I asked the other day if the Senate committee that voted 7-1 was willing to incarcerate Chief Aaron Pete for “residential schools denialism” for daring to say something positive about residential schools..GIESBRECHT: Will the Senate send Chief Aaron Pete to jail for residential school ‘denialism’?.Well-known journalist Terry Glavin has now offered to join Chief Aaron Pete in jail if the rogue senators got their way and criminalized anyone who says anything positive about residential schools. Fortunately, the Senate rejected “residential school denialism.”.Isn’t it time for the Prime Minister to speak up about this direct assault on free speech? Because there is no doubt that Robert Carney, Mark’s father, would have been in jail long ago for “residential school denialism” if these irresponsible senators got their way.Robert Carney was a highly respected educator a generation ago. He was intimately involved with residential schools and all aspects of education in the North..GIESBRECHT: Carney's father taught in the indigenous school system.The activist group hankering for “denialism” laws certainly condemns Robert Carney as a “denialist.” Mind you, they condemn everyone who participated in the education of Indian children as such. Short of making it illegal for Indian children to attend school, it is difficult to see what would satisfy these pretend professors and assorted grifters. .Here is how they describe Robert Carney: “Like many prominent politicians, from John A. Macdonald to Jean Chrétien, Robert Carney is complicit in the wider web of schooling targeting Indigenous children.”Simply put, to those people, Robert Carney and every educator involved with the education of Indian children must be considered a “denialist” for daring to think that they were participating in a worthy enterprise.The CBC perspective is just a more sophisticated version. They take particular umbrage at Carney’s use of the term “culturally retarded.” But they don’t recognize that this is a classic case of “presentism” in which yesterday’s terms and values are considered only in the context of today’s language and values. It is just a fact that the word “retarded” has undergone a transformation in the last generation or so. When I attended school in the 1950s and 1960s, every major elementary school had a class for the “retarded.” Educators regularly used that term and found nothing wrong with it. The term has now fallen out of fashion and has been replaced by terms such as “mentally challenged.”Similarly, Robert Carney is criticized for using the term “negro.” The problem is that that term was universally used when Robert Carney was actively employed..LISTEN: Mark Carney's father — racist colonizer on Indian land or education pioneer? .But, except for the use of those terms, CBC finds it difficult to find reasons why Robert Carney’s words and writings should be considered unacceptable. Here’s what he says about his efforts to instill pride in the students in their Indian or Eskimo culture, the terms then in use.“We want them to not forget their origins, or not to forget their backgrounds and to instill in them a sense of pride and a sense of belonging: that the culture from which they come is a good culture.”.Who can possibly find fault with that?Or this: “Robert Carney went on to argue much of what pre-Confederation missionaries did concerning Indigenous schooling was intended to help Native people to adjust to a changing environment.""Those who 'came to teach' European values and skills to aboriginal people during the period [...] often failed to achieve their objectives," he wrote in 1995, "but their efforts in this regard cannot be viewed as being wholly destructive or ill-intended."Those are reasonable statements that are just as relevant and reasonable now as they were when Robert Carney first made them.But what Robert Carney’s critics really don’t like is the fact that he was very critical of the Truth and Reconciliation process and report.Robert Carney didn’t pull any punches on this one. He slammed the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples as one-sided and imbalanced..Here’s how he put it: "The problem is that the Aboriginal perspective dominates virtually everything that is said," Carney wrote. Consequently, he added, "Aboriginal residential schools are invariably cast in an unfavourable light.""This is clearly a slanted account of these institutions, and therefore should be viewed cautiously because, to cite one of its problems, it tells only part of the story."He also criticized one-sided books, such as Celia Haig-Brown's 1988 book on the Kamloops Indian Residential School. He claimed they presented an "unidimensional view" that overemphasized traumatic events while ignoring the levels of ambiguity and contradiction found in positive alumni.And that’s exactly the problem — the current residential school narrative tells only one side of the story. It simply chooses to ignore the positive side of the country’s worthy efforts to educate Indian children.And now, if these senators had got their way, no one would be allowed to tell the other side of the problem. If they got their way, people like Robert Carney would not be allowed to speak or write..GIESBRECHT: Will the Senate send Chief Aaron Pete to jail for residential school ‘denialism’?.The Prime Minister has disowned his distinguished father’s residential school writings and comments. .GIESBRECHT: Mark Carney threw his father under the bus .I suppose that’s just something called “politics.” But the Prime Minister must step in and disown these rogue senators who are making Canada look absolutely foolish on the world stage. International publications are starting to notice Canada’s strange descent into some dark place on hyper-exaggerated claims about secret burials, torture, etc. It is time for our leader to speak candidly about these foolish people.
