Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is ruling out introducing COVID-19 vaccine passports and vowing to fight Ottawa if it pursues them.
“We’ve been very clear from the beginning that we will not facilitate or accept vaccine passports,” Kenney told reporters at a Calgary Stampede breakfast Monday.
“These folks who are concerned about mandatory vaccines have nothing to be concerned about, and there will be no vaccine passports in Alberta.”
Vaccine passports are official documents that confirm a person’s immunization status. The certification could be used by governments or private businesses to restrict the activities of unvaccinated individuals.
Kenney said he believes vaccine passports could contravene Alberta’s Health Information Act and the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Civil liberties experts have tended to agree with this assessment, noting the discriminatory nature of vaccine passports, and their effect of forcing the disclosure of private medical information.
Kenney went beyond simply refusing to adopt vaccine passports at the provincial level. He also vowed to resist any attempts by the federal government to mandate them.
Alberta’s hard line on vaccine passports comes as other Canadian provinces take early steps to implement them.
Quebec is developing a COVID-19 vaccine passport system that may be used in non-essential settings such as gyms, bars, restaurants, festivals and major sporting events. The province is expecting to have the program running in September.
Manitoba has begun issuing immunization cards to fully vaccinated individuals but says there are no plans to prevent unvaccinated people from accessing public services.
Ontario’s Seneca College announced Monday it would be requiring students returning to campus in the fall to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the first Canadian post-secondary institution to do so.
About 74% of Albertans 12 and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, provincial tracking data shows. Approximately 55% are fully vaccinated with two shots.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist issued a new caution about mixing COVID-19 vaccines from different manufacturers.
On Monday, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan called the mixing of vaccines “a little bit of a dangerous trend” that could lead to a “chaotic situation” in countries where citizens decide to take “a second, or a third, or a fourth dose.”
“We are in a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as mix and match. There are limited data on mix and match,” she said.
Swaminathan also said that while there has been data on the efficacy of a first dose of AstraZeneca followed by a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, there are limited data on the interchangeability of other vaccines.
In Canada, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) has advised Canadians that mixing vaccines is both safe and effective.
In June, federal officials advised Canadians that a first dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine can be combined with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots “unless contraindicated.” NACI also advises that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can be mixed for first and second doses.
“NACI has worked to quickly adapt this guidance on the use of COVID-19 vaccines in Canada to ensure optimal protection of Canadians at pace with the ever changing circumstances during this pandemic,” Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said at the time.
“This advice provides provinces and territories with safe and effective options to manage the vaccine programs,” she added.
The WHO’s comments left Canadian officials and doctors scrambling and defending the approach of mixing vaccines.
“In terms of the dose regimens and the recommendations, those are decisions that are at the end of the day made by the provinces and territories who are responsible constitutionally for the administration of health care in their individual jurisdictions,” said Procurement Minister Anita Anand.
“For our part, the federal government will continue to follow the science… as well as the guidance that’s coming out from other bodies.”
The Liberal government’s May 2020 order-in-council banning more than 1500 variants of firearms has not put a dent in gun crime, but it has harmed members of Canada’s firearms industry. Because of the overnight prohibitions, gun stores and distributors have been left with hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars in inventory that still, more than a year later, cannot be sold or even turned over to the government for compensation. Additionally, government consultation and direction has been virtually non-existent.
In this second part of Assaulted: Justin Trudeau’s War on Gun Owners, host Andrew Lawton talks to members of the firearms industry about how the measures have affected them, and how they’re surviving the uncertainty and lack of communication.
In this episode, Andrew speaks to Accuracy Plus manager Jeff Tombs, International Shooting Supplies owner Scott Carpenter, CSAAA managing director Alison De Groot, Savage Arms vice president Terry McCullough, Terry Korth and Adam Patterson of Korth Group, and Maccabee Defense founders Wyatt and Shaina Singer.
In Assaulted: Justin Trudeau’s War on Gun Owners, True North’s Andrew Lawton travels the country talking to real gun owners whose stories are being ignored by the mainstream media and who are being vilified by the Trudeau government.
We thank the generous supporters whose contributions made this project happen. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so at https://assaulted.ca
Thousands of Cubans filled the streets of Havana over the weekend in the largest anti-government protest on the communist island in decades.
Chanting “freedom” and “Diaz-Canel step down,” protesters voiced their disdain of the government in light of the worst economic crisis Cuba has faced since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Cuban regime’s lacklustre handling of the pandemic has resulted in a shortage of basic goods and a curbing of civil liberties and freedoms.
While many world leaders have voiced their support of the Cuban protesters, Canadian leaders have been relatively quiet.
Unlike their American counterparts who have condemned the Cuban government for grave human rights abuses, many Canadian leaders have fawned over the Cuban communist regime in the past.
True North compiled a list of Canadian public officials who have voiced their support for the Cuban communist regime:
1. Justin Trudeau
When former Cuban President Fidel Castro died in 2016, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could not hold back his tears. Trudeau released a glowing statement in memory of the communist leader.
“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation,” Trudeau said.
“I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba.”
“We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”
Prior to Castro’s death, Prime Minister Trudeau visited Cuba and tweeted a photo of himself receiving a gift of a photo album from the Castro family, commemorating the Trudeau family visit in 1976.
He saw a country wracked by poverty, illiteracy & disease. So he lead a revolution that uplifted the lives of millions. RIP #FidelCastropic.twitter.com/Ib6O0Zrtxv
Upon learning of Castro’s death in 2016, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh took to Twitter to admire the communsit dictator.
“He saw a country wracked by poverty, illiteracy & disease. So he lead a revolution that uplifted the lives of millions. RIP #FidelCastro,” tweeted Singh.
Captain James Cook. Queen Victoria. Queen Elizabeth II. Egerton Ryerson. Sir John A. Macdonald. James McGill.
The statues of these famous historical figures were all defaced, beheaded, torn down and removed over the last few weeks, mostly by an angry mob of leftist activists.
The anti-colonial activists who swooped in and attacked in cities where the first three statues were once located – Winnipeg and Victoria – deemed it retribution for the treatment of Indigenous children at Canada’s residential schools.
In Charlottetown, council voted at the end of May to remove the statue of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald–defaced several times – until they decide what to do with it.
In Toronto, the monument to Ryerson–located on the grounds of the university by the same name– was covered in red paint, beheaded and dragged off its footings by shrieking protesters who seemed to be out for blood. They dumped the head in Lake Ontario.
The statue of McGill was quietly removed from its place on the downtown campus on July 9.
It would seem that statues – at least those that provide an enduring memory to those who helped build the British empire and establish the Canada we know today – are quickly and not so quietly becoming extinct.
Without a second thought, the “woke” activists have determined that anyone they’ve deemed a colonialist – in an era where colonialism created our country – must be cancelled.
But at Toronto City Hall, the leftist councillors who support the activists and their peculiar brand of retribution have decided that an icon to one of their own is perfectly acceptable.
In true “progressive” style, it is not a cheap icon either.
A competition is on to create a $250,000 statue in honour of NDP councillor Pam McConnell who served in public office for 35 years.
The competition, which opened last week, invites artists of “diverse backgrounds” – in particular Indigenous, black and racialized artists – to apply before the Aug. 16 deadline.
The statue, according to the city notice, is to highlight the “outstanding contributions of the former political leader whose dedication to community and social justice facilitated solutions to many challenges facing lower-income communities.”
It is to be placed in the revitalized Regent Park, where McConnell lived after advocating for every step of the costly revitalization through council approvals.
A spanking new aquatic centre in the same development – with three swimming pools – has already been named after her. Additionally, she has a scholarship in her name – The Pam McConnell Award for Young Women in Leadership – to honour her “tireless advocacy for women’s rights and social justice in the City of Toronto.”
The statue and the aquatic centre naming were first raised as a possibility in July of 2018 in a motion put forward by a fellow leftist councillor and seconded by Mayor John Tory.
The statue didn’t get any further attention until this past May when Kristyn Wong-Tam, another leftist who represents much of McConnell’s ward, moved that some of her Section 37 money be used to create the statue. That motion was seconded, again by the mayor.
Never mind that Toronto’s politicians are spending $250,000 in the midst of a pandemic, during which many Torontonians lost their shirts. But even worse, the statue is being paid for using Section 37 funds.
For those unfamiliar with Toronto city council jargon, Section 37 money is paid by developers in exchange for increased density (usually in a condo development). It is supposed to go towards projects that provide “community benefits” – things like streetscape improvements, community and daycare centres, transit improvements and park and playground upgrades.
In all the years I’ve written about Section 37 money, I don’t recall it ever being used to erect a statue to a councillor.
A $350,000 statue to former NDP leader Jack Layton at the Toronto Ferry Terminal was paid for through fundraising efforts by the Ontario Federation of Labour.
A check of the going cost of life-sized statues show that icons like this are in the $35,000 range, at the very most $100,000.
But let’s revisit the entire crazy notion for a moment.
Statues of colonialists who brought settlers to our country – flawed like most of us but a product of their times – have been torched, covered in paint, beheaded and tossed in the lake, or ocean.
But a former city councillor, also imperfect, will have a life-sized colossus built in her honour – just because she’s viewed by those who control the purse strings at Toronto City Hall as having been progressive.
It will be erected on the grounds of a development she pushed through council from start to finish and where she bought herself a prime 1,200-square-foot condo – with a full wrap-around southwest-facing balcony – for a hugely discounted $418,464, without a second thought about the optics of a potential conflict.
The former deputy mayor was seen by the left-wing media as a champion of the poor even though she was always a top spender vis-a-vis her council expense account.
She often nearly hit her $50,000 limit.
She routinely racked up huge bills on taxis even though she had a free Metropass and, for years, she travelled from one part of Canada to the other for a federal municipal organization – spending up to $15,000 in tax money per year to do so.
As head of council’s poverty reduction strategy before her death at 71, McConnell presided over 17 recommendations – including one to make the TTC free for children 12 years and under.
As I first reported in 2019, over the four years she led that initiative, $181-million was spent on the plan – without any clue from the city’s bureaucrats monitoring the plan and whether it was money well-spent.
Now this isn’t to savage the 35-year politician.
It is merely to provide yet more evidence of the tremendous and frankly destructive double standard in the current Canadian political climate.
Not only are icons of leaders from 300 years ago being taken down. But in October of 2017, the same Toronto councillors cruelly turned down a simple naming of an Etobicoke football stadium after former mayor Rob Ford.
The decision to spend $250,000 on a statue to McConnell – perhaps seven times the cost in the real world – is yet more evidence of our upside-down topsy turvy political climate in Canada.
It is a climate that lionizes someone who is seen to possess the right political pedigree, and it demonizes those determined by current society to be privileged – no matter the flaws of both.
It’s a world that sees winners and losers in black and white.
Equalization payments aren’t just a problem for western Canadians, a new poll suggests, with a majority of Ontario residents finding the federal government’s redistribution of provincial wealth to be unfair.
A recent poll by the Toronto firm One Persuasion found that 73% of Ontarians believe it is unfair that equalization payments have risen 23% since 2015, making Ontario’s share of funding the program equivalent to roughly $2400 per family of four. Opposition was highest in the 905 region of suburban Toronto.
The equalization program is the federal government’s way of addressing fiscal disparities among provinces. However, in recent years, Alberta has paid more into the system even while its economy struggles, given the controversial formula used for calculating payments.
Fairness Alberta Executive Director Bill Bewick says it’s no surprise that Ontarians are fed up with the current equalization formula too.
“Ontarians have been funding unfairly high equalization payments for others while their own provincial government was struggling to pay for services even before COVID-19,” said Bewick.
“Given the collapse of the wealth gap between provinces, the so-called ‘have’ provinces should get the share of equalization that came from their taxpayers rebated until we achieve meaningful reforms to federal-provincial funding.”
While Alberta has been the most vocal opponent of the current equalization program, which will be challenged in an Alberta referendum this fall, Bewick believes more Canadians from other provinces are starting to realize how unfair the system currently is.
“The $21 billion-and-growing price tag for equalization is totally unnecessary and unaffordable given how much more equal provinces have become since 2015,” said Bewick.
“This isn’t just an Alberta problem. Ontario, B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland make up nearly 70% of Canada’s population and it has become obvious that the program is unfair to all of them.”
Last week, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole announced that if elected, and he would make the equalization program more fair for western provinces.
O’Toole’s proposal will allow Alberta to qualify for more funding and create a $5 billion “Equalization Rebate” to compensate the provinces like Alberta which have paid more into the system historically.
When it comes to the coverage of graves identified near residential schools in three First Nations communities, the legacy media in Canada has done a tremendous disservice to all Canadians – especially First Nations.
They have created a moral panic, and continue to fan the flames of racial division.
This panic came to a breaking point over the weekend, when prominent statues were knocked over and at least 25 churches in Western Canada were either vandalized or completely burnt down.
To make matters worse, several prominent commentators, including politicians, journalists, professors, lawyers and activists, excused the behaviour of the mob, explained away and justified these riots, and in some cases, even cheered them on.
“Burn it all down,” said the head of the BC Civil Liberties Association, once the country’s strongest voice for protecting the rule of law and civil liberties.
Likewise, the Chair of the Newfoundland Canadian Bar Association Branch said “Burn it all down”
Or how about this, from a radio host in St. John New Brunswick:
“Burn the churches down. Arrest any former staff that were actually there and any current staff that won’t provide documentation. Sell everything they own in Canada and give it to survivors. Dismantle it completely.”
Not to be outdone, NDP MP Niki Ashton cheered on the mob who toppled statues at the Manitoba legislature but calling it “decolonization” and saying there is “no pride in genocide.”
Finally, Justin Trudeau’s top advisor and best friend Gerald Butts said that burning churches isn’t cool, but it “may be understandable.”
How did we get here as a country?
Here are the six ways the legacy media in Canada got this story wrong.
1. Unverified Reports
It is standard practice in journalism to clarify whether or not an allegation has been proven, in court or otherwise. But when the Tk’emlups band issued a press release stating that they had used ground penetrating radar to locate 215 unmarked graves, the media accepted the story without question or any verification.
The band said a report was forthcoming in mid-June – but no report has been released to date. No evidence of any sort has been put forth for public consideration. We don’t know who carried out the research, whether it was a company or a university, or how the technology was used. At this point, we have a few claims, and nothing else.
This may be a minor point, but it’s an important distinction nonetheless.
2. What exactly was “discovered”?
There has been incredible confusion over what exactly was discovered, and media outlets have used tremendous liberty in describing what the bands have claimed.
JJ McCullough has made this point on Twitter, showing all the various ways the media have described what was discovered.
A lack of clarity among reporters regarding what ground-penetrating radar does seems to have led to a lot of inconsistency in how the Kamloops residential school discovery has been characterized. Which one do you think is the most accurate? (added the press release for context) pic.twitter.com/M25NLEUqy3
The first nation band leaders say they used ground penetrating radar.
To be clear: nothing was “uncovered.” No “bodies” were found. There was no excavation, nothing was unearthed, nothing was removed, no identities were confirmed.
So anything you may have read saying these graves belong to children, including some specific claims about the ages of these children, is speculation at this point.
Let me refer back to a National Post story that explains what ground penetrating radar actually does. They interviewed a professor of Anthropology who is also the director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology. She said this of ground penetrating radar:
“It doesn’t actually see the bodies. It’s not like an X-ray.”
“What it actually does is it looks for the shaft. When a grave is dug, there is a grave shaft dug and the body is placed in the grave, sometimes in a coffin, as in the Christian burial context. What the ground-penetrating radar can see is where that pit itself was dug, because the soil actually changes when you dig a grave. And occasionally, if it is a coffin, the radar can pick up the coffin sometimes as well.”
We’re talking about pretty rudimentary technology here, and a relatively imprecise process. The numbers are more or less a rough estimate.
So why have media reports been so bold in asserting these numbers as facts?
3. We don’t know whose graves were discovered
The Tk’emlups band claimed the graves belonged to children at the school. So when the second two bands (Cowessess and Lower Kootaney) came forth with their own claims, many in the media jumped to the conclusion that these too were the graves of children from residential schools.
But that wasn’t the claim made by the bands. In fact, in both Cowessess and Lower Kootaney, the graves are believed to be in community cemeteries, belonging to both First Nations and the broader Canadian community.
Tucked away at the very end of a report in the Globe and Mail on the findings at the Cowessess reserve in Saskatchewan, it said this:
“It appears that not all of the graves contain children’s bodies, Lerat (who is one of the band leaders) said. He said the area was also used as a burial site by the rural municipality.
“We did have a family of non-Indigenous people show up today and notified us that some of those unmarked graves had their families in them – their loved ones,” Lerat said.”
So what we have here is an abandoned community cemetery, where people of different backgrounds were buried.
That’s quite a leap from the original storyline that these graves belong to children who had died at a residential school.
4. NOT mass graves
These are not mass graves. Several media outlets, both in Canada and international outlets like the BBC, Al Jazeera, the New York Times and the Washington Post have recklessly and erroneously labeled these findings as mass graves.
How come so many media outlets described these as a "mass graves"? The words never appeared in the original news release from Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc either. The media just made it up. https://t.co/3iQYW1Afpl
All three chiefs themselves have explicitly stated these are not mass graves.
"This not a mass grave site, this is just unmarked graves" – Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme, telling @EvanLSolomon about how his community found 751 unmarked graves behind the Marieval Indian Residential School #cdnpolihttps://t.co/IqkI9TX9Pupic.twitter.com/EGpm2Wi9Q3
Mass graves are a hallmark of genocide. They conjure images of pure evil, the kind of evil that characterized collectivist governments in the 20th century.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
These were truly evil leaders who used mass graves to cover their atrocities and crimes against humanity. These leaders carried out mass murder, and the mass graves went hand in hand.
The use of the term mass graves is wrong, and it is reckless. It conflates Canada’s policy of forced assimilation through mandatory universal education, with Nazi death camps.
Let me be clear. Canada’s policy was wrong. It was misguided and in too many cases, those who were responsible for caring for children in this country let them down, and let all of us down.
But that does not put Canada’s residential schools on any level of equivalence with Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
It’s good to see that the Washington Post made a correction on their story. Others should follow.
5. Cause of death
Many children who died at these schools died of natural causes. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee report in 2015, the number one cause of death was Tuberculosis.
You can argue that these children didn’t receive proper health care, or that some of their immune systems could’t handle living in close proximity to other children.
But negligence resulting in accidental death is quite different from murder, which is what many in politics and the media have suggested.
It’s called Genocide, John. We better get used to the word. Historians will be using it with no qualifications, equivocations or asterisks. Canada must own these crimes. Canadians need to call it by its name. #Genocidehttps://t.co/rY4LbdZHTP
Since this news came out, there has been a near universal assumption in the media that these graves are evidence of Canada’s Holocaust, as if the children had been deliberately killed.
Genocide requires intent. It requires a concerted and systematic effort to conduct mass murder and eliminate an entire race of people.
Canada’s residential schools, however misguided, had the intent of educating children, assimilating them into the broader Canadian population, and ultimately lifting them out of poverty.
The policy was wrong, clearly. It was flawed and much harm resulted.
But there are a few orders of magnitude that separate the misguided intent of Catholic priests, nuns and Canadian government officials versus those of Nazi firing squads and gas chambers.
6. It’s possible these weren’t even unmarked graves.
Wooden graves, which were and are still the norm in First Nations communities in Western Canada, erode and disintegrate over time. It’s possible these were once marked graves.
This is the claim being made by the former chief in the Lower Kootenay region (the third band to have announced the finding of graves.)
This is from a Global News story (my emphasis added):
The detection of human remains in unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in B.C. was not an unexpected discovery, according to the area’s former chief.
On Wednesday, it was confirmed that ground-penetrating radar found 182 unmarked graves in a cemetery at the site of the former Kootenay Residential School at St. Eugene Mission just outside Cranbrook, B.C.
The remains were found when remedial work was being performed in the area to replace the fence at the cemetery last year.
Sophie Pierre, former chief of the St Mary’s Indian Band and a survivor of the school itself, told Global News that while the news of the unmarked graves had a painful impact on her and surrounding communities, they had always known the graves were there.
“There’s no discovery, we knew it was there, it’s a graveyard,” Pierre said. “The fact there are graves inside a graveyard shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”
According to Pierre, wooden crosses that originally marked the gravesites had been burned or deteriorated over the years. Using a wooden marker at a gravesite remains a practice that continues to this day in many Indigenous communities across Canada.
So when we’re talking about so-called unmarked graves, at least in the context of the Lower Kootenay Band, what we are more likely talking about is abandoned graves at an existing cemetery.
Abandoned graves where people of different backgrounds — not just children from residential schools — were buried.
What an amazing leap to go from an uncared for community cemetery to mass graves, mass murder and genocide.
Mark Twain once said to never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Well for journalists, they might say never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.
Has the media narrative about the graves found near former residential schools gotten away from the facts? You be the judge.
It’s been six weeks since the Chief of the Tk’emlups band in Kamloops, B.C. announced that 215 unmarked graves were found using ground-penetrating radar on the grounds of a former residential school. On May 27, the band said that a preliminary report would be released in mid-June.
It’s now mid-July, and no report has been released. Multiple emails from the Sun asking for the report have been ignored.
On June 24, another discovery was announced — this time in Saskatchewan, where Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme announced an even bigger finding: 751 unmarked graves.
Media reports were quick to characterize the graves as belonging to children who attended the nearby Marieval Indian Residential School. But according to a band councillor, that’s not necessarily the case.
“It appears that not all of the graves contain children’s bodies,” Jon Z. Lerat told the Globe and Mail, noting that this was also the burial site used by the rural municipality.
“We did have a family of non-Indigenous people show up today and notified us that some of those unmarked graves had their families in them — their loved ones,” Lerat said. Delorme added that oral stories said the graves belong to “both children and adults” as well as “people who attended the church or were from nearby towns.”
Unlike the Tk’emlups band — who claims the unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of the former residential school — the unmarked graves at Cowesses are in an existing cemetery. Delorme noted that the graves were once marked, but that the markings were removed at some point.
Interestingly, the same band was in the news two years ago touting its relationship with the local Catholic Church — after the church donated $70,000 to the Cowessess Band for the purpose of helping to “identify unmarked graves, and add fences and trees in the Cowessess Cemetery.”
“This is true truth and reconciliation,” said Chief Delorme in 2019, “this is showing our kids that we can overcome and move forward.”
The 2019 news reports were more cautious about asserting that these graves belonged to children. This is how it was described in the local Postmedia paper, the Regina Leader-Post:
“Because many graves are unmarked, it’s difficult to tell if any children from Marieval were buried there, but the Archdiocese said it’s likely because the school was in operation for so long and it was the community’s only burial site.”
Emails and phone calls to the Cowessess Band went unreturned. It is unclear whether the 751 unmarked graves announced in June 2021 are the same as the graves discussed in the media in June 2019. It is also unclear how the Band spent the $70,000 donated by the church to upgrade the cemetery.
Next, on June 30, 2021, a third band, the Lower Kootenay Band near Cranbrook, B.C., announced its own finding of 182 unmarked graves.
Once again, the media emphasized a connection with the St. Eugene Mission Residential School — again implying these graves belong to children.
Like the Cowessess cemetery graves, the Lower Kootenay unmarked graves are within an existing cemetery — and again the cemetery was used by the broader community.
Perhaps this is why former chief Sophie Pierre told Global News: “there’s no discovery, we knew it was there, it’s a graveyard.”
“The fact there are graves inside a graveyard shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”
Pierre declined an interview with the Sun.
The history of this cemetery is complex. Records show it was established in 1865 — 50 years before the residential school opened. In 1874, the cemetery began servicing the only local hospital in the Cranbrook region.
The Lower Kootenay Band was clear about these points in their original news release, noting that the graves were originally marked.
“Graves were traditionally marked with wooden crosses and this practice continues to this day in many Indigenous communities across Canada. Wooden crosses can deteriorate over time due to erosion or fire which can result in an unmarked grave.”
“These factors, among others, make it extremely difficult to establish whether or not these unmarked graves contain the remains of children who attended the St. Eugene Residential School.”
While the media and agenda-driven activists characterize these findings as proof of genocide at Canada’s residential schools, the facts seem to show something far less ominous.
Instead, we see uncared for graves (that were previously marked) on the grounds of existing community cemeteries (servicing a broad range of society) under the care of First Nations bands — a lot less sensational, but a lot more accurate.
On Sunday, Saskatchewan lifted all COVID-19 public health restrictions – including the province’s mandatory mask mandate. This is the case in many jurisdictions, including Alberta and BC, but not in Ontario.
The Ontario government doesn’t have a plan to fully reopen the province. When will Premier Doug Ford follow in the footsteps of provinces like Saskatchewan and fully reopen the province?
The Trudeau government is to blame for Canada’s sluggish job numbers in June, according to Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre.
On Friday, Poilievre held a press conference to respond to the latest unemployment numbers. Statistics Canada revealed that the country lost 33,000 full-time positions in the month of June despite provinces reopening their economies and lifting or easing public health restrictions.
“This is a massive surprise. We thought the economy was reopened. It was assumed there would be a massive surge in job gains, but in fact 33,000 Canadians lost their full-time jobs,” Poilievre said.
Canada lost 33,000 jobs in June. Pierre Poilievre called Justin Trudeau's economic record "disastrous". Do you agree?#cdnpolipic.twitter.com/aC1g6Dw41f
Since the early months of the pandemic, the Conservatives have been sounding the alarm on Trudeau’s unprecedented spending but to no avail.
Canada’s federal debt surpassed $1 trillion dollars this year following a frenzy of pandemic spending by the ruling Liberal government. Further, in its latest budget, the government revealed a whopping deficit of $354 billion with no plan to pay down the debt and balance the books.
“This is a disastrous economic record – one we warned about and the government ignored our warnings, and now Canadians are suffering the consequences for their failures,” Poilievre said.
Poilievre pointed the finger at the Trudeau government for Canada’s poor economic performance last month.
“When it comes to overall employment, the government fell 340,000 jobs short of its budget promise to regain all of the lost jobs from the pandemic,” the Conservative MP said.
“So in other words, they broke their promise. We’re actually losing full-time jobs, we have the second-highest unemployment in the G7, the biggest deficit in the G20 as a share of our GDP, housing prices are up 30% in one year making homeownership impossible for most Canadians and inflation is at a 10-year-high.”
