Juno News - Dead Wrong： How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juneau News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode of Not Sorry. I'm your host. I'm

00:00:08.360 the director of the National Citizens Coalition, writer, communicator, campaigner. Always thrilled

00:00:12.900 to be here. And while you are here, we're coming out of Black Friday. I want you to take advantage

00:00:17.400 of our promo code at junownews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. Now, how did Canada get its

00:00:25.100 residential school story so wrong? We all remember that summer of moral panic. I certainly remember

00:00:30.880 a moment of what could have been thoughtful reflection turned into something fiery, but

00:00:35.220 mostly peaceful to borrow from a similar summer of social discontent that gripped our neighbors

00:00:40.440 to the South. In the sequel to the bestseller, Grave Error, published by True North in 2023,

00:00:45.920 the follow-up, Dead Wrong, from CP Champion and Tom Flanagan and with a forward from Candace

00:00:51.200 Malcolm, is now a number one bestseller because the struggle remains for accurate information.

00:00:56.780 Very few of those who spread unsubstantiated rumors about discoveries of mass unmarked graves

00:01:02.280 at Kamloops and other Indian residential schools of genocide have admitted their errors. Dead 0.98

00:01:08.700 Wrong, published by True North and Dorchester Books, paints a different picture of the Kamloops

00:01:13.920 narrative. That includes the shocking unwillingness of the New York Times to retract its headline

00:01:19.100 about mass graves at Kamloops. The attempt of the city council at Quesnel to drive the mayor from

00:01:25.000 office because his wife gave away 10 copies of Grave Error. The firing of high school teacher

00:01:30.000 Jim McMurtry because he told the truth to students that most students who died at residential schools 0.66

00:01:34.980 succumbed to TB and other illnesses of the time. The so-called documentary Sugarcane, which was

00:01:40.800 nominated for an Oscar even though it was riddled with errors about St. Joseph's Residential

00:01:45.460 School at Williams Lake, B.C. The attempt of the Law Society of B.C. to entrench the Kamloops

00:01:50.680 narrative in its educational materials, even though the falsehoods were pointed out by member

00:01:55.580 Jim Keller. Joining us to talk about Dead Wrong today is True North Managing Editor Cosmon

00:02:00.500 Georgia. He contributed a chapter on the reprehensible church burnings that swept the nation at the

00:02:06.660 peak of this social panic. Gerald Butts, liberal fixer, infamous Trudeau number two, ethics violator.

00:02:12.880 He even called those burnings understandable at the time. They weren't then, they aren't now.

00:02:18.500 Join us for this discussion. Cosmon Georgia, True North Managing Editor. You can find his great work

00:02:23.640 here on Juno. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Alex. Dead Wrong, already a bestseller,

00:02:29.780 the sequel to Grave Error. Cosmon, in your chapter, it's great that you're involved. You detail the wave

00:02:35.940 of church arsons that began shortly after the Kamloops announcement, incidents that targeted

00:02:40.600 Christian places of worship across denominations and regions. What do you believe were the key

00:02:45.380 factors that escalated these attacks so rapidly, and how does this reflect the broader mishandling

00:02:51.300 of the residential school narrative? Yeah, first, I'd like to encourage listeners to pick up a copy

00:02:57.600 of the book. I think it's a really important study of what's happened, and it's a good sequel to

00:03:04.220 Grave Error. And if you haven't read that as well, I would encourage you to pick up both for this

00:03:09.480 Christmas season. But absolutely, I think with regard to the church burnings, what I tried to lay

00:03:16.480 out in my chapter is to tease out how the connection between the actual announcement that the Kamloops

00:03:24.960 First Nation made with regard to the historical Kamloops residential school directly influenced

00:03:32.420 these church burnings. Because we saw in the summer of 2021, a wave of these church burnings targeting

00:03:41.860 churches specifically in BC. It started in the West, and that's how I begin the chapter.

00:03:47.320 These churches started to go up in flames, arson incidents, even on First Nations land, burning

00:03:55.240 churches that have stood for generations attended by First Nations people, by indigenous people,

00:04:01.500 where their children were baptized, where they had weddings, where they held funerals. And it's

00:04:07.340 really tragic because the legacy media and the political establishment has chosen to ignore this

00:04:14.620 connection. They have spent years treating these incidents as isolated, completely unconnected.

00:04:24.060 And when you look at the trend of what's happening, the lack of arrests, and even the stated influence

00:04:31.320 of some of these arson incidents, and vandalism incidents specifically, when you see churches painted

00:04:38.080 with red paint and letters, specifically calling out the church itself for its involvement in residential

00:04:45.420 schools, the connection is obvious.

00:04:49.660 Yeah. And there were even churches destroyed despite having no direct ties to residential schools.

00:04:55.720 Like they were on the First Nations land. I'm up the street from St. Augustine's, not on First Nations 0.95

00:05:02.240 land, but that was defaced. And that church was built in like 1990. It's like, what the heck are we

00:05:07.560 doing here? And so what, how does that underscore sort of the dangers of unchecked misinformation here?

00:05:12.920 Like what lessons should Canada learn to prevent such collateral damage in the future?

00:05:19.460 Yeah. And it gets to the root of this because it's a disturbing anti-Christian sentiment.

00:05:25.620 When you look at the churches, the churches targeted, the arsonists were indiscriminate in the

00:05:33.860 churches they chose. Like you mentioned, churches built before the residential schooling system,

00:05:39.220 but also denominations which had nothing to do with residential schools. You see Baptist churches

00:05:45.220 targeted, even Eastern Orthodox churches, Ukrainian Catholic churches. These are churches that weren't

00:05:52.460 even involved in the residential schooling system. And they're simply targeted because they have a cross,

00:05:58.340 because they openly present as places of Christian places of worship. And it's troubling to see when

00:06:06.240 lawmakers, when influencers, and when even First Nations openly encourage, if not implicitly don't

00:06:17.400 discourage the attacking of Christian institutions as a sort of reparation for the harms caused by

00:06:24.920 residential schools. And look, this book does not ignore the historically documented harms caused by

00:06:31.640 residential schools. But it does really question some of the narrative spun. And I think it does a great

00:06:39.920 job at debunking the attack on Christianity as as a religion, but also on Western civilization itself.

00:06:49.000 No, and I think that's an important thing to note as well, which is, I think, just as a reader who's

00:06:55.540 looking forward to going through, I've read your excerpt, I want to go through the whole thing is,

00:06:59.460 no one is, is closed off from a perspective of caring in regards to that there were some wrongs here,

00:07:09.680 that there was an imperfect system that we cannot do better in a kind of reconciliation. It's the social

00:07:16.400 contagion aspect. It's the, whoa, what the heck happened here? It is disinformation that stems

00:07:21.220 from, say, the New York Times, and then watching this just take off. Cosmin, in the McDonnell-Laurier

00:07:27.160 Institute study, which you reference, it obviously shows that doubling of arson at religious institutions,

00:07:32.860 very few charges laid. From your perspective, why has there been such a lack of coordinated

00:07:38.720 investigation by the RCMP? What does this say about priorities and protecting religious freedoms?

00:07:44.200 Right. And there's a few reasons behind that. I think it's a complicated issue, but primarily,

00:07:50.840 there's no political interest. And as much as the government likes to pretend that there's an arms

00:07:56.800 length distance between the government and the RCMP, the government does have a lot of say in what gets

00:08:05.180 prosecuted, what sort of charges get pursued. And there has been zero, zero national inquiry into these

00:08:17.100 arsons that have spanned from coast to coast. Like, this is a nationwide crisis. And every attempt to

00:08:24.240 bring this up in the House of Commons to issue a condemnation, but even to press both public safety

00:08:31.140 and intelligence officials, the people leading the country, national security, et cetera, in those

00:08:37.760 areas, seem disinterested, or at least don't have the incentive politically to pursue this.

00:08:45.180 And it's unfathomable, right? Because we're talking about a lot of Canadians are Christians, 1.00

00:08:52.120 the Christian heritage of this country is undeniable. And here we are completely ignoring this,

00:08:58.460 our politicians would rather downplay it, if not even excuse some of the actions. We saw our former

00:09:05.580 prime minister say that these church burnings were somehow understandable. And so it's simply

00:09:10.880 outrageous. The RCMP has not established a task force, as far as I know, to target and truly find out

00:09:19.360 what's going on, whether any of this is a organized effort, or if any of these incidents are committed by

00:09:25.940 the same perpetrators. A lot of arson incidents, unfortunately, the suspects do get away because

00:09:33.860 of the nature of the crimes. They don't get prosecuted. And we just need as a country to really

00:09:43.120 reckon with the fact that we've let this go on for how many years now, and still the number of arrests

00:09:51.120 are laughable. Yeah. And there's also a media reluctance piece there too, right? Connect these

00:09:59.260 arsons as a pattern, with outlets like CBC delaying acknowledgement for years. How has this selective

00:10:05.200 reporting contributed to the perpetuation of the flawed narrative? What reforms would you advocate for

00:10:11.200 in Canadian journalism to address this? Yeah. Well, you would have to completely uproot

00:10:18.560 the legacy media to some degree, because they are so selective in their coverage. I mean,

00:10:23.700 just look at the non-existent coverage of our book. We're talking about, just going back to

00:10:29.840 grave error, we're talking about a national bestseller. And I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give the sales

00:10:36.080 numbers, but the sales numbers compete with some of the bestselling books in this country. And there

00:10:42.360 has been a total media freeze on the coverage of this. And anytime it's mentioned, it's through the

00:10:48.460 so-called experts who are completely one-sided, and will trash the book without even reading it.

00:10:54.440 Most of the commentaries I've seen in the legacy media are completely ignorant of the actual contents

00:11:00.740 of this book. They simply comment on it without knowing anything about it. So selective reporting,

00:11:07.640 absolutely. And they just simply do not want to have this discussion, because if they approach

00:11:14.080 this conversation about what was claimed a few years ago in 2021 about, well, it actually was

00:11:22.260 discovered at the Kamloops, which now they've quietly admitted to be soil disturbances and anomalies.

00:11:28.820 And the fact that there hasn't been any remains excavated or discovered at these institutions that

00:11:35.780 indicate genocide, but also like mass burials of children, when they discuss the facts, they know

00:11:45.280 that their argument crumbles apart. So they don't want to have this conversation. And that's why they're

00:11:50.680 ignoring our book. And I fully expect they're going to do the same thing with Dead Wrong, because it has

00:11:56.560 a detailed breakdown of the church fires, of the arsons, and the response to it, and the lack of

00:12:03.360 consideration for Canadian culture, history, these historical buildings, but also a religion in this

00:12:10.840 country. Yeah. And I'm sure one of those voices and critique would be an academic like Sean Carlton,

00:12:16.840 who would dismiss these concerns as I know that you've called his efforts distraction tactics.

00:12:21.960 Your excerpt even mentions that there were tragic deaths that were included in these church arsons

00:12:28.560 in Winnipeg at the Covenant International Church leading to murder charges. You know, how does this

00:12:34.880 incident exemplify, you know, that there is a real human cost here to the residential school story

00:12:39.960 being dead wrong? Like, what support do you think these affected communities deserve? How do they get

00:12:47.600 just ignored in all of this? Yeah, you're right. So in Winnipeg, there was a fire at a church. And

00:12:55.920 from my understanding, it was in a building. So the main floor of this building was used as a church,

00:13:00.700 but there was also people attending this church who lived above it. And from my understanding,

00:13:07.340 there were also immigrants, new immigrants to Canada who were renting that space. And they

00:13:12.220 unfortunately died as a result of this church fire. Now, an individual was arrested. He was an

00:13:18.900 indigenous man. There's no reporting on the motives of this individual. We haven't seen anything come

00:13:26.040 out of trial about this individual's motives. But this is a church that was targeted, lit on flames,

00:13:33.220 and two people tragically passed away as a result of this. I mean, where are we as a country when we're

00:13:40.220 not looking at this after three to four years of churches being lit on flames and two people die?

00:13:46.920 And this isn't headline news across the country. It's outrageous. And, you know, Sean Carlton would

00:13:54.180 like to, you know, say we're making a mountain out of the molehill. But here there are two individuals

00:13:59.760 who lost their lives because of a church fire. That is the facts. Yeah. And a church fire downstream of

00:14:08.340 social contagion of moral panic, our version of a fiery, but mostly peaceful summer, quite literally,

00:14:14.700 like America had theirs, we had ours. There are 110 incidents at my last check tracked by that True 0.53

00:14:21.200 North map that you've done such good work on, including both arson and vandalism. And your

00:14:25.820 chapter paints a picture of widespread anti-Christian sentiment. If you're a faith-based community heading

00:14:32.980 into the holidays, you know, how can you safeguard your place of worship while also fostering

00:14:38.720 reconciliation? What's the, is there a balance that can be struck there?

00:14:44.220 Yeah, it's, it's tough to say, because on one hand, we could have increased police presence

00:14:52.060 monitoring these churches. But there's only so much people can do, right? Church communities are

00:14:58.480 reliant on the donations of their own congregations. And I'm sure there's many that have chosen to just

00:15:05.780 get personal private security for their institutions, for their places of worship.

00:15:12.040 And it's such a sad state of where we are that communities are left to fend for themselves,

00:15:18.200 essentially, because the government, even policing, chooses to protect certain groups over others

00:15:25.440 because of political inconvenience.

00:15:27.460 Now, finally, as someone who has delved deeply into this topic, what inspired you to contribute

00:15:35.100 to Dead Wrong? And how do you hope your chapter will encourage Canadians to re-evaluate the residential

00:15:40.960 school narrative for the sake of truth and justice?

00:15:44.880 Yeah, I think what inspired me was what originally motivated me to make the map. And that was that I was

00:15:52.220 looking at the media reporting, I was observing that there was a giant black hole covering these

00:15:59.440 incidents as connected as a nationwide crisis. And to put it all on a map, for me, was the best way I

00:16:10.100 personally could make sense of it. But I think also, other people could use as a resource and truly see

00:16:16.780 how widespread this actually is, because it's hard to argue with data. And when you look at a map and see

00:16:23.660 all of these incidents laid out exactly where they happened, you notice, it's hard to deny when you see

00:16:31.400 an entire map of the country lit up with red pins. And that is the truth staring at you hard in the face.

00:16:40.780 And you can argue with it against it. And their chosen tactic is to get people to not look at these

00:16:47.640 incidents as connected. But it's right there for everybody to access. And I think that's what

00:16:52.680 motivated me. I wanted to tell this story, and to get it to people, because unfortunately, the media has

00:17:00.140 done such a shoddy job about it, of it, that I think it requires independent journalists like us to go out

00:17:08.300 there and do their job for them. Yeah, independent journalists, independent minded readers. Cosmin,

00:17:14.060 where can folks find the book before the holidays? Yeah, you could pick up a copy on Amazon, as well

00:17:20.780 as just visit Juno News. You could find an ad on it on our website. And there are several articles. And

00:17:26.460 I'm sure there will be a link in the video description as well, hopefully. Awesome. Cosmin,

00:17:31.740 thanks for joining us. Thank you, Alex.

00:17:38.300 .

00:17:43.300 .

00:18:06.060 .

Juno News - December 02, 2025

Dead Wrong： How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong

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