The News Rundown

B.C. First Nation now referring to 215 suspected graves as 'anomalies' instead of 'children'

The summer of 2021 may go down as one of the worst summers of this decade for BC, what with us being in the throes of the pandemic and its various movement restrictions put in place by then-premier John Horgan's NDP government, the heat dome event in Western Canada that led to the destruction of Lytton, BC, and of course the announcement from the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation that the remains of 215 children were found buried on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
These three events changed BC for the future years to come. Of course, the backlash against pandemic era spending and restrictions continues, with a continued polarizing of politics in BC away from the centre, with David Eby's NDP moving further to the left and those against the NDP beginning to coalesce their support with the more right wing BC Conservatives. The heat dome irreparably harmed Lytton, with the entire town being destroyed, and of course the heat of that summer is not likely to be forgotten anytime soon amongst residents of the rest of the province.
But even billions in provincial spending and social restrictions and heat deaths cannot compare to the overwhelming social change that was seen in BC that soon spread across the rest of the country after the Kamloops residential school announcement.
The belief that the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc had in the ground penetrating radar techniques that to them, revealing 215 buried First Nations children, set off an anti-colonial uproar across Canada. Symbols of Canada were destroyed in protest, with almost a hundred churches being set afire by arsonists, many being destroyed forever, Canada Day featuring muted or even no celebrations across the country, and statues of those who built the country being defaced or torn down.
It's fair to say that summer of 2021 was the beginning of the end of the social and multicultural fabric of cohesion that Canada has enjoyed for many decades, and in 2024, it's fair that the response to the horrifying news about the First Nations children changed the way Canadians view the country, perhaps even forever.
In a recent statement, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced a Day of Reflection to mark the anniversary of the 2021 announcement, which quickly garnered headlines around the world, inspired an official Canadian visit from Pope Francis and prompted the federal government to order flags flown at half mast for more than five months.
The Day of Reflection statement employed almost exactly the same language as in the initial 2021 announcement, except instead of the term “remains of 215 children,”, implying confirmed graves, it was now using the term “anomalies.”
The Day of Reflection statement reads: “With the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light — the confirmation of 215 anomalies were detected.”
What had been found in 2021 was evidence of soil disturbances. Over the Victoria Day weekend that year, a contractor ran a ground-penetrating radar unit over a field near the former site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. In 215 places they found soil densities that were different than in the rest of the field.
Sheldon Poitras — the project lead on a residential school grave search in Saskatchewan explained in 2023 that differences in soil densities could mean many different things: “It could be a stone under the ground, it could be a clump of clay, it could be a piece of wood or it could be something.”
In that particular case — which focused on the former site of the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School — the radar search did occur in the vicinity of where a fragment of bone believed to be a child’s jawbone had been discovered. A subsequent coroner’s analysis determined that it was likely buried around 1900, when Qu’Appelle was recording its highest rates of student mortality.
But none of the 215 anomalies at Kamloops Indian Residential School have been archaeologically confirmed as graves.
Despite this, not only did widespread media reports in 2021 report the 215 as confirmed burials, but they occasionally called them a “mass grave.” The New York Times coverage of the Kamloops survey, most notably, put the term “mass grave of Indigenous children” in its headline.
Official T’kemlups statements would avoid the term mass graves — as would other Canadian First Nations who announced similar discoveries throughout the summer of 2021. However, T’kemlups Chief Rosanne Casimir would include the term “mass graves” in a successful motion passed at a July 2021 meeting of the Assembly of First Nations.
Resolution number 01/2021 stated “the mass grave discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School reveals Crown conduct reflecting a pattern of genocide against Indigenous peoples,” and called on Canadian authorities to establish a “verified list of all known locations of mass graves.”
So while the 215 'anomalies' may not be all the undocumented buried Indigenous children that the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc feared they were, and indeed certainly do not constitute a mass grave, it's still important to note that Indian Residential Schools had been identified for having outsized rates of student mortality, many of whom were buried in onsite graveyards using wooden markers that have since rotted away.
What failed to be acknowledged as well, presumably based on the neglect of the history of the site, was that there had been considerable sub-surface disruption at the site over the decades, including the laying of sewage tiles whose layout could have given the appearance of grave shafts.
Records meticulously gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission document 51 known deaths at the Kamloops Indian Residential School — although the records conspicuously have no recorded deaths from the early 1900s, when Canadian residential schools were repeatedly being hit with devastating tuberculosis outbreaks. The death rates from the early 1900's and before prompted scandals even at that time.
More importantly, three years to the day later, there has been no effort to disinter even a single presumed burial site, a necessity to confirm the existence of buried children. An unwillingness even to employ a minimally intrusive technique like core sampling despite no indigenous or Christian spiritual taboo on exhuming buried remains when foul play is suspected continues to be troubling.
And with a rise in residential school denialism from those who do not believe in the actually well documented horrors of the Canadian residential school system, such disbelief on similar levels of Holocaust denialism has coalesced around the anniversary of the original 2021 announcement that 3 years down the line has not provided proof of 215 graves, prompting the change in wording to anomalies. The lack of proof and words of those involved will now never convince those who believe the whole thing was made up.
Chief Rosanne Casimir thanked the "allies" who had spoken out against the backlash and rising waves of denialism, stressing that truth "must be upheld."
She said in a passionate and inflammatory statement that: "There have always been those who target Indigenous people in Canada, with systemic racism and white supremacy as foundational to Canada as the very federal laws that ripped our children away from home, in cattle trucks and police cars, to bring them to the residential schools."
Even more sketchy is the change in numbers of the anomalies. The 215 figure was quickly reduced to 200 on July 15, 2021 after the existence of previous excavations at the site close to the former boarding school “that could have influenced the results” was discovered. After first denying the widespread media account that there was evidence of a “mass grave,” a sign of possible criminal activity, Casimir reversed course at a September 2021 meeting of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations in a resolution stating that “215 unmarked mass graves of children were located utilizing ground-penetrating radar” at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
From 215 bodies to 200, then back to 215, and a back and forth from individual to mass burials does nothing to enhance the credibility of the original announcement or the work behind it. Instead, it has turned a possible tragedy into a parody of truth telling, and even one might call the whole thing fake news.
The other troubling aspect of the story is that millions in federal money earmarked towards the study of these alleged unmarked graves
The Canadian Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations (CIR) confirmed on May 8 it had spent $7.9 million to fund a study of these 215 allegedly unmarked graves, part of the $320 million in new money the federal government committed in August 2021 for programmes to help indigenous communities search burial sites at former residential schools and to emotionally support survivors and their communities.
But there has been no public accounting of what became of the $7.9 million by either the leadership of the Kamloops reserve or the Canadian government, according to Blacklock's Reporter.
Apart from the unconvincing 2021 ground-penetrating radar “disturbed soil” findings, alleged consultation with the families of deceased students who attended the school, and some purported archival research, the results of which have never been released, no other work seems to have been done at the site.
As for the Kamloops Indian Band, when asked about the nearly $8 million allocated to uncover the truth about the mass graves, its representatives declined to comment. The latest revelation coming out of the Kamloops Indian Reserve emerged on May 18, 2024 when it was announced that its offices would be closed on May 23 for a Day of Reflection. Not much is being said about the study, or the work done at the site, or if anything is going to be happening in the near future.
This story is best summed up by Chief Casimir herself, from her 2021 statement when she said “At this time, we have more questions than answers.” That may be the most truthful part of this whole story.
Supplementals:

Canada in the past has nearly been torn apart by the spectre of conscription. The idea of conscription is being batted around again, this time in the opinion columns of the National Post.
Tasha Kheiriddin who for those unaware is a former lawyer and commentator today proposed the idea. She was also reportedly in deep conversations with Jean Charest prior to the last Conservative leadership race as to whether she or Jean Charest would run. Charest ran and she played a large role in his campaign.
Kheiriddin suggests that young people are taught to hate Canada and believes that maybe mandatory service could fix it.
She opines this due to the fact that UK Conservative leader Rishi Sunak is proposing national service, either military or civilian if he wins the July 4th election.
Now, many developed countries like South Korea, Singapore, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and others all have mandatory service. There is a case to be made that it instilled a sense of community, national pride, duty, and honour. Those countries also have the potential to face an existential risk from their neighbours.
The call for national service is an interesting discussion point but misses the goalposts when trying to address a specific problem.
Kheiriddin believes that Canada has become a country of silos where diversity has become an achilles heel that foreign states could exploit.
She says people used to wear the maple leaf abroad but now we topple statues, erase the word pioneer, and rename public spaces.
What Kheiriddin is saying is the problem is the woke culture that has pushed Canada in this direction without saying it but one might ask, how would military service change that?
She also says that our teenagers are exposed to this each and every day at school. Once again, something that can be changed in our school system.
Kheiriddin again cites an “inclusive calendar guide” for BC’s K-12 curriculum and she takes issue that 5 of 193 only commemorate historical figures.
Again, change the institutions.
Interestingly enough the Toronto Star has the foil to this story and aside from what is a discussion on “woke” policy the Toronto Star says that the future is slipping out of reach for young people.
Family wealth, living standards, and money has become a problem for many Canadians. Basic financial hurdles.
Who can afford to start a family, like Canada, and be patriotic when they can’t even afford to stay in the city they grew up in?
Patriotism of service is wonderful but it’s not a complete proposition on its own to fix the maladies of today.
By honing in on opportunity, alleviating fiscal strain, and enabling life progress, that’s how people are to be made proud of this country and their accomplishments.
Our neighbours to the south fly the stars and stripes, recite the pledge of allegiance, and remain a patriotic bunch despite some of the greatest constitutional and institutional challenges that country has seen since the civil war.
The reason for this is because even through the great recession and the COVID pandemic at the end of what may have seemed like a dark end of the road there was always a ray of hope. A ray of hope that through America’s darkest hours always maintained the American Dream.
This happens because of the inherent structure of that country in its constitutional rights and American exceptionalism.
Now let's not kid ourselves for a minute that there are forces at work within the United States attempting to do to that country what the Trudeau administration has done to Canada. But the inherent setup of the American government makes it a ton more difficult.
So while a national conscription service may seem like a good place to start, we need to start with the core of our institutions starting with the federal government all the way down through the economy to education and culture.
This requires bold leadership at the federal level and for provinces to be inherently onboard with a vision for Canada that restores Canadian patriotism.
Canadian Patriotism has shown itself multiple ways since 1867 including John A. MacDonald’s idea for a national railway to tie the country together in an effort to combat American Manifest Destiny that ultimately worked.
Canadians made themselves in World War 1 at countless battle sites most notably Vimy Ridge and Paschendale which inspired a generation. This continued in World War 2 with the D-day landings, liberation of Belgium, and the liberation of the Netherlands.
And of course Canadians last displayed patriotism loud and proud for the world at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
Patriotism exists in Canada, it just needs to be fostered through institutions alongside the military with good policy at the federal and provincial levels.
Once that happens we may surprise many and stand next to our American neighbours in patriotism.
Supplementals:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/young-canadians-are-being-priced-out-of-home-ownership-and-even-parenthood-why-on-earth/article_6c8c9282-1de3-11ef-a430-a7ea3ba948dc.html

After Billions of Dollars in Losses, Canada Post Warns It May Run Out of Cash

For this story we have to once again head to foreign news media to get the full picture as to what's happening in Canada, with Canadian media taking almost a week to pick on news the New York Times of all places broke first, that being of the severe financial struggles of Canada Post.
It's been found that Canada Post, the federal Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada, has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter of operation, with the announcement of an operating loss of 221 million Canadian dollars for the first three months of the year. That came on top of an announcement at the beginning of the month that it had lost 748 million dollars last year.
Canada Post has now accumulated more than 3 billion dollars in losses since 2018, and it offered a bleak look ahead in the 2023 annual report it released this month. The report forecasts “larger and increasingly unsustainable losses in future years,” adding that without borrowing another 1 billion dollars and refinancing 500 million dollars in current debt, it would run out of cash early next year.
The report bluntly states: “Canada Post is at a critical juncture in its history. With financial pressures mounting, its longstanding role as a vital, publicly owned national infrastructure for Canadians and Canadian businesses is under significant threat.”
For decades, the post office’s biggest problem has been that increasingly, people and businesses don’t send any letters, once its major source of income. In 2006, Canadian homes received seven letters a week on average. Last year, that figure was two.
Online shopping offered some hope during the pandemic, when it became the only way to buy many products. Though Canada Post lost 779 million dollars in 2020, much of it in pandemic-related costs, parcel shipments rose by 50 percent over the previous year, and demand from shippers outstripped capacity.
Those gains proved fleeting, in part because the rise in the parcel business brought with it a new form of competitor. In addition to unionized companies like UPS Canada, which have a similar cost structure, Canada Post is now up against a growing number of small firms that rely on poorly paid gig workers, who don’t receive benefits.
Just before the pandemic, the post office delivered 62 percent of all parcels in Canada. Now, it handles just 29 percent. That business is being squeezed at both ends. On top of the price pressure from competitors, parcels cost the post office much more to handle and deliver than letters, and demand substantial investments in equipment. So profit margins are slim.
Canada Post’s chief executive, Doug Ettinger, said in a statement that the service would need to revamp and that it was discussing plans with the government, but did not say what form those changes might take. He said: “Canadians understand our business model must change...an operating model designed to deliver nearly 5.5 billion letters in 2006 cannot be sustained on the 2.2 billion letters we delivered last year.”
Still, Ettinger commits that getting rid of daily mail delivery is not an option Canada Post is considering. Indeed, he's looking at moving to 7 day service, in order to better compete with private parcel delivery companies like UPS, Amazon and DHL. The problem with that, is where do you find the revenue to offset the extra two days, when you're already losing $1B a year?
Jean-Yves Duclos, the Canadian government’s minister of Public Services and Procurement, added that the government and Canada Post are working together on a plan to put the firm on a long-term financially stable footing. In typical politician speak he said: "Whatever we need to support Canada Post in supporting Canadians, it will be envisaged, as we need Canada Post in the future," which says absolutely nothing of course.
While Duclos said the removal of daily mail delivery was an “option” being considered by Canada Post, he did not weigh in on whether the Liberal government would make that change. He acknowledged the changing landscape for mail delivery in Canada but said the government is waiting to see a new model from the Crown corporation to boost revenues and save on costs.
Canada Post is not alone in its struggles; other postal systems may provide a hint of what could be coming here. Britain’s Royal Mail, which was privatized in 2013, had an adjusted operating loss of 419 million pounds (about 729 million Canadian dollars) last year. A regulator recently proposed cutting deliveries from six days a week to as few as three. But as soon as the idea was out, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “absolutely committed” to the six-day-a-week schedule required by law.
Any substantial change at Canada Post is sure to be similarly fraught. Whether Trudeau, another leader behind by double digits in polls like Sunak, will want to take that postal problem, with an election expected on the horizon at some point, remains unknown.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

Trudeau Liberals’ immigration policies purposefully altering Canada

This week the federal government has announced that they will be increasing the number of refugees coming to Canada from Gaza to 5,000 up from 1,000. And that includes families.
The “news” about this item and this item alone would have you think this story ends here but the reality is far more complicated.
The Liberal government sees this as an opportunity to have people in Gaza reunite with Canadian relatives.The coverage on this from the Toronto Star ends here citing other issues like government bureaucracy, Israel’s cooperation, and how many other people with “Palestinian Authority” travel documents have travelled to Canada since October.
The visas being issued allow Palestinians who live in Gaza and are related to a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to move to Canada. The program also extends to people related to a citizen or permanent resident who isn’t yet in the country but intends to live in Canada.
For a long time now Western Context has been talking about the strain put on our existing services and infrastructure by both neglect and an increased number of new arrivals to this country.
Immigration has been a tool used effectively up until the Trudeau administration, it has now seemingly fallen off the rails.
We have of course the story from last week pertaining to those who pass down Canadian citizenship and now we have the story this week about new arrivals, not refugees, from Gaza.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller has also told the media that the federal government is considering permitting migrants and illegal immigrants in the country now to gain permanent residency. This would include migrants without valid documents, asylum seekers ordered deported, and former international students whose permits have expired.
Miller also this week when testifying before a parliamentary committee admitted that a criminal background check by police is no longer required for processing temporary workers and international students.
The obvious pertaining to this free-for-all policy has been stated numerous places this week and Canadians are all thinking it.
First the Niagara Independent published an article that details the free-for-all.
They say that the “open border policies are changing the ethnic composition of the country.”
Is that a racist dog-whistle? No, it’s fact backed up by stats from Stats Canada and the department of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship.
Here are the facts backed up by data of the Trudeau administration’s immigration plan that can be called nothing short of open borders:
First, in 2022 and 2023 Canada’s population grew by a record amount, more than one million-plus people each year.
Second, in 2022 the country’s population growth rate was 2.7 per cent, which is the highest rate in the world outside African countries. In 2023, it was even higher at 3.2 per cent.
Third, Canada’s population has not grown at the current pace since the baby boom years in the late 1950s. Almost all (98 per cent) of that growth came from migration.
Fourth, according to the Canadian census, prior to 2015, immigration consisted of 28 per cent coming from the UK/Europe, and today this number is two per cent.
Fifth, nearly 98 per cent of immigrants now come from India, China, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, and other African countries. Today, Canada has the world’s largest intake of 3rd World migration – mostly from the continent of Africa.
Sixth, first- and second-generation immigrants now account for 44 per cent of the country’s population, according to the 2021 census.
Seventh, on June 16, 2023, Canada’s population surpassed the 40 million mark and nine months later on March 27, 2024, it surpassed 41 million. On July 1, 2015, Canada’s estimated population was 35,851,800.
Justin Trudeau has succeeded in making Canada the first post-national state at an cost unknown to most Canadians.
Housing, health care, and social services are obvious but there are also hidden costs associated with supporting newcomers to this country.
We’ve detailed the $224 per day spent on asylum seekers before but if we go back to March 2022 it was reported that 35% of government assisted refugees remain on welfare up to a decade after arriving in Canada.
These are the hard stats backed up by numbers. Numbers on their own hurt no one and no one should have hurt feelings over numbers. Numbers and facts don’t care about feelings.
The Niagara Independent then says what most “old stock Canadians” are probably thinking: “As expensive as financially supporting migrants is for taxpayers, Canadians are paying a greater cost with the societal disorder newcomers are bringing onto the streets of Canada’s cities.”
This of course comes with anti-semetic shootings of schools in Toronto and Montreal and a firebombing of a synagogue in Vancouver.
There are of course also the protests on campuses that call for those involved to “globalize the intifada” which is a call to rise up.
With the recent strife Ontario Premier Doug Ford accused people of “bringing problems from everywhere else in the world” to Ontario after the recent shooting at the Toronto girls school saying, “Before you plan on moving to Canada, don't come to Canada if you're going to start terrorizing neighborhoods. If you want to come to Canada, if you want to be a resident of Ontario, you get along with everyone.”
On Friday he was asked to apologize and walk back his marks but said “I stick with what I said. We’re tired of lawlessness from anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re here, you’re new or whatever. It’s very, very clear. My phone is blowing up from every community saying, ‘You’re bang on’.”
Doug Ford just said what many Canadians are thinking and are only a few steps away from having this become a full blown national crisis.
The issue here at the end of the day is backed up by facts and it’s an inconvenient truth that many are keen to ignore but Doug Ford has said what most are thinking and as Marc Miller has said, this is effectively now part of the immigration plan.
Another million or so new Canadians are expected in the next year and we’ve been reassured it’s all part of the federal immigration plan.
Sooner or later something will break and it won’t be pretty.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“I stick with what I said. We’re tired of lawlessness from anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re here, you’re new or whatever. It’s very, very clear. My phone is blowing up from every community saying, ‘You’re bang on’.” - Ontario Premier Doug Ford on what almost every Canadian is thinking after recent immigration strife.

Word of the Week

Anomaly - something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.

How to Find Us
Westerncontext.ca

westerncontext.ca/subscribe

westerncontext.ca/support

twitter.com/westerncontext

facebook.com/westerncontext

Show Data

Episode Title: Postal Problems

Teaser: The Tk'emlups First Nation changes wording from mass graves to anomalies, conscription is proposed to fix Canada’s lack of patriotism, and Canada Post is losing around $1B annually. Also, Trudeau’s immigration policy is changing the future of Canada.

Recorded Date: June 1, 2024

Release Date: June 2, 2024

Duration: 1:01:41

Edit Notes: Canada post story pause

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX