the fabulist, Kevin Annett. It was through Annett’s documentary “Unrepentant” that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) became convinced that these crazy stories were true. It now appears that it was Murray who made that happen.In fact, with the exception of Kevin Annett, there is probably no one alive in Canada who has done more to publicize these claims about thousands of “missing children,” who were “disappeared” from Canadian Indian residential schools (IRS) than Kimberly Murray. She has been very actively spreading these stories since she was employed by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC.)So, who is Kimberly Murray?Murray describes herself as a Mohawk. This is odd for a woman born to a non-Indian couple. She grew up in Montreal, and spent summers in California. Perhaps there was an Oka connection or indigenous ancestor long ago, but she is certainly not a registered Indian. Be that as it may, she seems to have dedicated her life (albeit at six-figure government salaries) to disseminating stories about the thousands of children she says were “disappeared” from residential schools.She is one of the growing number of academics, writers and activists who have built their careers promoting the completely spurious claim, based on these false stories about “thousands of disappeared and missing children,” that Canada is a genocidal nation. Most of these people are either Pretendians (those falsely claiming indigenous identity) or what are now being called Partindians (urban non-Indians exploiting their small bit of Indian heritage.) There are practically no Indians (registered or status) in this mix. The Pretendians and Partindians all actively promote the myth that thousands of children went missing, or were “disappeared” while they attended residential schools. Universally, they romanticize indigenous culture, while slandering our ancestors — people they contemptuously label “settlers.” Their goal seems to be to smear Canada as a racist and genocidal place.It is not clear why they appear to hate a good country that has given them so much. Canada has many warts, as all countries do, but Canada’s treatment of its indigenous population has been largely honourable. Compared to our southern neighbours, our ancestors did very well. Perhaps money and career advancement are the main motivators for their hate campaign against Canada.These opportunists benefit from the billions of dollars that they hoover up from the enormous sums that the federal government spends on indigenous concerns. The amounts, especially since 2015, are so great that indigenous spending now far exceeds what is spent on all of Canada’s military spending. (As Tom Flanagan explains.)But that incredible increase in spending has not benefitted the status of registered Indians living on poor reserves, or in urban ghettos. Instead it has enriched what Frances Widdowson calls the “Aboriginal Industry — composed of lawyers, academics, bureaucrats etc — many of whom aren’t even Indians.But, I digress. Back to the “thousands” of “disappeared” and “missing” indigenous children that Kimberly Murray, and her associates insist went missing from residential schools — despite not even one indigenous parent claiming that their child never returned from a residential school. How many “thousands”?Former National Chief Roseanne Archibald claims that “tens of thousands” went missing. The late Murray Sinclair says “15-25,000, maybe more.” Murray simply says “thousands.” But her report yields not even one example of such a “disappeared” child.So, what is the truth?Fortunately, we have things called history books. What do they say? They say that a rather small fraction of indigenous children — an estimated 150,000 — attended residential schools. They attended because a minority of parents opted to educate their children at residential schools rather than the day schools that about 30% of indigenous children attended. (About 40% went to no school at all.)And despite CBC and others claiming that indigenous parents were “forced” to send their children to a residential school, this is not true. Parents had to apply in writing for their child’s admission to a residential school. If they didn’t like the school, they could withdraw their children at any time.It is sad that about 2% of the 150,000 died. But this is not surprising, given the fact that the children came from reserves with very high tuberculosis rates. (Far more children who did not attend residential schools died, than those who did.) Those who died while attending a residential school were given Christian burials, and their deaths were properly documented. Most were buried by their parents on their home reserves. A minority were buried on the few residential schools that had their own cemeteries, such as Brandon. Parents were notified of the burial sites.Nothing sinister there. Nobody “disappeared” or “missing.” These were just the unfortunate deaths from the diseases that took so many in those days.It is certainly true that many of these gravesites were not properly maintained, and have been lost in time. But that is the fault only of the people who chose not to maintain the sites.The very odd thing about all of this is that Kimberly Murray actually admits these facts. In spite of her rhetoric about thousands of “disappeared” and “missing” children she admits that the burial sites of these children can be found on ancestry.com, and that the children were mostly buried by their families in their home communities.But, at present, Murray is appealing to a group of well-meaning senators, who apparently hang on every one of Murray’s words.They believe that she has been telling them the truth about these thousands of “disappeared” children, and are wondering why the federal government has not responded to Murray’s multi-million dollar report — a report that calls for criminalizing anyone who says that she is spreading misinformation in a report that also calls for taxpayer funded searches for these “disappeared” and “missing” children for the next two decades.Oh, and also calls for billions of dollars of taxpayers’ dollars, not only for these 20 years of funding, but also for “reparations” to compensate for these “15-25,000” alleged disappeared children. But, if that’s not chutzpah enough, Murray wants Canada, and seemingly every Canadian leader, to be hauled before the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted for genocide and crimes against humanity.Clearly, Kimberly Murray has gone rogue. Watch her in action before this group of bewildered senators.So, why is the government remaining silent while these gullible senators anxiously wait to see what the government will do with her unhinged multi-million dollar report?The truth is that the government is between a rock and a hard place.By now, even the most gullible minister knows that the stories, such as the Kamloops claim that 215 were killed and secretly buried by priests and their six year old accomplices, is nonsense. They know that Murray’s claims about thousands of “disappeared” children are pure fantasy. But because it was Trudeau, and his ministers, like Marc Miller, who actively encouraged these false stories, with their $320,000,000 giveaways, and flag-lowering theatrics, they don’t know quite what to do.So, they will probably just fudge things, and do nothing.Canada’s next government must conduct a full inquiry into all matters related to the Kamloops claim, and the subsequent vilification of Canada as a genocidal nation. All of the activists and grifters — including Murray — involved in this sorry episode in Canada’s largely honourable history should be questioned in a public forum. Those who appear to be involved in the perpetration of a fraud should be criminally prosecuted.It must also fully investigate the current Liberal government’s incompetence in the handling of the Kamloops claim, as well as the CBC’s role in knowingly misinforming the Canadian public about the “remains of 215 children found at Kamloops” when they knew from the outset that no “remains”, “bodies” or “ graves” were ever found.That is the only way out of this mess.Until that happens, for those interested in learning more about the Kamloops graves claim — perhaps the greatest fraud ever perpetrated upon Canadian taxpayers — consider reading Grave Error, edited by Tom Flanagan and Chris Champion.If you are interested in learning the truth about residential schools, read The Truth and Reconciliation Report.But if you do, avoid the summary volumes, which are polemics, and do not fairly summarize the extensive research contained in the report.Or read the new edition of From Truth Comes Reconciliation, edited by Rodney A. Clifton and Mark Dewolf.Brian Giesbrecht is a retired Manitoba judge. He was recently named the 'Western Standard Columnist of the Year.'
