Is Canada Guilty of Genocide?
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Summary
In this week's episode, we take a look at two stories from the legacy media, one from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and one from a reporter at the Winnipeg Sun. In both cases, the media gets it wrong about who they are and what they are supposed to be doing.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. Today on the program, I want to
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bring back an old segment that we used to do. We haven't done it a while, but given the current
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media climate and everything that's going on in the country, I think it's important that we bring
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this segment back. So it is called This Week in Fake News. It's a segment where I go through and
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I find some of the most egregious examples of the media just getting it wrong, the media
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misrepresenting who they are and the media just really botching a story and there's so much of
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that today in Canada among the legacy media. So, you know, the legacy media are out there and they
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pretend that they're these sort of champions of truth and that they're completely non-biased and
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indifferent and they're just out there trying to report the facts. We all know that that's not true.
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Every single reporter in Canada has their own biases and it's just a simple fact that most of
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those biases lead them towards the left. Most journalists in Canada are left-leaning and that
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bias does come through. They're not honest about who they are, so they pretend to be these unbiased,
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impartial arbiters of facts and knowledge, but the reality is that they have their own agenda,
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they have their own ideas and opinions, and that does come through. Here at True North,
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you know exactly who we are and what you can get. We don't hide our biases. You know, for instance,
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that our editorial position is conservative, that we see the world through the sort of right-of-center
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prism of things, and that our news reports are fact-driven, straight facts. So you're not going
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to see our opinions seep through in our news pieces, but when it comes to the editorial position,
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we are open about the fact that we are conservative. Whereas, for instance, the CBC,
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they're not open at all about their biases. They pretend to just simply be representing the views
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of Canadians. Of course, we all know that the CBC is far left, that most of their reporters lean left,
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but they don't acknowledge that. They don't say that they're a left-leaning organization. They lie
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to you and they say that they're straight down the middle, which, of course, they are not. So in this
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Week in Fake News, we are going to focus on two stories, and the first one does, lo and behold,
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come from that state broadcaster, the CBC. So I noticed this piece over the weekend, and it really
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just struck me as being dishonest. So here it is. It says,
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three strikes and you're outed. Brian Pallister makes another inflammatory comment about Indigenous
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relations. Now, you can see that this is listed under the term analysis. So back in the day in
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journalism, there were sort of two camps of the types of reports that you would see. There would
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be the straight news, which is what I was talking about, you know, the idea that there's no bias,
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there's no, you know, worldview seeped in there. It's just impartial. Here are the facts. Here you go.
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And then the other side of the aisle would be opinion journalism. And so this is the people
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who add context to the stories. They give you your opinion. Sometimes they even tell you who
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you should vote for and who you shouldn't vote for. But the news side is not supposed to do that.
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Well, the legacy media has created this sort of third middle sector that's not quite news,
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not quite opinion. They call it analysis. So this falls in that middle category. It really should
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be listed as opinion because as we'll see when we go through this piece, it is an opinion piece.
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But oddly enough, it is written by a reporter. So a person who does straight news, a person that
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covers politics in Manitoba, presumably he's part of the press gallery there. He goes to the news
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conferences and asks questions to the premier pretending to just be a straight reporter.
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But then you have this weird analysis piece that really is just an opinion piece from this reporter
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who basically is calling for the premier to be removed from office, which is a pretty strong call
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from the state broadcaster, from the public journalists who received billions of dollars
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in tax money. So as I said, the headline is three strikes and you're outed. I don't even really know
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what that means. The sub headline here says Brian Pallister's latest gaffe and reluctance to acknowledge
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it further illustrates his unusual leadership. So again, because it's an analysis, he's not taking
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a really strong opinion, even though it's kind of buried in there. And instead it just says,
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oh, this is unusual leadership, while the headline itself calls for him to be removed
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from office. So I'll read from the report itself so we can get to these three supposed gaffes made
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by the premier. So he starts by saying during five years as Manitoba's premier, Brian Pallister has
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made a trio of statements his critics can fairly describe as impediments to reconciliation. Again,
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you can see what this journalist's bias is, you can see what his opinion is, but he hides it behind
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this language. So instead of just saying, this is my opinion, he says these statements, his critics
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can fairly describe as being an impediment, which again, is just him hiding his own opinion.
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So what are these three trio of gaffes? Well, the first one here, it says, so in 2017,
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Pallister characterized divisions between indigenous and non-indigenous people fighting over illegal
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night hunting as the markings of a race war. According to this piece, he later walked back those
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comments as the wrong choice of words, but he did not apologize for them. So it sounds like in the
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heat of a moment, he said this was a race war, which I don't really know much about this 2017
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event. I'm sure the premier probably shouldn't be using terms like that, but really it's not the end
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of the world. I mean, it's probably what a fairly accurate description of what was going on. And then
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he later said, look, upon consideration, these were the wrong choice of words. So this reporter is kind
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of being a stickler for whether or not someone apologized for really just, you know, saying
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something that was true and then realizing, oh, it's probably politically incorrect and saying it
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was a wrong choice of word. It looks like he did acknowledge it, whether or not he specifically said
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the word, I'm sorry. Again, you know, this is four years ago now. I don't know why this is something
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that the CBC needs to write about now, but let's go on to the second supposed gaffe by Premier
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Pallister in Manitoba. So the second one, he said in late 2020, the premier suggested that the need
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to prioritize the indigenous population for COVID-19 vaccinations puts Manitobans at the back
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of the line for doses if the province does not receive the greater proportion, proportionate share
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of shots. So the implication, this according to the CBC reporter, is that indigenous people are not
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not Manitobans. In spite of that rhetoric, the province went on to partner with the First Nations
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pandemic response team on what is widely regarded as a successful effort to ensure vaccines made their
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way to indigenous communities. So this is kind of interesting because his complaint is the language
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that the premier used, which admittedly isn't that great, but it ignores the actual actions of the
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premier. So here we have in Manitoba, a success story, a story of the premier prioritizing the
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indigenous population, ensuring that they did get their COVID vaccines. And that was successful.
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And the author even confirms that in this piece saying that, well, yeah, his words were bad, but
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his actions were great. And so again, it kind of negates this entire point. Sure, he said something
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that maybe he shouldn't have. It seems again, like he probably just misspoke. And then the actions were
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what matters. So CBC is pointing out that it doesn't matter what you do. As long as you say something
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that's slightly politically incorrect, then we're going to go after you for it. Okay, let's find out
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what the third statement was. So here he says, here the piece goes on to say, the third statement
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arrived on Wednesday when the premier issued a plea to Manitobans who remain angry about the discovery
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of the remains of hundreds of children at several Canadian residential schools. If you've been following
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my reports, you know that this statement that he just wrote here isn't exactly true. It's not
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confirmed. And to say that the remains are of children at residential schools is just
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flatly, plainly false. I've made this point many times. For instance, the place where the unmarked
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graves were discovered in Cranbrook, British Columbia was an existing graveyard that predated
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the residential school by 40 years and also serviced the only local hospital in the area. So the idea
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that these graves are all belonging to children residential schools is just patently false. But the
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reporter repeats that myth. And then he goes on to say this, and this is pretty wild. So again, this is to
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quote the piece in the CBC, during a speech intended to calm the waters, Pallister instead whipped up a
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storm by suggesting the colonization of Canada was conducted with good intentions. This is a quote from
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Pallister, the people who came to this country before it was a country and since then didn't come here to
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destroy anything. They came here to build. Okay, so let's just pause for a second because this shouldn't
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even be a controversial point. Early Canadians were good people that had good intentions. They came here
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to build a country. That's true. You can argue about whether the outcomes of their policies were good
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or bad. A lot of them were really good. We live in a great country. Look at the rule of law in our
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country, the institutions, the education system, the health system. There are so many things that Canada
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got right. Canada is a great country in the scheme of things. Early Canadians, yes, they had good
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intentions. And yes, they came here to build. Did they make some mistakes? Absolutely. Were early
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governments not as good as governments today? Absolutely. I think you can look at any government
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in any country in the world and any time in Canadian history and point out things that are bad. But when
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you compare Canada to any other country in the world, and especially at that time, right, we're talking
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about the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s. That's what these residential schools
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were established. And then they were maintained during the 20th century, you know, at a time
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when evil ideologies like fascism and communism were causing real chaos and reaping havoc all over
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the globe. You're talking about real genocide, real issues of mass death and suffering and misery at
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the hands of governments. Over in Canada, we had this school system that had some bad outcomes,
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absolutely. But again, the intentions, were they good? Were they bad of the residential schools? That's a
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debate that we can have. But to kind of blanketly say that the intentions of early Canadians were not
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good. I don't think you can say that. And I don't think that you can say that they've had a negative
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outcome. But again, the CBC is not interested in nuance or interested in this weird game of gotcha
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journalism, taking words out of context and trying to use them to haunt someone. And of course, it doesn't
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apply equally. They would never do this to Justin Trudeau. They would never do this to a liberal
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premier or a liberal politician. This is just a weird gotcha game that they play against conservatives,
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parsing their language, taking it out of context, using it against them. It's absolutely despicable.
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And I think that the CBC should be absolutely ashamed of itself for running this piece. Okay,
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let's move on to my second article that I'd like to go through in This Week in Fake News. This is over
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in iPolitics. You may not have heard of iPolitics. It's a small little website, a news outlet that is based
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in Ottawa and they sort of cover Ottawa-based news. But you probably will recognize the author of this
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article because Michael Corrin used to be a very prominent, outspoken conservative who was a
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religious conservative. And he would sort of back every position, even the controversial and extreme
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ones of the Christian right and sort of defend them. And then all of a sudden, he had this weird
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180 where he went hardcore in the other direction. And now he's a leftist who openly speaks out about how
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much he hates sort of the political right and the Christian right in particular. So his piece over
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in iPolitics is called, Let's Worried About Destroyed People First, Then Destroyed Churches. To scream at
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violence without realizing its causes isn't an authentic Christian response. So it's a little rich to hear
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Michael Corrin telling us about what is and what isn't an authentic Christian response, given the fact
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that he has himself switched his position so much, it's hard to tell what's authentic with him and
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what isn't. But the long and the short of it, and I won't spend too much time on this piece because
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it's really despicable. But the idea is that we're supposed to just sort of accept the idea that these
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churches are being burnt down, that churches are being vandalized, and that it's all part of the sort
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of reconciliation process. And I just think that this view is absolutely abhorrent. Look, one of the most
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important values in Canada is religious freedom, the ability to practice your religion. We all know
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that if this was happening to any other religious group, if these were Jewish synagogues, or Muslim
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mosques, or Sikh temples, or any other religious building, this would be a huge, huge national story.
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The RCMP would be out there on a manhunt trying to find those responsible. And every single liberal
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and leftist pundit, probably every conservative pundit too, would be condemning it. But somehow because
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it's happening to Christians, and because of the news with the unmarked graves being discovered,
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everyone just sort of shrugs their shoulders. And Michael Corrin is sort of the leading example of
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this. And perhaps the saddest part of this whole story about the churches getting burnt down or
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being desecrated is that so many of these churches are on First Nations territories. So something that
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you might not hear many people talk about, and people don't really like to acknowledge, but the
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overwhelming majority of First Nations people in this country are practicing Christians. Many of them are
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practicing Catholics. So the churches that are being burnt down are their places of worship.
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There are places where First Nations go to pray and to congregate. The idea that during this time that
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is a crisis for First Nations, you know, the sort of wounds of residential schools, the wounds of
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residential schools are being ripped open by the mainstream media, a lot of times in a very
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neglectful way, using irresponsible language, exaggerating, sensationalizing the story,
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and saying things that are flat out untrue, ripping open the wounds for First Nations
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people. And then they don't have anywhere to go and pray because their local community church has
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been burnt down. Look, again, Canada is a country of laws. We have the rule of law. And one of the
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foremost values that we have in this country is freedom of religion. That includes the sanctity
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of these buildings and the ability of Canadians to go and pray. And having someone like Michael
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Corrin kind of get out there and champion the idea that it is okay that these are being burnt down
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and that it's not the same as violence against individual people is just absolutely disgusting.
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I want to point out one line just because it's a certainly a pet peeve of mine. But Michael Corrin
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even repeats the lie that these were mass graves that were discovered. So he says,
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this has all happened since the mass unmarked graves of indigenous children were found on the grounds of
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former residential schools, which were often run by churches. Okay, so you see here he uses the term
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mass unmarked graves, which is sort of a sleight of hand trick. They weren't mass graves. A lot of
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media reported that they were mass graves. Of course, mass graves are the hallmark of genocide. And the
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idea of a mass grave sort of conjures images of evil done by Nazis and communists and fascists
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in the 20th century. So to use that term mass graves is incredibly dubious. And it's not true in this
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instance. And so because it's not technically true, he kind of sneaks in mass unmarked graves so
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that if you're not reading it very carefully, you might think it just says mass graves, but really
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he's saying mass unmarked graves, which isn't really the correct language that you would use.
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So shame on iPolitics for publishing this piece. Shame on the CBC for writing that weird analysis,
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trying to condemn the premier for things that really weren't that bad. This is definitely your
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examples of fake news for this week. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Candice Malcolm,