The media have barely covered an important indigenous story in the small BC city of Quesnel.It concerns the outrage, real or contrived, of its city council to the circulation of an edited collection of articles jointly published by True North and Dorchester Books called Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools.) It was distributed in the community by Pat Morton, the wife of Quesnel Mayor Ron Paull.The moral of this story is Canadians need to do some heavy lifting for a change by starting some hard conversations about “indigenous privilege.” On display was an absurd act of Orwellian censorship and infantile genuflection, a putrid brew of likely feigned respect for manufactured indigenous “knowings” by progressive-minded, non-indigenous Canadians consumed by undeserved racial guilt.The issue of the book’s alleged contents and distribution were addressed during the council’s March 19 meeting, following a letter from the tiny Lhtako Dene Indian Band expressing outrage over having to defend the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).No mention was made in the handful of mainstream media stories covering this issue that the TRC findings have been roundly criticized as biased, skewed and unverified in scores of carefully researched articles since its 2015 Final Report was released.One copy of Grave Error went to the parents of Councillor Tony Goulet, also president of the North Cariboo Métis Association. He complained, “With my dad going to residential school, he brought up a lot of stuff; let me tell you it was contesting that they didn’t exist. Those things are real and they did happen to indigenous people who went through the school and especially if you were just picked up and taken to the school and everything was taken away from you; so, very emotional, it was very hard for me to take.”Goulet’s father could not have been “just picked up and taken to the school.” After 1940, most school attendees were children rescued from orphaned, dysfunctional, neglectful or abusive homes. As for the rest, like other non-treaty Canadians, Métis people were excluded by the Indian Act from Indian Residential School support so his parents would have had to twist arms to get him admitted into an IRS. Moreover, all voluntary attendance at these schools for nearly their entire history required a signed application from parents or guardians.Goulet also left unsaid that none of the book’s writers have questioned the poor experiences of some of its students, especially those sent there from broken or orphaned homes, children who arrived already badly traumatized by their domestic experiences, traumas many carried with them to their graves.He also claimed he had read the entire book and that his main concern was its community circulation and distribution.“I’m not against people having their opinion, but … we’re doing an actual injustice by saying here is a book, here is something you should read and look at and form your own opinion. It’s very, very, very traumatizing. It’s very, very, very disrespectful, I think, to an indigenous community,” Goulet stated.How reading factual, logical, scholarly accounts presented impartially and dispassionately could be both traumatizing and disrespectful is unclear, as is Goulet’s contradictory way of addressing free speech: in a single sentence, he claims he isn’t against “people having their opinion,” but then contends he is against people having the wrong opinion.Other council members also criticized the distribution of the book. However, none appeared to be familiar with its contents or any of its possible errors, a logical fallacy called “appeal to ignorance.”The issue of the book’s distribution was front and centre at the March 19 council meeting in response to a letter from the 191-member Lhtako Dene Indian Band debunking the book’s contents and distribution:“It has come to our attention that … the book entitled: “Grave Error”… makes many harsh comments including: ‘truth has been turned into a casualty,’ implying that cultural genocide did not occur and basically questioning the existence of Indian Residential Schools.“The calling into question of what our Nation went through is a slap in our people’s collective faces and is very hurtful to them. The Nation has a significant number of members who suffered through attendance at a Residential School and today suffer through the long-term trauma of what they went through. The book adds to that hurt.”It is likely, as suggested, that these traumas were carried from home to school. The book’s contents, in turn, reveal that although integration with Euro-Canadian culture was their aim, “cultural genocide,” a politically loaded but extra-legal synonym for total assimilation, was neither attempted nor achieved by the schools. Mayor Paull also distanced himself from the book, an Amazon best seller with thousands of copies sold, and his wife’s local efforts to promote it. “I haven’t even opened it; I have looked at the cover, but to be honest, I have no interest in looking at it,” he said.How a duly elected public official in a democratic country could condemn the contents of a book he is unfamiliar with, in the process denouncing his wife for simply informing others of its existence, boggles the mind.The CBC and other media have claimed the book to which both Pew and I contributed was “hurtful,” a claim at the heart of contemporary “social justice” theory.This perversion of traditional justice says Western beliefs, values and practices — indeed, traditional Western civilization rooted in Enlightenment culture — are hostile forces fostering racism, inequality, oppression, and injustice.It should be clear an obsession with hurt indigenous feelings, real or contrived, will never achieve truth about anything. If this view keeps being rejected, it means that reconciliation with indigenous people will always require condemning books no one has read and accepting assertions that are known to be false, something freedom loving people need to always fight to prevent.Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, at the University of Manitoba. James Pew is an independent writer and researcher and the editor of Woke Watch Canada which covers the culture wars from a variety of angles, with an emphasis on the effects of esoteric academic inventions (i.e., Postmodernism and Critical Theory) on Canadian culture, education, and public policy
