GIESBRECHT: Lawyers should apologize for false accusations

Most Canadians suspect by now that the Kamloops claim — namely that the remains of 215 children had been discovered on the grounds of the former residential school — was false from the start. Only soil anomalies — not “remains, bodies or graves” — had been detected by an inexperienced radar operator. She mistakenly concluded that returning radar signals indicated graves, rather than what are almost certainly hundred-year-old sewage trenches.Only excavation can conclusively prove that no graves exist. However, the Tk’emlups Indian Band that made the claim refuses to excavate, and also refuses to release the radar operator’s report. They refuse to do those things for the obvious reason that by now they have no confidence that there are “remains, bodies, or graves” there to be found. This, despite the fact that they have somehow spent a $12 million government grant given to them for the specific purpose of excavating..The claim was not only false, it was highly suspicious from the start. Chief Rosanne Casimir effectively said that 215 children had attended school one day, and then simply disappeared. If that was the case, how is it that there is not one single report of a parent reporting a missing child? Or, for that matter, why would the Indian band build a tourist centre on top of hidden graves of children, if they always knew that the graves were there?None of it made sense from the start. The claim that priests were somehow killing and secretly burying children, and forcing six-year-olds to dig the graves, had the stink of the anti-Catholic conspiracy theory it always was.It was only the unfortunate combination of reckless political leaders, an incompetent media, and a politicized RCMP that turned what should have been easily recognized as a rehashed Kevin Annett conspiracy theory into a national hysteria..Investigative reporter, Terry Glavin, tells both the story of the charlatan, Kevin Annett, and how Annett’s unhinged stories exposed the incompetence of Canada’s leaders, and Canada’s government-subsidized media in his Year of the Graves.It all played out like a Keystone Cops movie, with Justin Trudeau in the starring role. We had the former PM pretending that the community cemetery, where he knelt theatrically with a teddy bear, was a residential school cemetery. (It wasn’t.) He had his thoroughly incompetent Indigenous Affairs Minister, Marc Miller, promise cash from a $320 million fund to any other indigenous community that wanted to make a similar claim. (They jumped at the offer of “free” money.) Finally, he had a politicized RCMP turn over the investigation of what was alleged to be a major crime to the same Indian band that had made the bogus claim in the first place.The result was that the patently false claim that should have been quickly recognized as the childish conspiracy theory or ghost story clearly became a national mania..CBC failed to do even minimal investigation. Instead, it immediately flooded the zone with false claims of “bodies, remains and graves” found. The anxiety level then got pushed up to Auschwitz levels, when a New York Times article, authored by Ian Austen, claimed — on absolutely no evidence whatsoever — that it was a “mass grave” that had been discovered. That article — perhaps the worst piece of misinformation ever put out by NYT — has never been corrected. Quillette’s Jon Kay asks when that correction will be made.But one group of people who jumped on this “mass grave” bandwagon in a very big way have now gone silent. This was a prominent group of lawyers who made a huge splash when they first accused their own country, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, and everyone who ever had anything to do with residential schools during the entire history of the schools — 1883-1998 — of the most serious crimes known to mankind.But they weren’t content to keep their claim within Canada. They made it into an international event..These lawyers demanded that the International Criminal Court investigate Canada, the Vatican, and anyone else involved with residential schools for committing the most egregious crimes. In the letter to the ICC that they had published in major newspapers lead counsel, Brendan Miller, alleged the following:“What happened to these 215 children, and likely others in other mass graves in and around residential schools throughout Canada, is evidence of murder, extermination, forcible transfer of a population, rape/sexual slavery, persecution against an identifiable group, enforced disappearance of persons, apartheid, and general inhumane acts,”“In short, the 215 children were victims of crimes against humanity at the hands of the agents, employees, and actors of the GOC (Government of Canada) and the Vatican. There are likely far more such victims beyond these 215 children.”The letter was highly publicized, and became the subject of opinion articles, like this one by Postmedia columnist, Donna Kennedy Glans, who was one of the lawyers who signed the inflammatory letter..That letter and the articles that followed caused shock waves across the country, and indeed throughout the international community. Countless sensational newspaper articles were written throughout Canada and the world.As for evidence, the lawyers offered none. I am one of a group of writers and researchers who have never believed the Kamloops claim, and have written articles for the past few years saying exactly that, and offering proof. When the Kamloops claim was first made on May 27, 2021, I immediately wrote an article for a newspaper I was writing for at the time setting out the reasons why the claim could not possibly be true. For writing that I was threatened, subjected to vilification, and the newspaper I was writing for was threatened with economic sabotage if it didn’t take the article down. It did. .Here is an example of the hateful response my column received.Others writing similar articles, or saying similar things — like BC teacher. Jim McMurtry, who was fired from his teaching job for simply telling his students the truth — namely that priests did not torture, murder and secretly bury children — had similar experiences.My point is that the national hysteria over the supposed “missing children” at Kamloops and elsewhere was intense at the time these lawyers made their sensational claim, and their horrific accusation only took it higher. One would expect that if anyone would carefully check their facts, and do their research before making such an incredibly incendiary claim it would be professionally trained lawyers, some of whom are QC’s.Did they do their due diligence? After all, lawyers are expected to be very careful before going public with a claim. I know, because I am a lawyer. We take courses on “Evidence”. We make our living as lawyers and judges by closely examining the evidence on which weighty civil and criminal cases depend. We are expected to be very careful before making accusations.And some of the required investigation was easily done. When the Kamloops claim was made I did a two minute Google search on ground penetrating radar. I was informed that radar can’t definitively find anything. Only excavation can do that. For example, if a GPR operator thinks that radar signals could be a grave or “remains” it is essential to excavate before making a claim.. Did these lawyers even take those two minutes before firing off their explosive letter? Apparently not, because if they had they would not based their letter on the false claim that “graves”, “bodies” and “mass graves” had been discovered.Nothing came of their demand letter. The ICC turned down their request, and the lawyers went quiet.If they had taken the time to do some research before writing their letter, there is plenty of relevant information available. Researcher Nina Green, perhaps Canada’s leading expert on the subject, could have enlightened them here, here, or here.Or the lawyers could have read Tom Flanagan’s “Grave Error”, Clifton and DeWolf’s “From Truth Comes Reconciliation” or any of the essays written by Frances Widdowson, Hymie Rubenstein or many other fine writers and researchers, who have taken the time to research and study the topic. They would have found, for example, that their claim that indigenous children were all “forced to attend” residential schools was simply not true..More important, they would have found that there was nothing to their claim that “graves” and “mass graves” had been found. They would also have discovered that all of the other overheated rhetoric in their letter were simply stories people tell each other in any community, or on Facebook — what these lawyers would recognize as the weakest kind of hearsay evidence.In short, these lawyers could have done exactly what lawyers are expected to do, namely take the time to study the evidence, and research their case before pushing the nuclear button. There is no evidence that they did any of that.How much damage did their complaint do within Canada? We know that the Kamloops RCMP were copied with the lawyers’ letter at almost exactly the same time that the RCMP decided not to actively investigate the Tk’emlups claim, and instead to turn any investigation over to the Tk’emlups Indian band. It is highly probable that if the RCMP had properly investigated, they would have quickly concluded that there was no merit to the complaint. Canada would have been spared four years of angst and uncertainty about 215 “missing children” who never existed. Was it the lawyers’ letter that caused the Kamloops RCMP to call off the investigation that they should have done? How much damage did their letter do to Canada’s international reputation? For instance, is it that letter that misinformed the late Pope, and resulted in his unfortunate “genocide” remarks, remarks that probably convinced our hapless MPs to convict their country of genocide on false evidence, with their genocide motion?How much damage did it do to indigenous communities, who already believe, based on specious claims like this, that their country is racist and genocidal?We have no way of knowing how much damage their letter caused. But doesn’t it make sense that these prominent lawyers should now apologize for making that false “mass graves” claim?.Or maybe that is asking too much of them. After all, for reasons that we will probably never fully understand, Canada went through some kind of post-COVID period of hysteria following that Kamloops claim. Normally reasonable and prudent Canadians were for some reason prepared to instantly accept the truly weird story that Catholic priests and nuns somehow killed and secretly buried their students — and forced six year olds to dig the graves. 215 times! There is nothing even remotely like that in our history books.Why so many Canadians were prepared to believe such obvious nonsense is now hard to understand. Lionel Shriver, in her book, “Mania - How Societies Go Crazy” discusses these “manias” or “hysterias” that occur from time to time.Perhaps the best known historical example of this phenomenon would be the Salem Witch Trials, a time when normally reasonable citizens went quite crazy.We saw it in the 1980s, when normally sensible people in both Canada and United States became convinced that satanic cults had taken over day care centres. Or more recently, after the death of George Floyd, when a year of protests, violence and mayhem took place, with participants convinced that black men were being murdered in great numbers by police.That particular mania, or social hysteria, was probably related to the hysteria that took hold of a housebound population during the COVID lockdown years. Canada was an extreme case, where most people not only tolerated — but insisted upon — the most draconian violations of civil rights.It seems quite likely that those strange lockdown years paved the way for the even stranger willingness of so many to believe the always implausible claim of legions of ghoulish priests and nuns forcing six year olds to dig graves for fresh victims — 215 times!The year following the Kamloops claim was Canada’s year of nuttiness, mania, social hysteria, or whatever you want to call it..So, maybe these lawyers were just caught up in the moment. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect any more from them than we do from anyone else.But, I don’t believe that. I believe that there is a higher bar for these professionals. Without adequate research and investigation they used their privileged position in society to publicly accuse this country, its government, the Roman Catholic Church, and every one of the tens of thousands of decent Canadians who worked in the residential school system, of the most heinous crimes. They ramped up the hysteria when they should have been doing the exact opposite. They owe us an explanation.And they owe Canadians an apology.Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

GIESBRECHT: Lawyers should apologize for false accusations

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