John Bolton - May 21, 2026


How To Use A Shovel - A Guide For Residential Schools


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

168.27773

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 .

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 .
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.