Canada was once renowned for living its national motto; peace, order, good government. Today, the country is rocked by the ongoing burning and vandalism of more than 100 Catholic and other Christian churches. In the wake of claims of a mass grave of indigenous children found at a former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC, the prime minister originally claimed when the burnings began that this violence was ‘understandable.' That set the tone for the on-going silence from the Ministers of Justice, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.This week, Conservative MP Corey Tochor called for unanimous consent in the House of Commons to denounce the church burnings, the most recent attack being against Blessed Sacrament Parish church in Regina, SK. This attack occurred on the eve of Lent.The motion received catcalls.Church leaders too, are silent, perhaps still shell-shocked by the Kamloops claims. Those claims were debunked by Terry Glavin himself, who deconstructed them in his May 26 2022 column in the National Post titled: “The Year of the Graves: How the media got it wrong on residential school graves.”Research by Nina Green and others on land use in the area has revealed the claimed 215 graves in Kamloops — only ever observed as ‘disturbances’ by Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) — are more likely the clay tiles of an abandoned septic trench.Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Gary Anandasangaree, is said to be ”an internationally recognized human rights lawyer and community activist who has advocated tirelessly for education and justice.”Why then is Minister Anandasangaree not speaking out in defence of the >50% population of Canada who are Christians? This includes the 10 million Catholics, of which as many as 500,000 are indigenous, and an additional 152,000 are Christians of other denominations.The Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs bio states: “previously worked as a social worker at Winnipeg’s Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, an indigenous family resource centre that delivers community-based programs and services.” Surely he must know how devastating these church burnings are for indigenous families of faith.Also silence from the Honourable Arif Virani, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who according to his bio was “an analyst with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa, an investigator at the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse in Montréal, and an assistant trial attorney prosecuting genocide at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.” So he’s actually been part of legal work on genocide. Seems he would know that for such a claim one needs actual evidence.Are they all silent because they know, as former Manitoba provincial court judge Brian Geisbrecht revealed in his recent Western Standard column, that the claim of mass graves in the Kamloops orchard on the grounds of the former Indigenous Residential School was the trigger that pushed through the legislation for the United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP.) Did UNDRIP thus become law through false pretences? There is no doubt that it is now turning the country upside down. Canadians and parliamentarians were deceiving and guilted into rapidly adopting legislation that six provinces were questioning. And now Canadian Catholics and other Christians are being victimized by domestic terrorism in the form of arson and vandalism. Hate crimes against Canadian Catholics were up 260% in 2021 but none of these ministers with glowing human rights records are denouncing the violence.Neither are the ministers of crown-indigenous relations, nor the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, saying a word about the Blue Quills First Nations Acimowin Opaspiw Society (AOS) which has been actively engaged in desecrating graves, with more than 100 incidents reported. While an accidental exposure of an unmarked grave in the historic Sacred Heart mission cemetery might be understandable, the wanton digging has continued since 2004, as reported by AOS in various news conferences. At a recent press conference, with Crown-Indigenous Relations people present, but off-camera and unnamed, the AOS had Dr. Soren Blau of the International Commission on Missing Persons to testify that a photo of skeletal remains, reportedly dug up at the former Sacred Heart mission graveyard, appears to be that of a child under five years old.As I have written in a much longer personal commentary on this topic, “...disturbing human remains is contrary to Canadian criminal law and to all Catholic and Christian tenets. To be precise: Section 182 of the CC makes it a crime to “improperly interfere” with human remains.”But at the press conference, everyone seemed fine with the desecration of graves. Apparently people don’t realize that it is the historic Sacred Heart church community graveyard that is being disturbed, where Catholics from the entire region were buried by their families with proper burial rites. Yet we are now led to believe that these unmarked graves are those of the former Indian Residential School. Is this the evidence of ‘genocide’ people are ghoulishly hoping for?Department of Indian Affairs detailed records show that only 10 children sadly died during the 33 years of that school’s operation at that site (1898-1931). All but one have signed death certificates. Most died of tuberculosis, which was endemic at the time. Several of the children’s bodies were returned to their home reserves, far away, for burial. So, the bodies of all 10 are not even there.The phantom genocide appears to be one that is ‘in the making.’ And it looks like Canada’s government is fine with domestic terrorism. Against peace-loving Christians who have been blood libelled.
