Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.A Métis delegation stormed out of the BC legislature after controversial OneBC party leader Dallas Brodie questioned the narrative surrounding the Kamloops Indian Residential School (IRS). Brodie’s statement, while technically accurate, was deemed disrespectful, even “triggering,” by the delegation.Representatives of the Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC) visiting the legislature on Monday, November 17, fled the public gallery in apparent disgust as Dallas Brodie asked a straightforward question about Canada’s IRS system. Brodie’s question “felt incredibly disrespectful,” said Patrick Harriott, the organization’s acting vice-president. .ALBERS: Canada is risking its own collapse by sabotaging the West.“We have people, we have relatives that went to residential schools that witnessed these things, and so it’s denying all of those statements from all of those people and all that intergenerational trauma that’s still being carried.”This is a highly problematic assertion given that the IRSs were reserved for Indian status children, as defined by the Indian Act, a privilege that excluded Métis children.One member of the delegation was said to have been physically “triggered” by the question from the Vancouver-Quilchena MLA, Harriott said. “It’s visceral. It’s not an intellectual exercise for us. These are our family members’ stories.” .By way of background, earlier this year, Brodie was removed from the Conservative Party of BC by leader John Rustad for allegedly publicly mocking and belittling testimony from former residential school students, including mimicking individuals recounting unverified stories of abuses. Since then, she and Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong, who resigned from the BC Conservative Party, have formed a new party called OneBC. Though the new party holds only two seats in the legislature, they are entitled to participate in question period every day. On November 17, Brodie prefaced a question about a Kamloops court case involving aboriginal title with what her opponents interpreted as an attack on the Kamloops Indian Band..MINDERHOUD: Alberta's right to use notwithstanding clause to limit medical transitioning for minors.“For four years, the Kamloops Indian Band has been pretending to have found the remains of 215 murdered children, perpetuating the worst lie in Canadian history,” she said.Brodie was referring to the May 27, 2021 release by the Kamloops Band of a statement claiming preliminary findings from a survey of the site by ground-penetrating radar (GPR), combined with previous knowledge and oral history, showed that 215 children had been buried near the long-shuttered Kamloops IRS.The statement was roundly criticized not only for its lack of evidence but also for the presence of more plausible explanations for what was discovered by the GPR scans. This relentless attempt at truth-telling prompted the Band to change its tune three years after its first announcement. Band officials are now officially referring to the 215 remains of children as 200 “anomalies” — soil disturbances of unknown origin or contents — rather than confirmed graves. .Brodie’s statement and language, as “triggering” as they might be for some members of the Métis delegation, is therefore technically accurate.But at the time of the 2021 Kamloops announcement, politicians, media, and former prime minister Justin Trudeau eagerly accepted its contents together with hearsay evidence of “mass unmarked graves” and “burials of missing children.” The current “triggering” is the unfortunate legacy of the 2021 moral panic..OLDCORN: Alberta’s ‘Dual Practice Model’ — finally, a healthcare system that works for the people.So is the way a hysterical Trudeau regime dealt with this widespread moral panic by allocating over $12 million to the Kamloops Band for work related to the contents of the “unmarked graves,” nearly all of which went toward consultants, administration, and communications rather than archaeological excavation.Documents obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter through the Access to Information Act show that federal officials questioned what archaeological or forensic work was underway, noting that families had requested exhumation and DNA testing.The records, released only after an order from Information Commissioner Carolyn Maynard, censored nearly all details surrounding the $12.1 million..The department said in one bookkeeping entry, called Community Support Funding Envelope, that the First Nation hired 25 consultants to “provide advice and support to the Chief and Council” and paid publicists to develop “communications strategies.”In short, no murdered or missing children have ever been found in relation to either the Kamloops IRS or indigenous boarding schools like it across Canada where similar GPR searches have been undertaken.Still, the use of terms like “anomalies” and “possible burials” did nothing to prevent BC Attorney General Niki Sharma from employing the term “denialism” when responding to the government for Brodie’s claim. “I find myself often at a loss for words when this member raises what is a very painful and shameful line of denialism for residential schools,” she said. .CARPAY: How Ottawa ‘nudged’ a nation — Inside Canada’s covert behavioural science campaign.“On behalf of survivors in this House, I want to condemn that,” said Sharma. “We stand on the side of survivors that are searching for the truth and searching for us to stand with them in pursuit of that truth.”Harriott and about half a dozen other representatives of the Métis Nation British Columbia were visiting the legislature for Métis lobby days, which are linked to Louis Riel Day — observed on November 16, the anniversary of Métis leader Riel’s 1885 execution — and to meet with politicians, including Sharma, Premier David Eby, and John Rustad.Asked how OneBC’s approach compares with that of the other three parties represented in the legislature, Harriott was direct..“I think the other three parties aren’t overtly racist. So, you know, maybe I’ll just stop right there.” “My blood boils when I hear racism and ignorance,” said Debra Fisher, the MNBC’s director for the Kootenays. “I got triggered because I have heard the most horrendous stories that nobody should have to hear, but the worst thing is no child in this country, in this province, should ever have had to live it.”“When you hear these stories over and over again, from people all over the province at different schools, there’s no way in hell you’re going to tell me they’re not telling the truth,” she said. “I will always stand up for First Nations, I will always stand up for the Métis people, and the children that died in those places.”.KIRKHAM: One man's land is another man's great great great grandfather's fishing village — so what?.That Brodie continues to question the truth of what happened at residential schools is particularly infuriating, Fisher said. “When people are that ignorant, to me, they are privileged people,” she said.“How does somebody in her position get to talk like that in a place of Parliament where all should feel safe. Today I did not feel safe. There is no way in 2025, with everything that we know about residential schools, all that we’re trying to accomplish with reconciliation, that we should have even somebody like that in that House, let alone allowed to spew that kind of bullshit in it.” Fisher’s remarks ignore the elementary juridical fact that unsubstantiated hearsay evidence — any statement, either written or oral, which was made out of court but is presented in court to prove the truth of that statement — presented decades after the fact is considered inadmissible in legal proceedings, not the least because it could very well be bullshit.Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
