John Bolton - May 21, 2026


How To Use A Shovel - A Guide For Residential Schools

Topics
unmarked graves in Alberta satirical prank shows are a crime
Hosted by
John Bolton
Mentioned
John Whittleson Lisa Francis Whittowson Elliot Knopp Jason Levine Trudeau Borat
Premier Smith Will Call An Independence Referendum - Thank You Thomas Lukaszuk？ BREAKING! Mitch Sylvestre Is NOT Happy... To Say The Least

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

168.28

Word count

2,031

Sentence count

147

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, John talks about an infuriating news story and why you should not be yelling at the radio because of it. The story is a story that has been around for a long time, but it has been spread around the media like manure across the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John. I'm out in my backyard right now doing a little bit of gardening. I've got a
00:00:05.520 question for you. Let's assume there is something under the ground right here in my backyard. If I
00:00:13.040 were to use this shovel right now and start digging a hole, does it make sense to you that
00:00:17.920 eventually we would find what's actually in the ground? Because I'm really wondering about
00:00:24.000 something. This shovel costs about $20 at your local hardware store. And as far as I know,
00:00:30.820 I've never seen a shovel that actually has directions. But for some reason,
00:00:34.600 indigenous groups across this country are incapable of buying a $20 shovel and using 0.94
00:00:40.700 one of these things to dig a hole to find out if something is buried in the ground.
00:00:44.980 As a matter of fact, they need the federal government to come in and spend millions of
00:00:49.540 to do something they could do with a shovel.
00:00:53.160 Let's talk about it.
00:00:57.820 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel,
00:01:00.120 2.51 a.m., Thursday, May the 21st.
00:01:02.900 I hope you're having a great day today.
00:01:05.320 Thank you so much for being here.
00:01:06.800 Let me have a sip from the Big Blue Mug of coffee.
00:01:09.140 And by the way, there is no rum in the coffee.
00:01:11.700 A lot of people ask me,
00:01:12.780 John, is there rum in there?
00:01:14.340 Nope, just coffee.
00:01:15.740 I don't drink.
00:01:17.000 I do drink coffee.
00:01:19.540 So this story I want to talk about today, it's infuriating.
00:01:23.240 This one goes back, I think, to 2021 or thereabouts.
00:01:27.640 You've heard this story a lot.
00:01:29.000 The national news media, the federal government, local news media would have you believe that the story and the content of this story is Canada's shame.
00:01:39.000 But what it is, is it's shameful that this story continues to be spread around like manure on media across this country.
00:01:47.700 Now, I'm out yesterday and I'm having coffee with a friend and I'm driving back from 130th Avenue here in the southeast back to my home,
00:01:55.500 which is about less than five minutes away, and I tune into the radio, which I don't do very often.
00:02:01.220 Now, this is coming from somebody who worked in radio for the better part of 35 years.
00:02:06.660 I just don't listen to it anymore.
00:02:08.960 If you're listening to the radio for music these days, do you really need to hear More Than a Feeling by Boston for the one millionth time?
00:02:16.840 Really? Okay. But I digress. So I tune into the radio to get the weather. And I heard a news story.
00:02:25.920 Now, if you would have seen me driving along Deerfoot Trail, heading south in Calgary yesterday,
00:02:30.860 in the southeast part of the city, if you'd have seen me in my car, you would have seen me screaming
00:02:35.080 at the radio yesterday because of what I was hearing. I was so infuriated by this story.
00:02:43.960 And it was on City News 660. I know this radio station very well. How well do I know this radio station? Well, here I am at this radio station a few years ago. You can see the mic flash there. City News 660. I'm in the studio there and I used to work at this radio station. I quit. I'm not going to go into why I quit, but you can ask me if you ever see me.
00:03:11.520 So what I want to tell you about this, we're going to go through the news story. It's less
00:03:14.420 than a minute and a half long. We're going to go through this news story in just a moment. I'm
00:03:17.700 going to reveal what I was yelling in my car yesterday as well. And this story is going to
00:03:22.520 infuriate you. Now, I want to tell you this, the woman reading the story, her name is Lisa. I know 0.91
00:03:27.300 her. She's an exceptional broadcaster, wonderful voice, by the way. And her job is to read the
00:03:33.860 news. I don't know whether she agrees with this story at all. I can tell you this, that if she
00:03:39.220 spoke out against this at the radio station she worked at, she would likely lose her job as other
00:03:44.840 people have lost their job when they've spoken out against this content. So let's listen to this.
00:03:51.300 We'll go through it a little bit at a time. And again, it's not very long. And by the way,
00:03:55.700 there are graphics. This is just audio I got from the radio station. I added the graphics you're
00:04:00.800 going to see here for effect. So let's listen to Lisa talk about this story. And no doubt you'll
00:04:06.320 be yelling at your screen today. Here we go. 660 News Time 1148. Dozens of unmarked graves may have
00:04:14.760 been found in a northwest Alberta First Nation. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation says it's too early to
00:04:20.500 say whether any of the sites of interest contain human remains belonging to a residential school
00:04:26.140 and instead they want to advance their search for answers. Okay, she's going to throw it to
00:04:31.220 another reporter in just a moment. They'll have a clip from somebody from the Sturgeon Lake Cree
00:04:35.860 Nation. But she starts off by saying, it's too early to say whether any of the sites of interest
00:04:40.640 contain human remains. Well, if it's too early to say, why say it? Because the actual truth of
00:04:48.880 the story doesn't matter. It's the headline that's the most important thing. And then they say they
00:04:54.100 want to advance their search for answers. Well, the answer is obvious here. And I'm going to reveal
00:04:59.840 what the answer is in just a moment when I tell you what I was screaming at the radio in my car
00:05:04.660 yesterday. I think you know where I'm going with this. Let's continue on. City's Elliot Knopp has
00:05:09.680 the details. Researchers have found 62 potential unmarked graves on the site near the St. Francis
00:05:15.040 School using drones, ground penetrating radar, and soil spectroscopies. Okay, so they've got these
00:05:23.100 researchers, drones, ground penetrating radar, and soil spectroscopies. Folks, this is expensive.
00:05:30.560 This is happening everywhere. The federal government is funding. No, sorry, you're funding
00:05:34.920 this. And they're still searching for answers. They're still searching for answers in Kamloops
00:05:41.000 from five years ago where they've spent $12.1 million. And folks, this is all about money.
00:05:48.840 let's continue on to map areas of interest both above and below ground okay so listen to the next
00:05:55.920 sentence this is absurd the community wants more research to know what's below the ground
00:06:01.840 right the community wants more research to know what's below the ground
00:06:06.900 how is this actually happening go back and watch the beginning of this video
00:06:12.760 let's move on now unable to confirm if these are unmarked graves or if the remains belong
00:06:21.160 to people from the first nation this story is ridiculous how is it how are they unable to
00:06:27.080 confirm if they're unmarked graves seems quite obvious to you and me that's why i'm screaming
00:06:32.540 at my radio yesterday calling for continued federal funding there you go calling for continued
00:06:39.880 federal funding for the church and government to work with them to find answers to work with them
00:06:45.340 to find answers the answer is obvious and now let's get on to the clip from the guy from the
00:06:50.160 sturgeon lake creenation to get uh get completed so that we can feel comfortable knowing that our
00:06:58.120 that our our our ancestors are returned or we find out where they are and we find out where
00:07:05.360 they are. Well, the story is about you finding them at the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. Are they
00:07:12.220 not right there? Let's go back to the beginning of my video. I'm yelling. What am I yelling at
00:07:21.200 my radio? Buy a shovel! Buy a shovel! $14.99 right now at Rona, folks. Say 15%. Yet they
00:07:36.200 need the federal government to provide them with more funding for this? This just infuriates
00:07:43.420 me. It probably infuriates you as well. That this store even made it to the news before
00:07:49.740 they found out the facts and the truth of the story is quite remarkable. You remember Trudeau
00:07:55.620 bowing down with the little teddy bear a few years ago, flags at half-mast for six months.
00:08:02.600 The story ran around the world. Here's a headline from the BBC. This is Canada's shame, folks. The
00:08:08.620 shame is the fact that this actually makes it to the news. At least they're saying potential
00:08:14.680 unmarked graves before. They were 100% sure of this five years ago when it made international
00:08:20.800 news headlines. But this story just keeps on going. You know about Frances Whittowson. You
00:08:26.640 know, I met Frances when I was at Jason Levine's event in Red Deer a few weeks ago. Didn't interview
00:08:31.280 her. It was lunchtime. She was sitting quietly, a woman who's paid a huge price for talking about
00:08:36.900 this hoax. She's called a residential school denier. I guess that's what I am and you probably 0.99
00:08:42.440 are as well. But she got caught up in this again. You've heard the story from the last week. Here it
00:08:50.040 is. What's this about? Tell me what this is about. Who are you? Former university professor Frances
00:09:00.720 Widdowson took this live stream. She says she was targeted for her views on Canada's residential
00:09:05.800 schools by a satirical prank show funded in part by CBC Entertainment, an arm of the public
00:09:11.340 broadcaster. For the CBC to participate in that, I think it's disgraceful. Whittleson says she was
00:09:17.060 first approached in March and asked to be part of a docu-series. It just seemed like a wonderful
00:09:22.700 opportunity to go into many of the concerns that I have about the academic settings these days.
00:09:32.440 Whittleson's been vocal about her questioning of suspected unmarked graves found at a residential
00:09:37.560 school in Kamloops, BC and was fired in 2021 from Mount Royal University. She says after about half
00:09:44.800 an hour, two men walked in and dumped a whole bunch of children's shoes on the coffee table
00:09:51.920 in front of me. Others on social media also say they've been approached or deceived with similar
00:09:56.540 offers traced to the same production. CBC's head of public affairs confirmed that the show is in
00:10:01.280 early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN, clarifying in a statement that CBC News and APTN
00:10:07.540 CNN News have no involvement in this production, and that satirical prank shows are a long-established
00:10:13.200 television format used by broadcasters.
00:10:16.120 But on social media, many are questioning whether public dollars should be spent for
00:10:19.840 pranks targeting people for their political views.
00:10:22.840 The show's producer NLT1 Productions also gets funding from the Indigenous Screen Office,
00:10:28.080 which describes the series as having an Indigenous activist trio that uses pranks as a form of
00:10:33.000 social action, akin to shows like Borat and The Yes Men.
00:10:37.100 CBC News has reached out to two people listed as involved with the production,
00:10:40.660 as well as APTN and the Indigenous Screen Office, but didn't hear back before the deadline.
00:10:45.360 CBC's head of public affairs added that the show is still in production and it's premature to comment on it.
00:10:50.440 Griffin Yeager, CBC News, Toronto.
00:10:52.660 Instead of apologizing for this happening, because let's look at it this way.
00:10:57.020 If this were a private broadcaster, it's one thing.
00:11:00.900 But this is the public broadcaster.
00:11:03.700 This is paid for by taxpayers' dollars.
00:11:06.380 This is going after people for their political views.
00:11:10.620 That's what this is about.
00:11:12.200 And it's using your money to do this instead of apologizing, saying we're sorry, this should never happen.
00:11:18.400 This is what happens.
00:11:19.820 CBC News and APTN News have no involvement in this production.
00:11:24.900 Satirical prank shows are a long-established television format used by broadcasters.
00:11:30.360 They try to justify it.
00:11:32.380 Now, here's the thing about this hoax we've been told about for five years that you continue to
00:11:38.380 pay for. If this is true, it's a crime and these sites are crime scenes, has anybody called the
00:11:47.400 cops? I'm sure the police have access to shovels. Thank you very much for watching.
00:11:57.280 If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel,
00:12:00.500 ring the bell for notifications. I'll see you in the next one.