Juno News - December 02, 2025Dead Wrong： How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong
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Summary
How did Canada get its residential school story so wrong? We all remember that summer of moral panic. To borrow from a similar summer of social discontent that gripped our neighbors to the south, the sequel to the bestseller, "Grave Error," "Dead Wrong," paints a different picture of the Kamloops narrative.
Transcript
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Hi, Juneau News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode of Not Sorry. I'm your host. I'm
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the director of the National Citizens Coalition, writer, communicator, campaigner. Always thrilled
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to be here. And while you are here, we're coming out of Black Friday. I want you to take advantage
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of our promo code at junownews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. Now, how did Canada get its
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residential school story so wrong? We all remember that summer of moral panic. I certainly remember
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a moment of what could have been thoughtful reflection turned into something fiery, but
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mostly peaceful to borrow from a similar summer of social discontent that gripped our neighbors
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to the South. In the sequel to the bestseller, Grave Error, published by True North in 2023,
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the follow-up, Dead Wrong, from CP Champion and Tom Flanagan and with a forward from Candace
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Malcolm, is now a number one bestseller because the struggle remains for accurate information.
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Very few of those who spread unsubstantiated rumors about discoveries of mass unmarked graves
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at Kamloops and other Indian residential schools of genocide have admitted their errors. Dead
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Wrong, published by True North and Dorchester Books, paints a different picture of the Kamloops
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narrative. That includes the shocking unwillingness of the New York Times to retract its headline
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about mass graves at Kamloops. The attempt of the city council at Quesnel to drive the mayor from
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office because his wife gave away 10 copies of Grave Error. The firing of high school teacher
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Jim McMurtry because he told the truth to students that most students who died at residential schools
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succumbed to TB and other illnesses of the time. The so-called documentary Sugarcane, which was
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nominated for an Oscar even though it was riddled with errors about St. Joseph's Residential
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School at Williams Lake, B.C. The attempt of the Law Society of B.C. to entrench the Kamloops
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narrative in its educational materials, even though the falsehoods were pointed out by member
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Jim Keller. Joining us to talk about Dead Wrong today is True North Managing Editor Cosmon
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Georgia. He contributed a chapter on the reprehensible church burnings that swept the nation at the
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peak of this social panic. Gerald Butts, liberal fixer, infamous Trudeau number two, ethics violator.
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He even called those burnings understandable at the time. They weren't then, they aren't now.
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Join us for this discussion. Cosmon Georgia, True North Managing Editor. You can find his great work
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here on Juno. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Alex. Dead Wrong, already a bestseller,
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the sequel to Grave Error. Cosmon, in your chapter, it's great that you're involved. You detail the wave
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of church arsons that began shortly after the Kamloops announcement, incidents that targeted
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Christian places of worship across denominations and regions. What do you believe were the key
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factors that escalated these attacks so rapidly, and how does this reflect the broader mishandling
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of the residential school narrative? Yeah, first, I'd like to encourage listeners to pick up a copy
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of the book. I think it's a really important study of what's happened, and it's a good sequel to
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Grave Error. And if you haven't read that as well, I would encourage you to pick up both for this
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Christmas season. But absolutely, I think with regard to the church burnings, what I tried to lay
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out in my chapter is to tease out how the connection between the actual announcement that the Kamloops
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First Nation made with regard to the historical Kamloops residential school directly influenced
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these church burnings. Because we saw in the summer of 2021, a wave of these church burnings targeting
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churches specifically in BC. It started in the West, and that's how I begin the chapter.
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These churches started to go up in flames, arson incidents, even on First Nations land, burning
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churches that have stood for generations attended by First Nations people, by indigenous people,
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where their children were baptized, where they had weddings, where they held funerals. And it's
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really tragic because the legacy media and the political establishment has chosen to ignore this
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connection. They have spent years treating these incidents as isolated, completely unconnected.
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And when you look at the trend of what's happening, the lack of arrests, and even the stated influence
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of some of these arson incidents, and vandalism incidents specifically, when you see churches painted
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with red paint and letters, specifically calling out the church itself for its involvement in residential
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Yeah. And there were even churches destroyed despite having no direct ties to residential schools.
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Like they were on the First Nations land. I'm up the street from St. Augustine's, not on First Nations
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land, but that was defaced. And that church was built in like 1990. It's like, what the heck are we
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doing here? And so what, how does that underscore sort of the dangers of unchecked misinformation here?
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Like what lessons should Canada learn to prevent such collateral damage in the future?
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Yeah. And it gets to the root of this because it's a disturbing anti-Christian sentiment.
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When you look at the churches, the churches targeted, the arsonists were indiscriminate in the
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churches they chose. Like you mentioned, churches built before the residential schooling system,
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but also denominations which had nothing to do with residential schools. You see Baptist churches
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targeted, even Eastern Orthodox churches, Ukrainian Catholic churches. These are churches that weren't
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even involved in the residential schooling system. And they're simply targeted because they have a cross,
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because they openly present as places of Christian places of worship. And it's troubling to see when
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lawmakers, when influencers, and when even First Nations openly encourage, if not implicitly don't
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discourage the attacking of Christian institutions as a sort of reparation for the harms caused by
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residential schools. And look, this book does not ignore the historically documented harms caused by
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residential schools. But it does really question some of the narrative spun. And I think it does a great
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job at debunking the attack on Christianity as as a religion, but also on Western civilization itself.
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No, and I think that's an important thing to note as well, which is, I think, just as a reader who's
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looking forward to going through, I've read your excerpt, I want to go through the whole thing is,
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no one is, is closed off from a perspective of caring in regards to that there were some wrongs here,
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that there was an imperfect system that we cannot do better in a kind of reconciliation. It's the social
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contagion aspect. It's the, whoa, what the heck happened here? It is disinformation that stems
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from, say, the New York Times, and then watching this just take off. Cosmin, in the McDonnell-Laurier
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Institute study, which you reference, it obviously shows that doubling of arson at religious institutions,
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very few charges laid. From your perspective, why has there been such a lack of coordinated
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investigation by the RCMP? What does this say about priorities and protecting religious freedoms?
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Right. And there's a few reasons behind that. I think it's a complicated issue, but primarily,
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there's no political interest. And as much as the government likes to pretend that there's an arms
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length distance between the government and the RCMP, the government does have a lot of say in what gets
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prosecuted, what sort of charges get pursued. And there has been zero, zero national inquiry into these
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arsons that have spanned from coast to coast. Like, this is a nationwide crisis. And every attempt to
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bring this up in the House of Commons to issue a condemnation, but even to press both public safety
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and intelligence officials, the people leading the country, national security, et cetera, in those
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areas, seem disinterested, or at least don't have the incentive politically to pursue this.
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And it's unfathomable, right? Because we're talking about a lot of Canadians are Christians,
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the Christian heritage of this country is undeniable. And here we are completely ignoring this,
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our politicians would rather downplay it, if not even excuse some of the actions. We saw our former
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prime minister say that these church burnings were somehow understandable. And so it's simply
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outrageous. The RCMP has not established a task force, as far as I know, to target and truly find out
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what's going on, whether any of this is a organized effort, or if any of these incidents are committed by
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the same perpetrators. A lot of arson incidents, unfortunately, the suspects do get away because
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of the nature of the crimes. They don't get prosecuted. And we just need as a country to really
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reckon with the fact that we've let this go on for how many years now, and still the number of arrests
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are laughable. Yeah. And there's also a media reluctance piece there too, right? Connect these
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arsons as a pattern, with outlets like CBC delaying acknowledgement for years. How has this selective
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reporting contributed to the perpetuation of the flawed narrative? What reforms would you advocate for
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in Canadian journalism to address this? Yeah. Well, you would have to completely uproot
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the legacy media to some degree, because they are so selective in their coverage. I mean,
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just look at the non-existent coverage of our book. We're talking about, just going back to
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grave error, we're talking about a national bestseller. And I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give the sales
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numbers, but the sales numbers compete with some of the bestselling books in this country. And there
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has been a total media freeze on the coverage of this. And anytime it's mentioned, it's through the
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so-called experts who are completely one-sided, and will trash the book without even reading it.
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Most of the commentaries I've seen in the legacy media are completely ignorant of the actual contents
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of this book. They simply comment on it without knowing anything about it. So selective reporting,
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absolutely. And they just simply do not want to have this discussion, because if they approach
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this conversation about what was claimed a few years ago in 2021 about, well, it actually was
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discovered at the Kamloops, which now they've quietly admitted to be soil disturbances and anomalies.
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And the fact that there hasn't been any remains excavated or discovered at these institutions that
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indicate genocide, but also like mass burials of children, when they discuss the facts, they know
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that their argument crumbles apart. So they don't want to have this conversation. And that's why they're
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ignoring our book. And I fully expect they're going to do the same thing with Dead Wrong, because it has
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a detailed breakdown of the church fires, of the arsons, and the response to it, and the lack of
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consideration for Canadian culture, history, these historical buildings, but also a religion in this
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country. Yeah. And I'm sure one of those voices and critique would be an academic like Sean Carlton,
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who would dismiss these concerns as I know that you've called his efforts distraction tactics.
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Your excerpt even mentions that there were tragic deaths that were included in these church arsons
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in Winnipeg at the Covenant International Church leading to murder charges. You know, how does this
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incident exemplify, you know, that there is a real human cost here to the residential school story
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being dead wrong? Like, what support do you think these affected communities deserve? How do they get
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just ignored in all of this? Yeah, you're right. So in Winnipeg, there was a fire at a church. And
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from my understanding, it was in a building. So the main floor of this building was used as a church,
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but there was also people attending this church who lived above it. And from my understanding,
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there were also immigrants, new immigrants to Canada who were renting that space. And they
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unfortunately died as a result of this church fire. Now, an individual was arrested. He was an
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indigenous man. There's no reporting on the motives of this individual. We haven't seen anything come
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out of trial about this individual's motives. But this is a church that was targeted, lit on flames,
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and two people tragically passed away as a result of this. I mean, where are we as a country when we're
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not looking at this after three to four years of churches being lit on flames and two people die?
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And this isn't headline news across the country. It's outrageous. And, you know, Sean Carlton would
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like to, you know, say we're making a mountain out of the molehill. But here there are two individuals
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who lost their lives because of a church fire. That is the facts. Yeah. And a church fire downstream of
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social contagion of moral panic, our version of a fiery, but mostly peaceful summer, quite literally,
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like America had theirs, we had ours. There are 110 incidents at my last check tracked by that True
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North map that you've done such good work on, including both arson and vandalism. And your
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chapter paints a picture of widespread anti-Christian sentiment. If you're a faith-based community heading
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into the holidays, you know, how can you safeguard your place of worship while also fostering
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reconciliation? What's the, is there a balance that can be struck there?
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Yeah, it's, it's tough to say, because on one hand, we could have increased police presence
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monitoring these churches. But there's only so much people can do, right? Church communities are
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reliant on the donations of their own congregations. And I'm sure there's many that have chosen to just
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get personal private security for their institutions, for their places of worship.
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And it's such a sad state of where we are that communities are left to fend for themselves,
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essentially, because the government, even policing, chooses to protect certain groups over others
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Now, finally, as someone who has delved deeply into this topic, what inspired you to contribute
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to Dead Wrong? And how do you hope your chapter will encourage Canadians to re-evaluate the residential
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school narrative for the sake of truth and justice?
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Yeah, I think what inspired me was what originally motivated me to make the map. And that was that I was
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looking at the media reporting, I was observing that there was a giant black hole covering these
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incidents as connected as a nationwide crisis. And to put it all on a map, for me, was the best way I
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personally could make sense of it. But I think also, other people could use as a resource and truly see
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how widespread this actually is, because it's hard to argue with data. And when you look at a map and see
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all of these incidents laid out exactly where they happened, you notice, it's hard to deny when you see
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an entire map of the country lit up with red pins. And that is the truth staring at you hard in the face.
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And you can argue with it against it. And their chosen tactic is to get people to not look at these
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incidents as connected. But it's right there for everybody to access. And I think that's what
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motivated me. I wanted to tell this story, and to get it to people, because unfortunately, the media has
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done such a shoddy job about it, of it, that I think it requires independent journalists like us to go out
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there and do their job for them. Yeah, independent journalists, independent minded readers. Cosmin,
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where can folks find the book before the holidays? Yeah, you could pick up a copy on Amazon, as well
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as just visit Juno News. You could find an ad on it on our website. And there are several articles. And
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I'm sure there will be a link in the video description as well, hopefully. Awesome. Cosmin,