Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tom Flanagan on the false media narrative of 'unmarked graves'

00:00:00.000 Very controversial show today. I think the show could be prosecuted one day.

00:00:05.860 It's about denialism and indigenous genocide. Can you be charged and prosecuted for denying

00:00:13.420 that Indian people, indigenous people in Canada were genocided? We'll talk with Dr. Tom Flanagan

00:00:20.100 who would probably be the first person prosecuted. He's got a new book out. You're not going to want

00:00:25.080 to miss this. That's a habit. First, let me invite you to get the video version of this podcast. Go

00:00:30.180 to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. Eight bucks a month. We need that to pay the bills because we

00:00:36.220 don't take money from Trudeau. We don't get money from YouTube. They've demonetized us. We rely

00:00:41.320 100% on you. So please go to rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's interview.

00:00:55.080 Tonight, Dr. Tom Flanagan and his new book about what really happened in Kamloops, B.C.

00:01:08.860 It's December 8th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:12.040 You fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:25.080 You know, for years, the left has tried to make it a kind of a crime to doubt the theory of man-made

00:01:33.640 global warming. They say if you don't believe in their theory, then you are a denier, not even a

00:01:40.400 skeptic, not even someone with a different point of view, not even someone who believes in the

00:01:44.640 scientific method of testing a hypothesis. You are a denier, and the word was chosen on purpose

00:01:51.220 to have a memory of Holocaust denial, which of course is a grave moral crime. It's a tantamount

00:02:00.160 to anti-Semitism in itself, and it shows an irrational hatred. That was a word used by the

00:02:06.260 climate extremists on the left. You're a climate denier, and of course there was no legal penalty

00:02:12.940 for being a climate denier, but you were banned from polite company, and I'm not exaggerating.

00:02:18.240 The BBC and the CBC, two state broadcasters that deeply believe in the theory of man-made global

00:02:24.680 warming, refused to platform deniers, just like they would say they wouldn't platform a

00:02:30.260 Holocaust denier. There was a power in the word. Well, now that word is being expanded to anyone who 0.85

00:02:36.940 has mere questions about the very curious case of the Kamloops accusation that there are hundreds of

00:02:45.800 dead bodies outside the residential school. You know what I'm talking about. A couple years ago,

00:02:53.700 ground-penetrating radar, which actually cannot detect people, but rather anomalies, was considered

00:02:59.820 proof that there was, according to Jagmeet Singh, a mass grave outside the residential school there.

00:03:06.860 Our own Drea Humphrey actually made a documentary on the subject called Kamloops,

00:03:12.060 The Buried Truth. Here's a flashback to that video.

00:03:15.660 Well, the remains of 215 children have been found in a mass grave in Canada.

00:03:21.640 Many of you know that just over a year ago, the discovery of the remains of 215 children

00:03:27.600 was found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School at the Tukumlup Shaswamik First Nation.

00:03:32.740 But what if I were to show you that what I just said wasn't true, and that in fact, a year later,

00:03:40.820 not a single body has been found?

00:03:44.120 This mass grave is a painful reminder of the genocide.

00:03:49.820 Hamlin's leaders aren't condemning the burning of churches. No, they're endorsing the burning of churches.

00:03:54.960 A juvenile rib bone that surfaced in the same area.

00:03:57.580 You'd be surprised that a number of people who say, you know, I'm a doctor, I'm a paramedic,

00:04:02.600 and this is definitely a human bone, and it's definitely not.

00:04:06.460 It's like the chief.

00:04:08.640 I couldn't be for you.

00:04:13.680 Well, that's an example of denialism.

00:04:16.740 That's the word being used in the industry of people who want to turn Kamloops into a proof point

00:04:23.600 of a larger genocide against indigenous peoples, and they have called upon the justice minister

00:04:29.880 to make denialism of the Kamloops accusation a crime.

00:04:37.280 It's not a crime to deny the Jewish Holocaust, by the way,

00:04:40.620 but the idea is to make denying this genocide of indigenous people a crime.

00:04:47.280 I'm not sure how you'd do that, but if they were to do it,

00:04:50.480 I know who the first person they would prosecute would be,

00:04:56.360 and that's my old professor, Dr. Tom Flanagan.

00:04:59.240 He has been a skeptic of what he has in the past called the Indian industry.

00:05:04.320 That is, not indigenous people themselves, but rather indigenous and non-indigenous people

00:05:09.340 who have dined out on the subject for decades.

00:05:13.580 If you study transfers to indigenous people and Indian bands in this country,

00:05:18.680 you'll know that much of the money is siphoned off by white liberal bureaucrats

00:05:22.680 and, of course, the chief class.

00:05:25.040 Very little makes it down to grassroots Indians themselves.

00:05:27.900 That's the Indian industry, and imagine having the powerful tool of silencing 1.00

00:05:32.680 through prosecution and, therefore, through self-censorship.

00:05:35.980 Any deniers?

00:05:38.680 Well, Dr. Tom has a new book out, co-authored by Chris Champion.

00:05:43.960 The book is called Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us,

00:05:47.320 and the Truth About Indian Residential Schools.

00:05:49.760 And Dr. Tom joins us now from Calgary.

00:05:52.420 Well, I'm talking to you before you're charged and convicted and imprisoned.

00:05:56.900 This may be one of your few interviews,

00:06:00.000 or actually it may be the interview that causes you to be jailed.

00:06:02.440 You're half-joking, of course, but, of course, the other side is not joking.

00:06:05.300 They have been talking about criminalizing what they call denialism,

00:06:12.400 which is strange.

00:06:14.140 I'm not sure what you have to deny to be a denier and to be prosecutable,

00:06:20.620 but I think the whole thing works even if they don't have the answer

00:06:24.300 because it's just designed to scare people into self-censoring, don't you think?

00:06:28.120 I think it is, yeah.

00:06:29.960 And, you know, but fortunately I'm retired.

00:06:33.100 I don't have to worry about losing my livelihood.

00:06:36.300 You know, you go back to the old song,

00:06:39.260 me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin,

00:06:42.300 saying freedom is just another thing for nothing left to lose.

00:06:47.660 So I've kind of reached that point.

00:06:49.180 I'm 79 years old.

00:06:50.380 I can say what I want without worrying about, you know, supporting myself, my wife, my children, etc.

00:07:00.560 And so our book, you know, it's a compendium of efforts by about a dozen people who've been working on this issue.

00:07:06.160 And most of us are retired.

00:07:08.160 Most of us are at that point where we have some protection against intimidation.

00:07:13.220 And interestingly, a couple of the younger contributors don't want their names known and they're contributing under pseudonyms.

00:07:21.160 I mean, they're that afraid.

00:07:22.480 This is the first time in more than 50 years of research in Canada that I have encountered a situation of colleagues who are afraid of having their names publicized and want to be, what's the word, want to be anonymous.

00:07:42.480 And we're dealing here, you know, so with pretty serious issues that could have could have consequences.

00:07:47.920 You know, the word genocide is thrown about so casually these days.

00:07:53.340 The chief just former chief justice of the Supreme Court called Canada a genocidal regime.

00:07:59.840 She used that word. 0.99

00:08:01.200 Justin Trudeau picked it up.

00:08:02.600 It's now thrown around handily.

00:08:05.280 It's funny because Trudeau, of course, will not call what China is doing in Xinjiang province a genocide.

00:08:12.100 He doesn't want to hurt their feelings, but he condemns Canada as a genocidal regime.

00:08:16.640 Pope Francis himself has said that it has the hallmarks of a genocide.

00:08:22.260 I'm not sure if that's true.

00:08:24.360 I know a few alumni of these Indian residential schools.

00:08:31.320 I think of two people in particular, both of whom said it was not just not bad, but it was a wonderful thing.

00:08:38.600 It put them on a path for success in the modern world.

00:08:43.140 And in fact, one fellow who I interviewed when I was at Sun News said at his family reunions, the entire family would reminisce about the time at these schools.

00:08:53.280 And not one of them had a complaint.

00:08:54.680 I know some Holocaust survivors, many of them are dying now.

00:08:58.680 I've never in my life encountered a Holocaust survivor who ever looked back on their time in Auschwitz or another death camp with fondness.

00:09:08.460 Like, never.

00:09:09.340 Like, there's no doubt about it whatsoever.

00:09:11.200 So to use the word genocide to describe these Indian residential schools in the face of these alumni who said, no, actually, it was sort of great. 1.00

00:09:21.740 It taught me life skills.

00:09:24.060 It's that is a shocking appropriation and dilution of the word genocide in my mind and the word denier, too.

00:09:31.300 Yeah, it's the use of the word genocide is it's a tactic of raising the stake, raising the rhetorical stakes, making it more emotional.

00:09:45.020 There's been a trajectory here.

00:09:48.560 Before genocide, we had cultural genocide.

00:09:52.200 That was the term that was used in the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

00:09:57.860 So they only a few years ago, the TRC explicitly denied that the treatment of Canada's Indians was a genocide.

00:10:06.060 They said it was, however, a cultural genocide, which was really just a synonym for assimilation, allowing Indians to penetrate in a in the larger society.

00:10:19.400 But a few years later, we see people using just the word genocide.

00:10:24.060 So genocide refers to the actual killing of people.

00:10:30.700 So they have to have dead bodies to to support the use of the term.

00:10:35.840 And that's where the Kamloops mythology comes in.

00:10:38.540 The Kamloops announcement appeared to provide the proof of genocide.

00:10:44.080 If there were hundreds of bodies scattered around the residential school and nobody knew about them before, this would be proof of all these deaths.

00:10:54.320 You know, not we now know, though, and the people who did that announcement should have known that what the ground penetrating radar radar was finding was a sewage system.

00:11:08.900 In the 1920s, the school installed a big septic tank, this was before they could connect to city sewage, they installed a big septic tank, and then if you have a septic tank, you have to have a way of dispersing the fluids.

00:11:21.040 And so you use a weeping tile and bury it and create a network of pipes radiating out or tiles radiating out.

00:11:31.540 So those tiles are still in the ground.

00:11:33.200 The system isn't used anymore, but the tiles are still buried in the ground.

00:11:36.740 And so what that ground penetrating radar was finding was probably those tiles.

00:11:42.720 We don't know for sure because the report has never been released, so you can't compare the map, but that's what it looks like.

00:11:51.060 So there's nothing there.

00:11:52.620 No excavation has taken place at Kamloops, where excavations have taken place at a few other sites.

00:11:59.820 Nothing has been discovered.

00:12:01.740 So until some evidence comes up, you just have to say there's nothing there.

00:12:07.400 If you approach this thing as a kind of belief system, you must believe there's deniers who disbelieve the faith, and we must cast them out and punish them.

00:12:17.300 And we don't debate disbelievers because they're, you know, that's a form of blasphemy. 1.00

00:12:22.140 We punish disbelievers. 1.00

00:12:23.440 We prosecute them.

00:12:24.320 If that's your mindset, you can understand why you would not demand to see proof of, well, let's dig up what the ground penetrating radar saw.

00:12:32.320 Because that would be like saying, well, show me proof that there was a burning bush.

00:12:36.860 Show me proof that the Red Sea was split and the Israelites walked through. 1.00

00:12:41.620 I mean, you don't ask for proof if it's a question of faith.

00:12:45.060 But that's very different than what's generally accepted as the scientific method or, you know, historical discovery.

00:12:54.260 Or frankly, if it's a crime that had been committed, you don't take things on faith.

00:12:59.020 You test them against the facts.

00:13:00.880 Here's when our date, Drea Humphrey, by chance, bumped into the chief, and she wouldn't even answer questions about answering questions. 0.99

00:13:09.560 Here's a quick throwback to that.

00:13:10.880 Yeah, we're doing an update, and I did reach out to your media a few times, but I haven't heard that.

00:13:16.240 Oh, okay.

00:13:16.760 What's the best way to reach you?

00:13:18.300 Because I've tried for over a year, to be honest, to try to connect for an interview or something.

00:13:23.400 Okay.

00:13:24.440 Well, honestly, I've had done like a million interviews.

00:13:27.900 I bet.

00:13:28.320 I think you were just doing one.

00:13:29.960 And, no, it was just a, a, a, a table.

00:13:33.380 Oh.

00:13:33.600 Oh, okay.

00:13:34.440 But no, I've done a million.

00:13:35.780 Can we get into the museum somehow?

00:13:38.040 No, the museum is shut down.

00:13:39.400 Oh, okay.

00:13:39.680 The museum is actually in this building.

00:13:41.320 Oh, okay.

00:13:41.820 Yes.

00:13:42.100 So, but you can't, that's where the archives are, right?

00:13:45.360 Yeah, but you can't access it.

00:13:46.600 Okay.

00:13:47.120 Yeah.

00:13:47.260 How come?

00:13:47.860 The museum is shut down right now.

00:13:49.360 Like, for, do you know how much longer?

00:13:51.380 No.

00:13:51.700 No, I'm determined at this point.

00:13:54.220 Okay.

00:13:54.480 Where's the best place to get, like, the history, like, to look through archives and things like

00:13:58.960 that right now?

00:14:00.500 Right now, um, that's not my term.

00:14:03.500 Political.

00:14:04.220 Okay.

00:14:04.540 I'm not typical.

00:14:05.340 So, well, I guess.

00:14:06.500 I would have to come back and just find out exactly where, you know, all that stuff is

00:14:10.320 because, like, I know that if you're talking about, like, records, like, whether it's

00:14:14.180 things that we're building here.

00:14:15.660 Right.

00:14:15.860 Uh, and also just in general, the missing element and children.

00:14:19.820 So, those are, but they probably could look in places like, um, the interest of reconciliation.

00:14:26.700 Right.

00:14:27.220 And the main office there is in the bank.

00:14:29.800 Okay.

00:14:30.160 So, there's that place.

00:14:32.280 There's also, you know, contacting the local person.

00:14:34.720 So, that would be, that would be, um, like, we have an individual to ask about the records

00:14:42.540 and the documents, but I know that a lot of that is also confidential.

00:14:45.740 It has to go as a proper process because it's very sensitive information to hold the integrity

00:14:50.240 of the individuals and families.

00:14:51.760 Of course.

00:14:52.280 That would directly impact it.

00:14:53.460 Yeah.

00:14:53.840 And, of course, it also has to be done in a trauma-informed way.

00:14:57.060 Right.

00:14:57.200 So, there's a lot of different protocols and steps that need to place.

00:14:59.900 So, I think, I think this all fits.

00:15:02.180 The fact that it's an emotional accusation of genocide, if you ask for proof, again, that's

00:15:07.920 a form of denialism.

00:15:09.000 It's like someone saying, I don't believe six million died.

00:15:12.880 You know, it's, you, I don't, they're trying to use that same moral and emotional, um, claim.

00:15:19.660 You cannot ask questions about this ground-penetrating radar.

00:15:23.480 You must accept the narrative, even though, actually, you know, when the Allies liberated

00:15:28.840 the concentration camps, they, they saw it.

00:15:31.060 They documented it.

00:15:31.760 They, they filmed it.

00:15:32.660 They actually made locals march through the death camps, uh, local villagers to see what,

00:15:38.180 what had been done.

00:15:39.660 Um, I think it's astonishing, but I think it is absolutely universal within what I call

00:15:45.020 the media party.

00:15:45.840 Other than a handful of independent journalists, Western Standard, True North, us here at Rebel

00:15:50.740 News, I don't know of any mainstream media.

00:15:55.000 Maybe the National Post is an exception, but I don't, I think it is absolutely taken as the

00:16:01.880 new faith, um, in the mainstream media, like the CBC, CTV, Globe and Mail.

00:16:07.620 Um, am I wrong on that?

00:16:10.380 Like, this is the new political faith.

00:16:13.480 No, you're absolutely right.

00:16:15.360 And, um, so this book, it's, uh, it's, it's a compilation of previously published work, uh,

00:16:21.780 by about a dozen authors over the last two years, but they published it in, uh, alternative

00:16:27.200 outlets.

00:16:28.260 The, uh, legacy media were closed to us.

00:16:30.880 They, we tried, but they were uninterested, you know, approaching, uh, mainstream newspapers

00:16:36.060 or university presses, uh, just, uh, absolutely no interest at all.

00:16:41.360 So everything was in, in, uh, outlets like True North, Western Standard, C2C, Quillette,

00:16:48.780 um, Unheard, uh, American Conservative, you know, uh, not part of, uh, the corporate media.

00:16:58.200 It'll be interesting to see what the corporate media does with our book now.

00:17:02.800 Whether they continue to ignore it.

00:17:04.820 They're going to absolutely ignore it.

00:17:05.720 They're not going to tear it apart because that would acknowledge it and maybe, uh, spark

00:17:09.600 some interest in it.

00:17:10.560 They will completely ignore it.

00:17:12.120 You know, Dr. Tom, um, the, the best-selling nonfiction book in Canada last year or this

00:17:18.300 year was, um, Tamara Leach's autobiography called Hold the Line that was the number one

00:17:24.180 bestseller day after day, week after week.

00:17:26.080 And it didn't even get an attack review in the Toronto Star, let alone, I don't even think

00:17:32.300 the Globe, uh, the, the, the National Post acknowledged it.

00:17:34.920 And that's what you do when you hate a book.

00:17:37.420 You don't give it the courtesy or the respect of a review.

00:17:40.840 Uh, you just pretend it doesn't exist.

00:17:42.800 In fact, my question to you is, of course, it's not going to be reviewed.

00:17:46.960 The question is, will they try and ban it on Amazon?

00:17:50.840 And I don't know if you have this information, but I would like to ask you, has the book felt

00:17:54.820 any censorship pressure?

00:17:56.860 Uh, has Amazon showed any skepticism towards that?

00:18:00.020 It's happened to us before.

00:18:01.040 My book, China Virus, was knocked down by Amazon before they reinstated it.

00:18:06.400 Has your book faced any censorship threat like that?

00:18:10.200 Well, I'm not aware that it has.

00:18:12.380 I mean, it's only been on, uh, online now for, what, this is Thursday, the fourth day.

00:18:17.940 Uh, it's been selling well.

00:18:20.040 Um, and of course our marketing is all, you might say, underground marketing, um, not in the

00:18:26.760 legacy media, but, um, it's, uh, it's, it's selling well.

00:18:31.040 Now, whether that will lead to pressures to downgrade it or ban it, I don't know.

00:18:36.480 Uh, we'll have to wait and see.

00:18:38.020 Do you plan on any, doing a book tour or a book launch anywhere in physical space?

00:18:43.840 Because that'll be interesting.

00:18:45.060 Not only who comes out.

00:18:46.480 I don't think so.

00:18:48.220 We haven't had any plans for that so far.

00:18:50.220 It's, it's, it's difficult for me to travel now.

00:18:52.580 Uh, I, I, I can't really leave my wife alone for long periods of time.

00:18:57.060 So, uh, we, we may not be able to do that.

00:19:00.240 So at the present time, we're trying to do the, as I say, underground marketing appearing

00:19:04.880 on alternative media and, you know, grateful for the interview here with Rebel News, uh,

00:19:09.620 sending out mass emails to people's lists, um, getting coverages in print places that are,

00:19:17.180 are interested like C2C and Quillette.

00:19:21.180 Um, so, you know, we're going to reach tens, maybe hundreds of thousands.

00:19:26.760 We're going to reach thousands of people that way, but we don't reach millions.

00:19:30.360 Right.

00:19:30.780 The book is called Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us and the Truth about the Indian Residential

00:19:37.080 Schools.

00:19:37.940 It's available on Amazon for now and hopefully forever, but we have some experience in cancel

00:19:44.000 culture and de-platforming.

00:19:45.400 Um, what I'm worried about is academia, that this is now, um, just like you cannot dispute

00:19:56.060 the faith when it comes to global warming, you'll be called a denier.

00:19:59.820 Uh, I would imagine that any academia, any academic scholarship on this matter is predetermined,

00:20:07.320 uh, and you'll get grants for saying the right things, just like you'll get a climate grant

00:20:12.100 for saying the right things.

00:20:13.560 And so not only is it career suicide to talk about these things, but on the other side, it's

00:20:19.440 a career advancement and lots of government cash.

00:20:22.020 If you follow these ideological, uh, paths, uh, I'm worried that we will absolutely in

00:20:30.580 an Orwellian way rewrite history.

00:20:33.820 For those who know the book 1984 by George Orwell, the day job of the hero Winston Smith

00:20:39.120 was to cut out old newspaper articles from the archives, throw them out and glue in an

00:20:45.780 updated, revised history so often that after a while, no one actually knew what the truth

00:20:51.660 was.

00:20:52.180 I mean, I, I'm worried that, you know, the, the generation of indigenous people who went 1.00

00:20:59.260 to these residential schools is getting old and they will die in a period of time. 1.00

00:21:04.320 And soon there will be no one else to say, Hey, I actually went there and I'm indigenous.

00:21:09.440 So don't try and call me racist.

00:21:11.560 And here's what I liked about it.

00:21:13.540 And again, I've had those conversations, including on TV, but those people like Holocaust survivors

00:21:18.940 will be gone after a certain point of time.

00:21:21.600 And then it'll all be hand in the hands of the revisionist historians.

00:21:25.320 Yeah.

00:21:26.220 Yeah.

00:21:26.440 My observation of the academic community here is that, uh, um, most of them are just keeping

00:21:32.460 their heads down and ignoring it.

00:21:33.940 And then you've got the, uh, the few enthusiasts who are pushing the denialist line and they're

00:21:40.520 funded by the federal government.

00:21:41.800 Um, and then there's, you know, I, I can't think, you know, maybe, maybe somebody will

00:21:50.540 appear, but I can't think of a currently employed historian or somebody in a related field, uh,

00:21:59.200 who is standing up to challenge the Kamloops orthodoxy.

00:22:05.360 Um, maybe a couple of lawyers will like Bruce party and so forth, but, um, historians, political

00:22:13.120 scientists, sociologists, people who should be saying, Hey, this is utter nonsense.

00:22:17.360 Uh, they're just ignoring it.

00:22:20.420 Um, whether they're disgusted by it or afraid is some combination of that.

00:22:27.840 Uh, but they're, they're just ignoring it.

00:22:30.220 And, uh, and of course there are many who will believe it because it fits in with a generally

00:22:35.200 woke outlook about the world being dominated by white male oppressors and, uh, everybody

00:22:41.980 else being in victim groups.

00:22:44.320 Um, so yeah, the performance of, uh, the academic community is not encouraging.

00:22:50.460 When you, as I say, I can't remember a single member who is still employed.

00:22:57.920 The people that I know who are challenging this myth, uh, from Kamloops are all retired.

00:23:03.900 I can't remember.

00:23:05.340 The one member who was employed was, uh, Frances Woodhouse and she, and she got fired, uh, from

00:23:12.120 Mount Royal university.

00:23:13.200 So everybody else, uh, I think, uh, uh, drew lessons from that.

00:23:18.080 Hmm.

00:23:18.600 It's, it's interesting.

00:23:21.200 I, um, I wonder if there are any indigenous people themselves, if there's anyone from within

00:23:26.160 the community who would have the moral authority and the, the aesthetic ability to repel cheap

00:23:33.360 accusations of racism.

00:23:34.780 Uh, I mean, sometimes to say certain things, you have to be from the community itself.

00:23:40.280 Otherwise you'll be condemned as a hater.

00:23:42.100 Are there any contrarian voices within the indigenous community, either scholarly or

00:23:48.600 just ordinary folks on a reserve somewhere who say, no, that didn't happen.

00:23:52.320 Or, or are they just thinking, this is not our fight.

00:23:54.900 This is a white man's, uh, academic liberal battle in universities.

00:23:58.880 It actually has nothing to do with us.

00:24:01.080 Uh, just let them quarrel amongst themselves in the faculty lounge.

00:24:05.260 Are there any folks in the indigenous community?

00:24:08.160 Uh, I, I mean, I imagine there are, but I'm not aware of them.

00:24:12.200 Um, they have any, nobody sent me an email, said, Hey, Tom, right on, keep out, keep out.

00:24:16.660 Um, you know, previous contacts I had in the, uh, in, in that world had just gone silent on

00:24:24.640 the issue.

00:24:25.060 So I don't know.

00:24:25.960 Um, I, as you pointed out at an earlier stage, there were people who had, uh, been in the schools

00:24:32.280 and talked about their positive experiences, but it's been a long time.

00:24:36.640 Um, uh, the last school closed in 1996, but almost all of them had closed prior to that.

00:24:43.760 So, uh, you know, there haven't been very many schools now for 30 or 40 years.

00:24:50.500 Um, and so there aren't that many, uh, graduates of the schools around.

00:24:55.940 So, um, uh, and of course the, the people that were in the schools were, um, lured into,

00:25:04.920 uh, magnifying any uncomfortable experiences they had because they could get money for

00:25:10.380 telling stories, uh, in front of the, um, Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

00:25:16.120 Uh, everybody who attended a school got $10,000 a year just for being there.

00:25:21.380 But beyond that, if you could allege, um, physical or sexual abuse, you could hit the jackpot.

00:25:29.160 You know, you could go up over a hundred thousand dollars for that, depending on what it was.

00:25:32.980 Uh, you could get an additional a hundred thousand plus.

00:25:37.640 So, you know, everybody who had been through the schools in more recent times was encouraged

00:25:43.160 to, uh, tell a story about how awful it was.

00:25:45.880 Hmm.

00:25:47.200 A hundred thousand dollars is extremely compelling.

00:25:49.920 Uh, if all you have to do is tell the, um, white bureaucrats. 0.84

00:25:54.020 Yes.

00:25:54.520 Yes.

00:25:54.800 Um, you know, I, I was earlier this, uh, fall, I was in Australia and New Zealand, spent a little

00:26:02.940 bit of time in New Zealand.

00:26:04.400 Uh, it was the first time I had met any Maoris, which is the indigenous people in that country.

00:26:10.040 And, uh, maybe it were just the Maoris I met under the leadership of, uh, Brian Temecki,

00:26:16.320 who's, who's very Christian as a, uh, collection of churches.

00:26:20.400 And, um, he's a COVID skeptic.

00:26:23.640 I'd call him a right wing.

00:26:24.580 He's pro-Israel.

00:26:25.560 Like there's, there's this whole strong, proud Maori movement.

00:26:31.200 I've seen it in Hawaii also, sort of Hawaiian national pride.

00:26:36.360 My favorite, I haven't been to Hawaii in years, but I, I, whenever I go, I remember seeing

00:26:41.140 huge pickup trucks with two big flagpoles and flags, the American flag and the Hawaii, the

00:26:48.140 kingdom of Hawaii flag.

00:26:49.920 Like there are some places around the world where the indigenous culture is proud and successful

00:26:57.260 and actually cool.

00:26:58.580 And talking to some Maoris in New Zealand, you know, aesthetically in society, Maoris are 1.00

00:27:06.020 sports heroes and regular ordinary folks.

00:27:10.420 It's like, it's a celebrity status and it's cool.

00:27:12.980 And everyone wants to be like the Maori. 1.00

00:27:15.220 Like I really felt that in, in New Zealand and there was a, it wasn't, you know, obsessing

00:27:22.420 over loss or grief.

00:27:24.820 It was, although I would imagine they have their stories as well, but it, it wasn't dwelling

00:27:32.040 on victimhood.

00:27:33.380 It was, I mean, there is some of that, but I couldn't help but see both in Hawaii and

00:27:38.980 in New Zealand and indigenous social culture of optimism, strength, pride, can do attitude,

00:27:47.980 and, you know, sports success, popular success.

00:27:53.620 Um, and I, I really wished that that were the dominant political culture in Canada.

00:28:02.920 Now, maybe it is on some Indian beds, but I don't think that's the political culture being

00:28:08.400 projected by the Indian industry or by the Department of Indigenous Affairs.

00:28:14.020 What do you make of what I've just said?

00:28:15.300 Yeah, well, that's very interesting.

00:28:18.340 And, you know, the closest thing in Canada, uh, it's not really very close, but the closest

00:28:24.520 thing would be the movement of, uh, mainly First Nations, but it includes some Métis as

00:28:32.160 well to participate in the natural resource industries, particularly oil and gas.

00:28:36.580 And so they're, they've created new organizations and they're, uh, and they're interested in, uh,

00:28:42.800 building a better life for themselves and their people.

00:28:44.780 And they're not particularly interested in pursuing old complaints, but the trouble is

00:28:49.680 that they're the, the, the cause of natural resources and particularly oil and gas is generally

00:28:55.980 unpopular in Canadian public opinion.

00:28:58.460 Uh, so by allying themselves with the oil industry, uh, it doesn't really radiate out

00:29:07.460 very well, uh, to, uh, to the rest of Canada.

00:29:11.380 No, some Indian sports heroes would, uh, would do more, uh, if we could, if we could get more

00:29:18.600 of them or Indian entertainers whose entertainment goes mainstream.

00:29:22.740 I mean, there is a sort of an Indian entertainment industry, but it tends to appeal only to other

00:29:27.660 Indians.

00:29:28.800 Um, so if you could broaden that out, uh, that would do more.

00:29:34.980 So, yeah, I'd like to see that happen, but I would say it's not really happening in Canada

00:29:39.640 right now, partly because the government itself has put so much emphasis on victimhood.

00:29:46.500 That shouldn't have happened.

00:29:48.020 The truth and reconciliation commission is supposed to bring people together.

00:29:52.200 It's not supposed to, uh, make people even more concerned about grievances of the past,

00:29:59.120 but that's what happened in Canada.

00:30:01.280 The, now there's a whole story there, truth and reconciliation commission, how the original

00:30:05.900 commissioners, uh, resigned.

00:30:07.760 They couldn't get along with each other.

00:30:09.040 They resigned.

00:30:09.680 And then Harper had to replace them on short notice.

00:30:13.240 Um, and things went south after that.

00:30:16.940 Um, if we'd had a commission that was doing its job properly, maybe we'd be in a better

00:30:22.000 position today.

00:30:22.840 But the commission as appointed, uh, interpreted its mandate as, uh, emphasizing victimhood and,

00:30:30.440 um, seeking restitution.

00:30:33.580 Uh, well, even they didn't quite use the word reparations, but that's what it amounts to

00:30:38.760 is seeking reparations, uh, for the past.

00:30:43.520 You know, I, um, I was in Inovic about a decade ago and I met a Métis man who was talking

00:30:50.100 about how white liberals, uh, told his grandfather, you can't be a trapper because the fur industry

00:30:57.240 is, um, you know, immoral and unethical.

00:31:00.760 And then they told his dad, you can't be into forestry because that's against the environment.

00:31:06.500 And now they're telling him you can't be into oil and gas.

00:31:10.140 And, and so, you know, he's starting to think, well, you know what, maybe, maybe it's not us.

00:31:15.080 Maybe it's you.

00:31:15.660 Maybe you just don't like, maybe you don't like it.

00:31:18.080 I'll try and dig up the clip of that.

00:31:19.520 And it was quite a moment that I saw when I was in Inovic.

00:31:23.420 Um, I mean, that is a place where, uh, and especially for the North and Tuktoyaktuk,

00:31:29.600 it's very indigenous.

00:31:30.640 I mean, there are some, uh, white folks up there, of course, but, um, that's where it 0.55

00:31:35.720 would be wonderful to see, uh, entrepreneurialism and industry.

00:31:40.560 Um, and I think there could be industry in the far North of oil and gas, but not if Greenpeace

00:31:45.080 has anything to say about it.

00:31:46.320 Well, listen, I'm depressed by your book, to be honest.

00:31:48.720 I'm sad about it.

00:31:50.100 I know a little bit about the subject because our own Drea Humphrey did a documentary on

00:31:53.720 the subject.

00:31:54.620 I, um, you know, to see Jagmeet Singh, and I'm going to play you the clip right now of

00:31:58.560 when he uses the phrase mass graves, because that implies there was like a massacre and

00:32:03.360 then bodies dumped into a pit and covered up. 0.99

00:32:05.660 It really, it was so factually false, but Jagmeet Singh really is so dumb. 0.99

00:32:10.460 He could be an honorary Trudeau cabinet minister. 0.98

00:32:12.520 Like he gives Samus O'Regan a run for the money.

00:32:14.700 Here's, here's Jagmeet Singh with the lie that was heard around the world.

00:32:18.040 Take a look.

00:32:18.660 And it hurts indigenous people. 0.91

00:32:19.960 It is hurting them right now.

00:32:21.480 So there is a lot that can be done.

00:32:23.200 And I think it has to be very clear that Canada, as a nation, committed genocide against indigenous

00:32:29.980 people.

00:32:31.000 That is a fact.

00:32:32.240 Look at all the evidence.

00:32:33.440 It is clear that the goal was to eradicate a people. 0.98

00:32:36.040 Well, I don't want to blame just Jagmeet Singh.

00:32:37.740 I mean, it was half of them.

00:32:38.540 Here's another clip from Drea's documentary showing the media lies.

00:32:41.820 Take a look.

00:32:42.240 And I read that first press release from the Kamloops Swamik First Nation ban that had

00:32:48.160 the heart wrenching claim that 215 former students' remains from the Kamloops Indian

00:32:55.980 Residential School had been confirmed to be discovered.

00:32:59.520 I, like many across the world, grieved.

00:33:03.320 And it was being claimed to have been discovered by politicians and media outlets alike to be

00:33:08.120 in a mass grave.

00:33:10.140 I want to talk about the heartbreaking news.

00:33:12.240 The 215 children were found buried at the former Kamloops Residential School.

00:33:18.480 215 children.

00:33:21.140 Think of their loving families that they were ripped away from.

00:33:25.000 Think of the communities that never saw them again.

00:33:28.420 Think of their hopes, their dreams, their potential.

00:33:32.580 Of all they would have accomplished, all they would have become.

00:33:36.540 All of that was taken away.

00:33:38.520 I struggled to find words to express my horror and grief at the discovery of these remains

00:33:46.400 of 215 First Nations children.

00:33:49.400 I realized it's because there are no words that can do justice to those children and the countless

00:33:57.060 others who died alone and scared, far from home, far from the families who love them.

00:34:03.360 This weekend, my nine-year-old son, Jack, asked me why the flags were lowered to half-mast in Ottawa.

00:34:10.240 I had the difficult task of explaining to him the terrible news of the graves of children found at the site of a residential school.

00:34:18.760 Kids aren't supposed to die at school, Dad, he said to me.

00:34:24.080 As a parent, it is devastating to think of 215 children.

00:34:28.240 This mass grave is a painful reminder of the genocide.

00:34:33.760 And what we have to commit to is that in face and light of this genocide, Canada has to make some real tough decisions.

00:34:42.420 There have been rumors of some kind of mass grave on this site for decades.

00:34:48.040 Yeah, I think it's just a very strange thing.

00:34:50.620 I mean, it's one of those things where it's just taken on faith.

00:34:59.720 And if you dare to challenge that, people can't answer other than to lash out and demonize you.

00:35:07.200 And I think that's a real shame.

00:35:08.760 I don't know.

00:35:09.900 I look forward to reading it.

00:35:11.200 I've read the preamble that you and Chris Champion wrote.

00:35:14.720 The book is called Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us and the Truth About Indian Residential Schools.

00:35:20.580 I find this subject very depressing.

00:35:23.400 And it's not because I'm hostile to indigenous people.

00:35:27.040 It's sort of the opposite, actually.

00:35:28.120 I hate the fact that the official government-directed ideology is one of victimhood and sorrow and loss rather than opportunity, growth, happiness, and a future orientation.

00:35:41.440 And I'm glad you've written the book and hopefully will not be censored.

00:35:45.780 Last word to you, Dr. Tom.

00:35:46.860 Well, I take your point about feeling depressed about it.

00:35:52.280 But there is, I hope, an optimistic side to this because we're bringing the critique together.

00:35:58.080 However, we've assembled the evidence as to why all this victimhood talk is wrong and the claims of genocide are absurd.

00:36:07.840 So maybe it won't have an impact immediately, but we think that we're laying the groundwork for a future critique of that, of these errors.

00:36:20.180 I guess you have to have a little – well, I like to say I'm a conservative, so I'm never optimistic, but I'm always hopeful.

00:36:25.920 Last question just before we go.

00:36:29.300 I said we were done, but I just got one more question that popped into my head because you used the word conservative.

00:36:34.380 And if polls are to be believed, Pierre Polyev will become the next prime minister.

00:36:40.380 Now, there's still lots of time before Trudeau has to call the election, but I saw the latest poll put the conservatives almost 20 points ahead.

00:36:47.860 And there is no region of the country, including in Quebec, where the liberals lead.

00:36:52.160 And the latest projection I saw was in British Columbia, not a single seat for the liberals, which used to be one of their strongholds.

00:37:01.580 Ironically, when Jody Wilson-Raybould was in cabinet before Trudeau threw her out for being too ethical, I think.

00:37:08.240 I don't want to be too optimistic.

00:37:13.680 I take your point about being pessimistic but hopeful.

00:37:16.660 But I think it is a real chance that Pierre Polyev becomes the next prime minister and with it a new Indian minister, a new mindset perhaps.

00:37:28.180 Do you think that the conservative party under Pierre Polyev is manifestly different?

00:37:35.080 Or is this one of those third rails of politics that Polyev would say, you know what?

00:37:40.940 I'm not going to expend political capital on this because I'll be called a racist and the liberals will try and make it stick.

00:37:47.800 I've got other things that are a higher priority, like the economy.

00:37:51.960 I'm just not going to get involved here.

00:37:53.980 What do you think the future holds if Pierre Polyev becomes the prime minister?

00:38:01.800 Well, you know, my limitations as a pundit were always that I could not foretell the future.

00:38:07.020 So, but I'll take a stab at it.

00:38:10.540 Based on the past performance of the previous conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper,

00:38:15.200 he put his priorities elsewhere and didn't really try to rein in the Indian industry very much.

00:38:25.740 He did a couple of things like trying to introduce annual reporting of Indian bands with how they're spending their money.

00:38:33.440 But by and large, he left the Indian industry alone.

00:38:37.180 And he even did actually a lot of damage, I don't think intentionally, but with his apology about the residential schools

00:38:47.180 and then the appointment of the TRC, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he set in motion the claims industry and, you know, new rounds of victimhood.

00:39:00.940 So, I guess my hope for, I see when I look at Pierre Polyev's leadership up to this point,

00:39:09.320 he has really tried to avoid any questions about indigenous peoples.

00:39:14.660 I can understand that because Canada has huge problems that affect the whole country.

00:39:18.960 Inflation, housing, things like that.

00:39:21.100 That's what's going to get him elected.

00:39:23.140 And talking a lot about indigenous peoples is only going to upset things.

00:39:28.400 So, my hope would be that if he does get elected, that at least he doesn't make things worse.

00:39:34.340 He turns down the dial on all the Trudevian claims of victimhood. 0.83

00:39:44.160 And maybe he can make some amendments that will be modestly beneficial.

00:39:50.120 But I don't look for any major change to happen even from a conservative government because that does bring forth all the catcalls of racism.

00:40:04.220 And, you know, if you're in government, you're going to say to yourself, I don't need this.

00:40:08.380 I'm going to talk about housing.

00:40:12.260 I'm going to talk about inflation.

00:40:15.040 I'm going to talk about the cost of living and, you know, all these widely popular issues.

00:40:22.480 So, I just, you know, hope that things don't get any worse.

00:40:26.540 That's how I would put it.

00:40:28.000 And dial back some of the extreme stuff that has taken place.

00:40:34.960 You know, shocking rise in expenditures, for example.

00:40:38.100 You know, we now spend substantially more on the indigenous spending envelope than we do on the Canadian forces.

00:40:44.220 Where's all the money going?

00:40:48.600 You know, there's room for cutting that back and reallocation.

00:40:52.340 But that won't amount to, you know, like major things that could – people write about major changes.

00:41:01.200 But we're just so politically blockaded on any of them.

00:41:06.460 I don't see them happening.

00:41:09.720 So, that's a true conservative perspective.

00:41:11.820 Let's hope it doesn't get any worse.

00:41:13.180 Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

00:41:14.900 Well, listen, pleasure to spend some time with you one more time.

00:41:17.260 The name of the book is Grave Error, How the Media Misled Us and the Truth About Indian Residential Schools.

00:41:23.240 Available on Amazon.

00:41:25.060 We've been talking with Dr. Tom Flanagan.

00:41:27.860 Stay with us.

00:41:28.920 My final thoughts are next.

00:41:30.160 It's tough to talk about things like that because you want to respond to emotional issues emotionally.

00:41:49.880 If someone says, I'm hurting, I've been hard done by.

00:41:52.400 And you can see with your own eyes the poverty and the social dysfunction, the crime, the addiction issues.

00:41:59.140 You see that.

00:42:00.260 And only someone with a heart of stone would not respond with love and the way we show love in our modern society with money.

00:42:07.060 But I think the more money we spend, especially if it's tied to a grievance mentality, I don't think that's fixing many problems in society.

00:42:14.400 It doesn't fix drug addiction on the streets of Vancouver.

00:42:16.780 I don't think it would fix dysfunction on an Indian reserve.

00:42:20.520 In fact, a lot of the problems in Indian reserves come from the Indian Act and its condescension.

00:42:25.640 I regret that we don't have the same inspirational, entrepreneurial, indigenous culture that I have seen in other places.

00:42:33.020 I mentioned in the interview the Hawaiian nationalism.

00:42:36.460 But they're both American flags and kingdom of Hawaii flags.

00:42:40.840 And that's sort of what I love best about it.

00:42:43.140 And Hawaiian culture is sort of cool.

00:42:45.860 Surf culture, athleticism, sporty, being outdoors.

00:42:51.320 It's sort of cool.

00:42:53.120 Same thing with the Maoris.

00:42:55.120 Cool, aesthetically beautiful.

00:42:56.800 Sports, the haka, strength.

00:42:59.060 Of course, both of those indigenous peoples have some grievances as well.

00:43:04.160 But they don't seem to dominate.

00:43:06.940 And in fact, the Maori were often against the white-driven attempt to have a whole level of affirmative action in their parliament lately.

00:43:15.860 I just wish we could get some of that positivity in Canada.

00:43:20.800 But, you know, the phrase Indian industry, I don't know if you're even allowed to say that without being prosecuted anymore.

00:43:25.880 But there are a lot of people who make a lot of money off of the grievances and the sorrow.

00:43:32.280 It's like the drug industry.

00:43:34.480 And by drug, I mean these safe injection sites.

00:43:37.520 As you may have seen, our reporters themselves have been attacked by the safe injection health authority types if we dare to criticize it.

00:43:47.600 I think a lot of the poverty industry in white Canada is the same way, too.

00:43:52.600 They make a lot of money off of problems.

00:43:54.680 They don't really want those problems solved.

00:43:56.900 Well, that's the show for today.

00:43:59.720 Until tomorrow, actually.

00:44:01.220 Until Monday.

00:44:02.560 On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:44:07.320 But before you go, make sure you vote for the Rebel Viewers' Choice Awards.

00:44:12.940 That's where you get to choose who the best rebel is.

00:44:15.880 Go to the website viewerschoiceawards.ca and vote now.

00:44:22.420 Who do you love?

00:44:23.540 David Benzies, Sheila Gunn-Reed, Drea Humphrey, Alexa LaVoy, Avi Yamini.

00:44:27.960 I'm not going to list all our teams, but they're all there.

00:44:30.780 Vote now, because we're going to announce the winner on Tuesday.

00:44:34.640 All right.

00:44:34.960 Good night.

00:44:35.240 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - December 09, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tom Flanagan on the false media narrative of 'unmarked graves'

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