The Candice Malcolm Show - Is the media narrative getting away from the facts of this story？

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to the Candice Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candice Malcolm. Thank you

00:00:09.040 so much for joining me today. It has been a while. The show has been on hiatus for a

00:00:13.420 while because I was away. I had a baby in November, but we're bringing it back now.

00:00:18.680 We'll be doing this show two days a week. So thank you so much for tuning in. I really

00:00:23.260 appreciate your support. To find out more information about this podcast or if you'd

00:00:27.420 like to support it, head on over to tnc.news slash donate. That's True North, tnc.news slash

00:00:35.740 donate. All right, let's get to the news. So today I'm going to talk about the biggest story

00:00:40.540 in the country right now. It's been dominating the headlines all week, and obviously it is

00:00:45.320 a very sensitive subject. I'm talking about this report that came out over the weekend

00:00:50.080 about the apparent discovery of 215 children's remains found buried near a residential school

00:00:57.180 in Kamloops, British Columbia. So first, I want to say that this story is invoking quite

00:01:03.280 an emotional reaction across the country, and you can understand why. It's obviously

00:01:08.160 a very, very upsetting topic in general. The topic is very sensitive. I'll just say this

00:01:13.960 for myself. As someone who leans libertarian, especially when it comes to the idea of families

00:01:19.680 and a parent's right to raise their children however they want and how they see fit, the idea

00:01:24.840 that the government once had a policy where it would remove children from their homes

00:01:28.660 is incredibly upsetting, and I wholeheartedly condemn it, obviously. Likewise, as the mother

00:01:35.100 of small children, the idea of children being separated from their parents is horrible. It's

00:01:41.340 very upsetting. So I understand why this story is creating such a stir and such an emotional

00:01:47.520 reaction across the country. But the reason I want to talk about it on this podcast, I want

00:01:53.160 to talk about it with you today, is because I believe that the reaction and the media narrative

00:01:58.260 is really running into some dangerous territory for us as a country. We now have people invoking

00:02:05.360 the Holocaust, saying that what happened here equates to genocide, that this story confirms

00:02:11.520 genocide, and treating these residential schools like they were some sort of a death camp. Now

00:02:16.880 look, I condemned residential schools. I think they were a bad idea, obviously. I think 1.00

00:02:22.160 we all agree on that horrible things were done and the policy was regrettable. But I think

00:02:28.160 we get into some dangerous territory as a country when we start equating our history and what

00:02:33.660 happened to the Nazis, to a Holocaust, and pretending that these schools were some kind of a murder 0.63

00:02:39.680 camp or a death camp. So before we just accept this narrative, let's go back to the facts of

00:02:44.700 the story. Let's go back to the original story and try to discern what facts we know at this

00:02:49.880 point. So this entire story came from one news release. This news release was issued by the

00:02:57.160 Kamloops Band. So this is it. It came on May 27th from the Kamloops Sekemki. Apologies, I probably

00:03:05.660 didn't pronounce that properly, but the Kamloops Indian Band. So it says for immediate release,

00:03:11.000 it says it's with heavy heart that Chief Roseanne Casimir confirms an unthinkable loss

00:03:16.020 that was spoken about but never discovered by the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

00:03:20.740 This past weekend, with the help of ground-penetrating radar specialists, the stark truth

00:03:26.040 of the preliminary findings came to light, the confirmation of the remains of 215 children

00:03:31.420 who were students of the Kamloops Residential School. So the news release goes on to have some

00:03:38.060 quotes about how hard this is and how they have been working to verify this. So they knew that,

00:03:43.840 you know, there were stories in the community that this had happened, but they weren't able to find

00:03:47.720 any evidence. And they're saying that they have evidence now with the use of this ground-penetrating

00:03:53.160 radar. But the interesting thing about this news release is that it doesn't release a report.

00:03:59.000 It says that it basically just announces that they found the remains of 215 children.

00:04:05.360 They don't exactly say how. And then they say that the report says that they expect to complete

00:04:11.780 preliminary findings by mid-June and will be providing an update as soon as they become

00:04:17.680 available. So the preliminary findings have not yet been released. The report hasn't been released.

00:04:22.560 We're saying it's forthcoming in mid-June. It also says, please note that the Heritage Park

00:04:26.580 is closed to the public and no one will be permitted on the site for the duration of this sensitive work.

00:04:33.060 They still say that they are taking steps regarding these preliminary findings, engaging with a coroner,

00:04:38.860 reaching out to the home of communities who had children attend the school, and taking measures

00:04:44.860 to ensure the location remains protected. So again, we haven't had the official report.

00:04:51.260 We just have a news release from the chief, from this band, saying that this happened. So we go over

00:04:58.960 to the CBC story, and it kind of confirms it. You have to read it carefully. It says, the headline here,

00:05:03.220 remains of 215 children found buried at former BC Residential School First Nations say.

00:05:09.460 So at this point, it is just a claim. It's a claim that they say is coming because they hired

00:05:16.180 a specialist. So they hired the specialist in ground penetrating radar to carry out the work,

00:05:21.840 and that their language and culture department oversaw the project to ensure it was done in a

00:05:26.400 culturally appropriate and respectful way. The release did not specify the company or individual

00:05:31.780 involved or how the work was completed. Then when it comes to outside confirmation,

00:05:38.500 it says that they're working with the BC coroner service. But then in a statement to the CBC,

00:05:42.980 BC's chief coroner said that the coroner service was alerted to the discovery on Thursday.

00:05:49.060 We are in the early process of gathering information and will continue to work collaboratively

00:05:54.180 with the band and others as the sensitive work progresses. So the coroner's office has not yet

00:06:00.900 confirmed this information. So what we have at this point is a claim, not a verified report.

00:06:06.980 They haven't released their findings. There's no public access. There's no third party verification,

00:06:12.340 and there is no report. So obviously, there's a lot of questions that remain a lot of things that are

00:06:19.220 unknown at this point. So I have a couple of questions. The first thing that came to my mind is

00:06:23.780 how do we know exactly how many remains were found? How did we get to that number 215? Well,

00:06:29.220 there was a story in the National Post that I thought did a great job of explaining the radar

00:06:33.940 technology and how it works. So we're not talking about an excavation site here. They didn't dig up

00:06:39.540 anything. This was all above ground, ground penetrating radar technology. That's what we're told

00:06:45.060 that the report was used in order to find these remains. So a lot of people are asking,

00:06:51.300 you know, what is this technology? I spoke to a professor friend of mine who said that this,

00:06:55.860 that does this kind of work, and he said that this kind of technology is common. It was originally

00:06:59.940 developed to look for abandoned oil drums and those kind of things, and that now it is being used to look

00:07:05.700 at ancient cemeteries and First Nation cemeteries. So the National Post did this story. I thought they did a

00:07:11.620 great job. This was Tyler Dawson over at the National Post, and he interviewed a professor of

00:07:19.380 anthropology at the University of Alberta who focuses on this kind of thing. In the interview,

00:07:24.980 I'm going to read part of it because it's really interesting. She says, quote, so it can map all kinds

00:07:30.180 of things. It was actually originally developed for geology, but it can be applied in the context to

00:07:35.140 look for graves. It doesn't actually see the bodies. It's not like an x-ray. What it actually does is look

00:07:40.660 for the shaft. When a grave is dug, there is a grave shaft dug, and the body is placed in the grave,

00:07:47.380 sometimes in a coffin, as in the Christian burial context. What the ground penetrating radar can see

00:07:53.700 is where that pit itself was dug, because the soil actually changes when you dig a grave. And

00:07:59.140 occasionally, if it is a coffin, the radar can pick up the coffin sometimes as well. So that's

00:08:05.060 interesting. The whole way that they knew that these graves were here was because of the coffins. Well,

00:08:10.020 that kind of flies in the face of part of the mainstream media and what the left-wing media

00:08:14.020 is telling you that these bodies were just sort of discarded into some mass grave. According to

00:08:18.980 this National Post story, what it implies is that these bodies were potentially buried properly and

00:08:25.780 respectfully. Second, the second thing that we don't know yet is none of this confirms that these

00:08:32.260 graves actually belong to children. They were found at the location of the residential school,

00:08:37.940 but they were just graves. They could have been part of a community graveyard, for all we know.

00:08:41.860 We don't have that answer yet. Finally, of course, none of this tells us about the cause of death.

00:08:48.180 We don't know how these people died. Lots of politicians and leaders are jumping to conclusions.

00:08:53.460 They're saying this was murder. Some even say it was genocide. But does the evidence really show us that?

00:08:59.700 So just keep in mind this school was open from 1890 to 1969. If we go back to 1890, just look at the statistics.

00:09:08.740 If we go back to 1890 and look at the statistics, the infant mortality rate in 1890 in Canada was 27 percent.

00:09:17.060 Twenty-seven percent. So nearly one in three children died before their fifth birthday. And this, of course,

00:09:22.660 was because of communicable diseases. We're obviously talking about a very different time. We're talking

00:09:27.540 about a time before modern medicine, before vaccines were developed. And when communicable diseases,

00:09:33.060 diseases like TB and Spanish flu were rampant and there was no real cure. So all this is to say that

00:09:41.060 my great concern here is about the policy ramifications of all of this. So obviously there are very

00:09:47.860 legitimate concerns and emotions out there right now. My worry, though, is that snap decisions will

00:09:54.500 be made without information, letting emotions drive the public policy decision. That is not a healthy way

00:10:00.980 to run democracy. Decisions should be made with a clear head. We should be examining the facts. We should

00:10:07.380 be considering the second and third order consequences of these decisions, not making snap decisions in the

00:10:13.940 reaction of a huge, huge national story that is very emotional. So all of this is to say, again,

00:10:21.380 before we jump to conclusions, we should just wait for more information. At the very least,

00:10:25.460 we should wait for the preliminary report or the official report to come out. Maybe it's not as bad

00:10:31.140 as we think, or maybe possibly it's far worse, but we don't know at this point. So let's wait for some

00:10:36.660 concrete evidence. It's always needed. And that's the standard. That would be the standard for any other

00:10:41.860 news story out there. And the same should apply for us here. All right, everyone have a great week.

00:10:47.940 This is Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm show. I will see you next week.

The Candice Malcolm Show - June 02, 2021

Is the media narrative getting away from the facts of this story？

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