Juno News - November 12, 2024


Indigenous activists want to RENAME cities and towns across Canada


Episode Stats

Length

22 minutes

Words per Minute

151.18257

Word Count

3,407

Sentence Count

17

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Landmarks, universities, cities and towns across Canada face the prospect of being erased and
00:00:08.740 renamed to unpronounceable indigenous names because somehow these cities and towns uphold
00:00:14.140 Canada's evil colonial history and therefore they must be destroyed. Anyone or anything that
00:00:20.320 stands in the way of the destructive so-called truth and reconciliation movement which has
00:00:25.720 nothing at all to do with truth and very little to do with reconciliation must be destroyed and must
00:00:32.140 be targeted and that is happening right now in a little town in British Columbia called Powell
00:00:37.880 River. We are pleased to be joined now on the Faulkner Show by Dr. Francis Wittowson formerly
00:00:42.980 a tenured professor at Mount Royal University who was fired after committing the ultimate sin in
00:00:49.140 academia daring to question the residential school narrative. Dr. Wittowson thank you so much for
00:00:54.820 joining us. Thank you for having me on. So you recently published an article in the C2C journal
00:01:02.680 titled Collaboration No More How the Powell River BC Name Change Debate Turned Nasty. A link to that
00:01:10.000 article you can find in the description of this video. I want to just start off with this can you
00:01:14.720 explain in more detail for our audience what is going on in the little town of Powell River British
00:01:19.780 Columbia. It's really an incredible story. Yes and I traveled there a couple of times and I know
00:01:25.840 quite a few people there. I participated in a number of events there myself so I have an in-depth
00:01:31.540 knowledge of what has been happening in that particular town but it's not just Powell River it's
00:01:37.560 a whole bunch of other towns as well that are going through the same kinds of conflicts and what
00:01:44.260 happened in Powell River is that I believe it's May 2021 beginning of May they had a meeting and the
00:01:53.020 local indigenous group the leaders of that group which is the Tlamin Nation sort of floated the idea
00:02:00.340 of a name change for the town. It was very tentative but then in June 2021 this was after the Kamloops
00:02:10.240 announcement and Kamloops has its tentacles into all sorts of things that have been happening over
00:02:16.760 the last three and a half years. Anyway the false claim that the remains of 215 children had been found
00:02:24.460 was accepted as being true by all sorts of different people including the Tlamin Nation. This led them to
00:02:31.800 write quite a demanding letter to the Powell River City Councilors saying that it wasn't a question of
00:02:39.520 if the name would be changed it was just a question of when then they embarked upon a long consultation
00:02:46.880 process whereby it was supposed to be citizen driven that was sort of the pretense but it had already
00:02:54.700 been pretty much decided by this group of what's called woke councillors which wokeism is identity politics
00:03:03.180 that has become totalitarian and their view was basically if a bunch of neo-tribal elites make a
00:03:10.300 demand everyone should just accept this under the guise of truth and reconciliation. The citizens of
00:03:18.780 Powell River are very well educated and were very well mobilized so they did a whole bunch of research and
00:03:25.660 found out that a great deal of misinformation and perhaps disinformation was being spread about this
00:03:33.180 pushed back made all sorts of presentations to this working group and it didn't matter because although
00:03:41.180 the citizens wanted a referendum to decide the question the city councillors didn't want that to happen
00:03:48.620 and so they were basically just intent on pushing this through so it's still a bit unclear what's going
00:03:56.700 to happen in the end whether they're just going to change it regardless or whether they have actually
00:04:03.740 listened to what's going on but right now we're waiting for the municipal elections which i believe are in
00:04:12.140 2026 and that's when it's been promised that they're going to have a a referendum like an initiative
00:04:22.700 happen but there's been some backtracking so we're not quite sure what's exactly going to happen there
00:04:28.780 and two gentlemen are now out of work because of this is that correct one of them was fired from his
00:04:34.780 job and another was uh pushed out or forced to resign so yes and this is one of the tragic
00:04:41.900 kinds of consequences and and these are just the two that we know about there's been a lot of fear
00:04:47.820 in the town that if you speak out and and put forward arguments and opposed to the name change
00:04:54.700 you will suffer consequences and there's two people that i found had had this happen to them
00:05:01.180 ted vizuti who was a paramedic and brian burrows who was a custodial worker with the school board
00:05:08.460 ted vizuti um just you know made some innocuous comments on his facebook page and he was pushed
00:05:16.060 into early retirement so uh and then what happened is is that usually what happens for paramedics is that
00:05:21.900 they can work part-time after they retire and they stopped him from being able to work part-time so
00:05:28.380 basically his career was over and then brian burrows who was actually thinking of retiring anyway but
00:05:36.540 when he just put a message on his facebook page saying that he opposed the name change
00:05:42.460 and he questioned the mass graves that had been announced he was accused of being a racist by the
00:05:50.140 superintendent of the school board and there was disciplinary processes that were threatened
00:05:57.100 but until he retired which he was planning anyway but up until that point he was ostracized by all of
00:06:03.820 his colleagues and he was just treated absolutely abominably by the school board who basically um you
00:06:11.500 know sort of accepted this view that he had said these racist things when he hadn't said anything that was
00:06:17.500 just not you know just kind of democratic action trying to say that he didn't want this name change
00:06:23.420 to take place it's unbelievable now you've faced the cancel culture mob over this issue um but i want
00:06:30.380 to ask you what are the broader implications of this push this idea that you know no discussion or debate
00:06:36.220 can be had on this particular issue what are the implications of this because i thought canadians
00:06:41.020 had the right to peacefully protest and speak their mind on certain issues i must be wrong about that
00:06:47.900 yes well this is one of the um problematic aspects of what's called truth and reconciliation
00:06:56.220 where truth does not mean truth and reconciliation does not mean reconciliation and what it basically is
00:07:02.780 is this this this thing we call wokeism which is this totalitarian identity politics whereas to be
00:07:11.020 compassionate that's the argument to be compassionate you must um affirm the identities of these indigenous
00:07:20.780 neo-tribal elites and this identity is the genocide survivor identity so if you take issue with that claim
00:07:29.820 which it appears that there really is not very um you know convincing evidence that a genocide has taken
00:07:38.220 place uh starting with the kamloops the false kamloops announcement but all sorts of other things that
00:07:44.140 have happened then you will be seen as you will be tarred as a racist and you will have your job threatened uh
00:07:54.060 that's what's happening and the tragedy of it is that everyone recognizes that terrible injustices have
00:07:59.980 been done to the indigenous population but these kinds of initiatives that are happening in the case
00:08:05.660 of things like cowl river have nothing to do with assisting the marginalized members of indigenous
00:08:12.380 communities it's all a bunch of privileged indigenous leaders and the aboriginal industry which is a group of
00:08:19.980 lawyers and consultants who make their living from siphoning money away from indigenous communities
00:08:27.900 to basically put forward grievances uh to extract more money for these uh these various legal and
00:08:37.020 bureaucratic initiatives so there is somehow a different definition of truth only when it involves
00:08:44.060 this indigenous issue that's what it appears to be is that uh is that your read on this situation
00:08:48.780 that when it comes to this particular issue when it comes to litigating the residential schools
00:08:54.620 debate there is somehow a different definition of truth that we only apply to that issue and not
00:08:59.740 to any other issue in the country well there's a few issues where this is happening which is sort of
00:09:05.740 this post-modern relativistic position which has been unfolding in the university since the 1960s
00:09:12.300 but it is the most obvious in the case of the residential schools and what it is and this was
00:09:20.220 actually stated in the truth and reconciliation commission which was uh i believe it's ronald
00:09:25.660 needs and wrote a book called truth and indignation about this that truth in the truth and
00:09:30.940 reconciliation commission means relative truth so that is whatever an indigenous person who's testifying
00:09:39.980 believes to be true that must be accepted in the objective sense of actually being a fact and
00:09:48.460 evidence-based position and the kamloops case nothing is better than this example it is highly improbable
00:09:57.580 that the remains of 215 children are buried in the kamloops apple orchard because not one parent has said
00:10:04.700 that their children that their child never came home from the residential school so you know who are
00:10:11.420 the 215 bodies that would be buried there and no one no none of the people in the media or in academia or
00:10:20.460 anything are asking the questions that need to be asked about this case and it just continues it doesn't
00:10:27.900 matter what you seem to say and the evidence that you put forward to try to argue these cases and
00:10:33.180 nina green who's the great intrepid researcher on this file has been putting putting forward these
00:10:39.900 arguments for three and a half years and people just ignore it and continue to pretend that there
00:10:47.820 are these remains on that site when it is just highly improbable that that would be the case
00:10:55.260 well dr widdison uh the ndp want to criminalize what you have just said as residential school denialism
00:11:02.460 and i find it shocking that the crown indigenous relations minister the newest crown indigenous
00:11:07.820 relations minister said i believe on cbc or ctv it really doesn't matter which one that he supports
00:11:14.060 the legislation he supports the idea of criminalizing residential school denialism which is not denying that
00:11:21.740 the residential school system exists but it is it also includes what you've just said there what do you
00:11:27.260 make of this this is this is dark times ahead for canada if this actually takes uh gets into force
00:11:34.380 this is definitely the case and it is totalitarianism this is the path that we are heading down and the
00:11:40.540 most disturbing thing is not silly people like leah gazan are putting forth these nonsensical ideas but
00:11:48.220 where is the outrage and the opposition to this sort of thing happening in a supposed democratic country
00:11:56.300 like canada and again it is this intimidation that is going on that anyone who tries to make an
00:12:05.420 argument that goes against the affirmation of the genocide survivor identity which is a very implausible
00:12:13.580 uh type of position now people can make that argument but you should be able to critique it
00:12:21.180 provide evidence which you know shows this to be a bit exaggerated or whatever you do and that's not to deny
00:12:30.700 that there was terrible abuse that happened in a number of schools that there were serious problems
00:12:35.740 such as a lack of resources the ventilation problems that were identified by peter bryce
00:12:42.780 um you know the insensitivity that was shown to numerous uh residential school students and on and
00:12:50.780 on but if you're going to make a claim that the remains of 215 children have been found and then the
00:12:57.260 whole arguments about genocide took off on that basis shouldn't there be some kind of correction
00:13:05.740 that is made whereby people recognize the extent to which the canadian public was misled and 330 million
00:13:15.180 dollars was extracted on this basis this is just an absolute outrage and the kamloops band tanya talaga who's
00:13:23.740 a globe and mail uh columnist um sean carlton the academic from uh university of manitoba are just completely
00:13:33.340 shameless in their continuation of these this false information which is continues to be perpetuated
00:13:42.220 i want to go back to power river for a minute and discuss what we're seeing it happens almost every
00:13:48.460 time a canadian historic figure is put under the microscope and put in the scopes of of these uh
00:13:56.700 radical woke uh activists let's look at the case with power river israel israel powell i believe was
00:14:03.580 his name they that's the the idea was that power river was named after this guy who was the um i
00:14:09.740 believe the indian superintendent of british columbia in the late 1800s according to the local historian
00:14:15.980 which you quote in the uh in the c2c journal and it turns out that powell is uh not accused shockingly
00:14:23.500 of the uh posthumous crimes or not guilty of the posthumous crimes he's been accused of committing
00:14:29.020 just like johnny mcdonald appears to not be guilty of these crimes and just like egerton ryerson so
00:14:34.380 does it really matter at this point um does it really matter what what figures in canadian history
00:14:39.500 actually did or is it more of a more of a fact of that they represented some canadian history colonial
00:14:45.340 history that means they must now be cancelled and it's amazing and there's a number of figures like
00:14:51.340 this egerton ryerson is the other individual who didn't really have anything to do with the
00:14:55.820 residential schools and was much loved by many indigenous people as someone who helped them
00:15:00.940 you know powell was a a man of his time obviously and so he might have done things which would be
00:15:06.940 considered to be heavy-handed but the evidence um from arthur richards and robin trombley uh first of
00:15:14.060 all robin trombley uh did extensive research and found that it's highly unlikely that
00:15:21.180 powell river is even named after israel powell it was named after um a person who also had the last
00:15:28.540 name powell who was a cartographer um arthur richards showed that um you know israel pal didn't really have
00:15:35.820 anything to do with the residential schools he was interested in day schools and bringing public
00:15:41.180 education to all citizens of uh british columbia including uh the people who lived in in the powell river
00:15:49.740 area and he was sort of one of the more benevolent of the administrators that existed and worked very
00:15:59.180 hard to try to bring you know the services that were required by indigenous people so the the bottom
00:16:08.460 line is is that you know the truth the you know people who are making these arguments don't care about
00:16:14.540 the truth um they just want to impose their agenda and you know basically intimidate anyone who opposes
00:16:23.180 them and the most bizarre thing and this is now happening in campbell river is there's this insistence
00:16:30.220 of spelling these names for the new place names in the international phonetic alphabet indigenous languages
00:16:38.140 were pre-literate they didn't have any writing system yet there's this attempt by the uh to bring in
00:16:44.700 this this this weird writing system that no one can pronounce presumably to castigate everyone who
00:16:53.100 isn't able to read this alphabet which not even indigenous people most indigenous people can't read
00:16:58.540 this either so why is all this effort and money being spent on trying to bring in all these place names
00:17:04.940 in a language that uh a written language that no one can even pronounce it is it's quite it's quite
00:17:11.340 shocking when when you look at everything that's happening it reminds me of uh of the renaming of
00:17:17.020 sir john a mcdonald boulevard in ottawa in the national capital region i'm not even going to bother
00:17:22.460 trying to trying to pronounce the new name but like you say canadians can't even pronounce these
00:17:27.580 like it's it's absurd really it really is you know i want to ask you this question um and i've asked
00:17:34.860 other guests who i interview on this subject this exact question because i think it gets lost in this
00:17:40.220 debate what does any of this any of this push to rename universities and towns and cities um and a
00:17:49.580 race in malign canian history in your opinion does any of that actually benefit indigenous canadians who are
00:17:56.380 struggling at a disproportionate rate in our country and actually do need assistance and help
00:18:02.540 it doesn't benefit them at all and in fact it uh ensures that they their the marginalization will
00:18:08.940 continue one because it uh it diverts funding so you know this 330 million dollars that was spent to go
00:18:19.100 and find missing children which kimberly murray the special interlocutor has admitted
00:18:26.380 there are no missing children these children are in cemeteries which used to be marked and no longer
00:18:33.180 have the markers because they've deteriorated and people don't know where their great grandmother is
00:18:37.980 which you know is perhaps an issue but that's not saying that children have been murdered and we spent
00:18:44.140 330 million dollars on that that money should be spent on addressing the terrible uh social deprivation
00:18:51.580 that exists in indigenous communities secondly in terms of reconciliation which is supposedly why
00:18:57.660 we're doing this it just creates a huge amounts of conflict between people which is what we're seeing
00:19:04.700 in you know the pal river case and this is going to have negative implications for indigenous people
00:19:11.900 because instead of working together to try to address the terrible conditions it's unfortunately going to
00:19:18.220 be indigenous people who are going to be blamed for the situation when it's not ordinary indigenous
00:19:23.180 people it is these privileged neo-tribal elites and their lawyers that are making a killing off this and
00:19:31.180 the consultants like the members of the pal river uh kinds of establishment that are the ones that have
00:19:39.820 created this terrible situation and we should just stop um allowing ourselves to be intimidated
00:19:48.860 by what is obviously destructive both for the truth and reconciliation and when it comes to uh your
00:19:57.260 situation in particular last month a tribunal found that you're firing from the university uh mount royal university was
00:20:03.660 disproportionate to the uh to your conduct but they still said they're not going to bring you back
00:20:09.420 what's up with that what how does that how does that exactly work yes well uh that is being appealed now to the
00:20:15.820 alberta labor relations board so it's not over and i will fight to the end to be reinstated at mount royal
00:20:22.460 university and the problem once again is the intrusion of this wokism totalitarian identity politics into all
00:20:29.900 of our institutions including universities and because some indigenous scholar activists who participated in a
00:20:37.980 mobbing to get me fired for my attempts to defend myself feel unsafe by me being returned to mount royal
00:20:47.740 because they cannot tolerate their perspective being questioned uh the arbitrator decided that um the
00:20:56.060 employment relationship was unviable and therefore i could not be returned when i never did anything in the
00:21:01.740 workplace at all all my activities were just trying to satirize the attempts to get me fired and the fact that
00:21:10.380 i cannot be returned into the university to provide much much needed critical perspectives on all these issues
00:21:18.940 is an absolute travesty and i will fight this to the end of my days because this is absolutely absurd and
00:21:28.300 unacceptable that i cannot be back at mount royal university doing what i love which is engaging in
00:21:35.100 my research and also providing students with a perspective that they are not getting at all in the current
00:21:43.340 woke climate that exists at mount royal university oh we certainly need it and i think
00:21:48.220 uh a very large number of canadians hopefully it's the majority uh think that this is this is this is
00:21:54.380 a major major story and one that we hope to see you win um once again i want to uh i want to direct
00:22:00.860 the viewers to the uh to the article written in c2c magazine by dr widowson collaboration no more how
00:22:08.940 the power river bc name change debate turned nasty you can find the link to that article in the description
00:22:14.380 of this video of this video dr widowson thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me on
00:22:31.580 you