In his March 5 Western Standard opinion piece, “Can we handle the truth? Or should we all join the cult?” Jim McCrae nicely captures the double-standard in the presentation of evidence about the effects on indigenous people of the European colonization of Canada, particularly the consequences of the attendance of aboriginal children at government-sponsored Indian Residential Schools (IRSs.).According to McCrae, “Since May 27, 2021 when the Kamloops Indian Residential School (IRS) story broke about mass graves, unmarked graves, reflections, anomalies, etc., and the many searches following, it seems some Canadians ‘can’t handle the truth,’ to borrow a phrase from Jack Nicholson in the motion picture A Few Good Men.”.McCrae was expressing a well-founded concern about multiple truths held by multiple actors, each as worthy of acceptance as the other. This is the foundational axiom of postmodern thinking, a paradigm that's grown over the past five decades to challenge both the Scientific Revolution that began in the early 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment that followed it by 100 years, both occurring in Western Europe and both resulting in the rise of the modern civilization this world view constantly denigrates..Applied to indigenous issues, particularly aboriginal grievances, McCrae argues:.“We hear from inquiry commissioners, indigenous leaders, journalists, politicians, activists, and others that we must believe ‘her truth, ‘his truth,’ and ‘their truth.’ This phenomenon is somewhat new. Perhaps it arose from the Me Too movement, from social media or elsewhere, but there was a time when 'the Truth' was all that was needed to help us form opinions, make important decisions, teach our children, develop public policy and live our lives.”.This is the first and least important of the three errors in McCrae’s analysis. Challenging universal truths, even scientific ones, was never erased even by the Enlightenment. The main difference today is that, beginning in the late 1950s, French philosophical postmodernism has slowly but surely influenced, even captured, the main pillars of Western society: higher education, political governance, the judiciary, the mainstream media, and the Indian Industry..McCrae’s second and more serious error centres on his obsessive concern about the alleged role of Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) charged with reporting on the history, operation, and legacy of Canada’s IRS system, an indigenous man he claims has single-handedly tried to destroy the foundations of contemporary Western civil and criminal justice..To be sure, as Best correctly asserts, civil jurisprudence based on a balance of probabilities and criminal justice based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, are “relied upon daily in courts across Canada and in other jurisdictions where [verifiable] truth informs verdicts.”.But this is totally irrelevant to the organization and operation of the TRC, a body not even created to function as a quasi-legal tribunal charged with upholding the ancient Justinian notion that “Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies.”.The TRC was officially launched in 2008 as part of the previous year’s Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), a consensus reached between legal counsel for former IRS students, legal counsel for the churches, the Assembly of First Nations, other indigenous organizations, and the Government of Canada..The IRSSA, the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history included individual and collective elements to address the legacy of the IRSs. In all, 38,276 claims for compensation were submitted. Overall, the government paid out $3.23 billion in compensation and other costs. The process itself cost another $411 million..The most important collective element of the IRSSA was the establishment of a TRC whose official mandate is found in Schedule "N" of the Agreement. Central to this mandate was the provision that the TRC must provide those individuals directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian Residential School system an opportunity to freely share their stories and/or experiences..Schedule “N’s” terms of reference for the TRC’s deliberations clearly spells out the commission was not a formal judicial entity, but was formed to allow the various parties to openly express whatever truths they held without fear of interrogation, substantiation, or contradiction, regardless of their accuracy or Western legal standing..In particular, Schedule “N” states that the TRC: “shall not hold formal hearings, nor act as a public inquiry, nor conduct a formal legal process;" “shall not possess subpoena powers, and do not have powers to compel attendance or participation in any of its activities or events:” “may adopt any informal procedures or methods they may consider expedient for the proper conduct of the commission events and activities, so long as they remain consistent with the goals and provisions set out in the commission's mandate statement;” “may, at its discretion, hold sessions in camera, or require that sessions be held in camera;" “shall perform their duties … without making any findings or expressing any conclusion or recommendation, regarding the misconduct of any person, unless such findings or information has already been established through legal proceedings, by admission, or by public disclosure by the individual."."Further, the commission shall not make any reference in any of its activities or in its report or recommendations to the possible civil or criminal liability of any person or organization, unless such findings or information about the individual or institution has already been established through legal proceedings;" “shall require in camera proceedings for the taking of any statement that contains names or other identifying information of persons alleged by the person making the statement of some wrong doing, unless the person named or identified has been convicted for the alleged wrong doing. The commissioners shall not record the names of persons so identified, unless the person named or identified has been convicted for the alleged wrong doing. Other information that could be used to identify said individuals shall be anonymized to the extent possible;" “shall ensure that the conduct of the Commission and its activities do not jeopardize any legal proceeding.”.In short, McCrae’s assertion “Cross-examination played no part in Sinclair’s system of determining truth, the truth for which his commission was named, and the truth that everyone says is required before there can be reconciliation among Indigenous and other Canadians” is not only irrelevant but a gross distortion of the extra-legal mandate of the TRC.".McRae and I can certainly damn the federal government for agreeing to these TRC terms of reference, ones I consider reprehensible in a democratic society governed by laws and processes that should apply equally to all citizens..But neither of us should arbitrarily damn Murray Sinclair, the two other commissioners or hundreds of others who accepted their appointments and diligently applied these terms of reference — regardless of whether they personally agreed with them or not — simply for doing so..McCrae’s third error is based on his assertion that Justinian-rooted justice was “dispensed in favour of unsworn and unverified statements given by former IRS students whose stories would form the basis for their compensation, and the amount of it.”.This statement and others that follow not only reinforce his second error, but reveals he's dead wrong to assert any compensation other than personal expenses was given for the 7,000 or so testimonies of former IRS students at TRC hearing — though many may have received huge previous sums under the other provisions of the IRSSA..In short, it's a falsehood to state “unsworn, untested and unverified stories have resulted in billions of taxpayers’ dollars awarded to former IRS students as compensation for their school experiences, presented to the TRC as ‘their truths.’ ”.McCrae ends his opinion piece asking the following three questions: “What has happened to us? Have we become a cult, whereby anyone who questions its leadership is shunned, shamed, fired, persecuted and — perhaps ultimately — prosecuted? Will some perverse form of excommunication follow?”.Though McCrae should be commended for the many important and thoughtful observations in this essay, I end my examination with one simple question: Is James McCrae the leader of his very own careless research cult?.I say this with no ill intent or mean spiritedness but only to warn those who would challenge the prevailing “woke” orthodoxy they must be like Caesar's wife, free from suspicion let alone accusation, when it comes to indigenous issues if they wish their views to be respected..Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, The University of Manitoba
