More thought crimes coming to Canada? Calling out Indian mass-graves hoax could become illegal

After three years of chest-beating, church burnings, historical revisionism, and national self-flagellation, the exponents of Canada's mass Indian graves hoax have produced no evidence to support their anti-Christian "blood libel."

Despite having found no children's remains nearby former residential schools and certainly no mass graves, Canadian leftists are keen to proceed as though they had. After all, it has proven a helpful way of extorting Catholic dioceses, extracting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from Ottawa, and downplaying serial attacks on Christian institutions.

The trouble with this game of make-believe is that not all are willing to play.

The Wall Street Journal and other publications abroad have repeatedly made a point of noting that the narrative initially advanced by Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation, and others in the years since — particularly in state media — was bogus from the start. While Canadian leftists cannot silence American critics, they have designs for silencing those at home who have sought to correct the record, such as C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, authors of "Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools)."

On Sept. 26, Leah Gazan, a member of parliament whose socialist New Democratic Party supported Justin Trudeau's unconstitutional use of martial law against peaceful trucker protesters in 2022, introduced a bill that would criminalize "condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada through statements communicated other than in private conversation."

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In "The Canadian Manifesto," British lord and former newspaper publisher Conrad Black noted:

The federal government for some decades in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was encouraging and subsidizing residential schooling delivered mainly within the private sector, especially the Christian churches. This was designed to enable Indigenous people to compete advantageously in the community of Canada as a whole, not to exterminate their consciousness of their socio-cultural roots. The policy had mixed results and there were certainly a good many instances of cruelty and incompetence, but many people thrived, and these students constituted the great majority of educated natives.

Black noted further that "to tag any previous Canadian government as genocidal [over the residential schools] in any sense was an outrage and a blood libel on the English- and French-Canadian peoples."

If Gazan successfully amends the Criminal Code, then these statements would likely qualify as criminal.

Accordingly, Black, the National Post's Terry Glavin, and others willing to speak forthrightly could face up to two years in prison. Furthermore, the state might attempt to seize whatever means of communication used to advance the offending messages, possibly even the publications in which they appear, "for disposal as the Attorney General may direct."

'Denialism is violence.'

The socialist's bill allows for certain exemptions.

A so-called "denialist" — a term critics have even applied to select Blaze News writers — could avoid prison if he establishes that "the statements communicated were true" — a requirement not similarly imposed on the proponents of the mass-graves hoax. A "denialist" could also argue to a potentially leftist court that his or her argument hinges upon a belief in a religious text or the statement's relevance to a subject of public interest.

When introducing her censorship bill, Gazan said, "The residential school system was a genocide — designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families and heritage. To downplay, deny or justify it is cruel, harmful and hateful. This should have no place in Canada."

Gazan appears to have been echoing Casimir, one of the initial propagators of the hoax.

Casimir revealed in May that the investigation into supposed unmarked children's graves in Kamloops was ongoing but top secret.

"Our investigative findings and investigative steps are currently being kept confidential to preserve the integrity of the investigation," said Casimir.

Casimir called on others keen to maintain the narrative to "refute the very real harm caused by denialists."

Kimberly Murray, the Trudeau government's "Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites," has similarly kicked around the term, telling state media that "denialism" is "the last step in genocide."

"Denialism is violence. Denialism is calculated. Denialism is harmful. Denialism is hate," said Murray.

While claiming to respect free speech, Gazan told the National Post "all rights have limitations."

"There's a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech," added the socialist.

The narrative Gazan seeks to insulate against criticism set the stage for scores of church burnings across Canada.

Blaze News investigated over 18 church burnings earlier this year and reached out to various Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments to determine whether the attacks were answered with justice. In most instances, the perpetrators were never caught, and the cases were dropped.

While there appears to be little appetite for addressing real crimes, the Canadian government remains focused on digging up empty fields.

Murray suggested earlier this month that the federal government needs to sink more funding into the so-far unsuccessful graves investigation, reported APTN News.

"I have raised this with the government — both in my interim report and over the last two years — that there has to be sustainable funding for these searches," said Murray. "At the end of the day, we need to stop treating this search for missing and disappeared children as a program. Canada has a legal obligation to support the findings of these truths."

Murray was required to issue a final report to the federal minister of justice in June, but she kicked the can down the road in May, indicating she needed "more time to complete this important work."

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