The Kamloops mass grave story is a deliberate lie perpetrated and enabled by the Kamloops band Chief, Rosanne Casimir, and her Council. After more than a year having passed since its first dissemination, with no attempts by anyone to prove any part of it, this lie now has to be recognized as such. Even Americans, in whose country the lie was widely publicized, are coming to realize that they’ve been had.
Yet still our elites, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, knowingly persist in the reckless, wrongful and country-damaging support and continued propagation of it, evidencing, firstly, their unfitness for the profound duties traditionally and properly imposed on elites in a free society and, secondly, the resulting morally damaged state of the country, whose principal welfare our elites are charged with the sacred trust and duty of guarding.
All states, in terms of how they are organized and how they function, like all organisms in nature, are hierarchical in nature. There must be an elite class: a group of persons in whom ultimate power and authority reside, loosely shaping and directing the lives of the general body of the citizenry. Ideally, for a state whose citizens are free, it is a capable and enlightened group of persons, deep-rooted in the essences of their nation, holding power and authority with the consent of those they govern.
Canada is such a state. It’s formal governing class are politicians, senior civil servants, judges and police. But Canada, being more than a country governed formally, is a country governed informally as well, by all manner of social and cultural leaders. These latter people are accomplished, recognized and usually senior members of academia, the media, the literati, the established Churches and the leaders of important social and ethnic groups.
All these people, always a shifting cast of persons for sure, but stable as a top-of-the-hierarchy reality, together constitute Canada’s elite governing class- Canada’s “elites”.
The informal and intangible aspects of our Canadian polity- in fact any healthy civic polity- are more important and consequential than our formal legal and administrative ones, because these informalities and intangibles, comprised of the history, laws, manners, institutions, intuitions, habits, shared practices, shared memories, embedded values, future aspirations, default assumptions and opinions of the citizenry, heavily define those formal aspects and determine how they will be carried out. They constitute the essence of the citizenry’s daily mental, psychological and emotional default states of being- the substance of their numerous and varied unexamined, unconsciously accepted daily assumptions and behaviours.
The great British political philosopher Edmund Burke writes (see below) that this active combination of formalities, informalities and intangibles, (which he calls the “prejudice” of the citizenry, using the word in a neutral sense), manifests itself in and forms a profound part of the “social order” of the nation.
Our present Canadian social order, is by world historical, material and moral standards, an excellent one, characterized by relative material well being, personal security and safety ensured by the rule of law, and a civic ethos neatly encapsulated by the phrase “peace, order and government.” Canadians are lucky to be Canadians. People from all over the world want to come here and live, because of what we have and because of collectively who we are.
Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, his 1789 meditation on, amongst other important civic subjects, the necessity of any country’s elites understanding and respecting the country’s past as being an essential “living” part of its present social order, wrote in effect that, if the present order is essentially good, then the country’s past, the period leading up to and creating the present good, warts and all , must logically have been essentially good as well. Hewrote:
Old establishments are tried by their effects. We presume that to be good, from whence good is derived.
Canada’s present good can only have been derived from a relatively, (all things are relative, and to be compared not to Utopia, but rather to the human norm), essentially good Canadian past.
For Burke, the Canadian present Canadian social order would be an inheritance from our past, which like any valuable inheritance received, imposes on our inheriting generation- especially on the elites of it- the obligation to preserve it and, if possible, improve it, before passing it on to our children and grandchildren. As Burke wrote in Reflections:
Society is indeed a contract…but the state ought not …to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked upon with other reverence…It is a partnership in all science, in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Just as the past social order, which Burke argues is practically and morally an integral part of the present social order, must be efficacious to be worthy of being passed on, so the transmitters of same- the trustees of it from time to time- our elites- must be worthy- must be “virtuous”. For Burke, according to author Jesse Norman, writing in his book Edmund Burke, Philosopher, Politician, Prophet[1] that meant, and it still means today, that the men and women of our elite classes- those who “uniquely shape the ecosystem within which society flourishes as a whole”, must aspire to be men and women:
…of personal character, with wide personal experience, a deep connection with “the interest of the people”, and the ability to build relationships with colleagues. But true leadership demands more. The modesty of a leader must extend not simply to respect for the social order but to the limits of his own powers, “his own private stock of reason”, which is so much smaller than “the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages”. With experience and shared wisdom comes judgement-that is the capacity to fit political action to political circumstances. Moreover, since individuals’ reason is limited, effective leaders will seek to have other people of high ability and experience around them, whom they can trust. And they will seek to develop their own virtues, for virtue is the result of good habit. “It is therefor our business to cultivate in our own minds, to rear to the most perfect vigour and maturity, every sort of generous and honest feeling that belongs to our nature.
Above all, a political leader must be committed body and soul to public service. All power brings accountability, and for Burke the supreme duty is that of the political leader towards the preservation of society itself. That society is the nation, and the nation is a moral essence, and not merely a civic, ethnic or geographical expression. It can survive despite the loss of any specific individual or group. But it can also be damaged, broken or destroyed. The ultimate test of political leadership thus lies in the preservation of the nation.
By supporting the Kamloops residential school “mass grave” lie, our elites are proving their unworthiness for their elite status. They are demonstrating their lack of civic virtue. They are violating their partnership obligations, not only to past generations of Canadians, but to future generations. They are damaging our nation instead of preserving it.
Relying mainly upon wild and lurid hearsay and his clearly bare-cupboard “private stock of reason”, and making no effort to verify anything, our Prime Minister and his Liberal Party immediately called the lie “a dark and shameful chapter” in Canada’s history, caused our nation’s flag to be lowered to half mast for over 6 months, and generally, cried moral “havoc!” and let loose the junkyard dogs of a totally unwarranted, national self-mortification.
Mr. Trudeau allowed himself, in his role as leader of all Canadians, to be lectured at and thus humiliated by the deceitful, arrogant and self-entitled Kamloops Chief, Rosanne Casimir, the chief architect and purveyor/enabler of the lie. This was embarrassing and demoralizing for all Canadians and, following the shameful flag-lowering, further diminished Canada’s esteem in the eyes of the world.
Other politicians followed like sheep, anxious to blood libel the people they served. The NDP’s Charlie Angus said: “There’s so much grief and trauma from the horrific news of 215 children’s bodies being found.” Pierre Polievre, the darling of the new Right, who one would have hoped might have shown a little spine here, agreed that the words “cultural genocide” and “genocide” were apt words to use in relation to residential schools such as Kamloops.
Except that there were no bodies found, or to be found.
Murray Sinclair, former Manitoba Judge, Canadian Senator, Chair of the untruthful Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and thus at least a two-time Canadian pensioner and a well-fed pillar of the Canadian establishment, used his high position to repeat and reinforce the lie, and then, in violation of his Judicial and Senatorial ethics to always uphold the rule of law and encourage others to do so, exerted public pressure on the RCMP not to do their job and conduct a standard police investigation of these sensational and ridiculous child-murder and secret burial allegations.
This was clear, outside, and unauthorized interference with the carrying out of the standard duties and responsibilities of law enforcement officials by a senior member of Canada’s elite class.
The clever Ms. Casmir did the same: allowing the lie to proliferate, but then discouraging the RCMP from investigating it.
To it’s enduring shame, the RCMP succumbed to this pressure, preferring to choose the timid covering of its political rear end over doing its duty to investigate allegations of murder- allowing the Kamloops demands for money to “investigate” this potential alleged crime scene to take precedence over their sworn duty to uphold the rule of law without fear or favour. For the RCMP this was but a continuation of a social trust-shattering policy, shared by many other law enforcement bodies in Canada, of adopting a race-based, illiberal, rule of law-damaging, two-tier policy of law enforcement.
The Assembly of First Nations, a giant, useless sponge of Canadian taxpayers’ money, in this elites-encouraged irrational environment, felt no compunction about joining this Canada-bashing free-for-all, resolving that “that the mass grave discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School reveals Crown conduct reflecting a pattern of genocide against Indigenous Peoples.” Their leader, Rose Anne Archibald, on another occasion, blithely told her interviewer on the BBC radio show, HARDtalk, that residential schools in general were “very clearly instruments of assimilation and genocide” and were “designed to kill…children”.
All of Canada’s mainstream media have piled onto the lie, and Archibald’s “genocide” blood libel in general, completely failing in their duty to independently verify the wild and insulting assertions of infanticide and secret, night-time burials. – completely failing in their Fourth Estate duty to hold power to account.
The CBC, the leading television and radio network in the country, witlessly gave the lie sensational publicity, and to this date, despite a clear warning from one prominent mainstream media journalist about “narrative replacing facts”, that it and all the other mainstream media had been duped, refuses to climb down from its incompetent, prideful, virtue-preening foolishness, which, given the passage of over a year in which the obviousness of the deception has now become manifest, must now be characterized as ongoing journalistic fraud on their part.
The rest of the mainstream media remain in a similar state of stubborn denial of the fact that there was never any “there” there. Given their averted hindsight gaze, they too are now guilty of reckless and irresponsible journalistic concealment.
One Sean Carleton, an Associate Professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba, a lean and hungry “settler” academic there, along with another Indian Industry academic with a big title and only a little learning, perfectly personify the lighter-than-air intellectual substance of the modern university liberal arts faculty, especially in relation to anything to do with “Indigenous studies.” They remain all-in with Chief Casimir’s lie, and denounce as a disrespectful “denialist” anyone so foolish as to ask for a police investigation, and generally, for proof that the bodies of 215 missing and/or murdered children could possibly be lying amidst the roots of some Kamloops apple trees under ground that had been disturbed on numerous occasions in the past by human, land development activities.
As its embrace of this unmarked “mass grave” lie illustrates, academia is no longer concerned with seeking and finding hard truths. In fact, anyone who would propound such truth is expelled from their ranks. Rather, it uses its little knowledge in the service of petty career aspirations and anti-intellectual, ahistorical, victimhood propaganda, doing great harm to the country.
Our judiciary gives a legal imprimatur to this victimhood narrative, condescendingly infantilizing Indigenous peoples by blaming all their ills, individual and collective, on “colonialism.”, and generally, in the court system, holding them to a much lower standard of conduct than non-Indigenous people. In so doing they persistently breach their duty to pursue the facts to whatever objective conclusions they might lead, however “inconvenient”, and call into question the impartiality of the courts. The citizenry sees this and loses faith and trust in them.
The wrongs these elites commit against their country and against their fellow Canadians is damaging and demoralizing to the social order. They constitute a breach of the sacred trustee obligations that attend their privileged, elite status.
They have breached their duty to be competent and responsible- to be the adults in the room. The citizenry sees this and loses faith and trust in them.
They have breached their obligation to stay connected with and accountable to the general citizenry, and to act with some regard to the citizenry’s general temper and outlook.
They have breached their obligation to aspire to, and embody, civic virtue. (It seems as though they are no longer aware that such a concept exists or that, if it does, it might apply to them.)
Most importantly, their unanimous support of this “mass grave” lie, and their characterization of the false set of facts underlying it as but one more example of the residential schools “genocide”, (Genocide! In the later 1950’s Indian Chiefs were lobbying the government to expand the residential school system!), allegedly committed by the ancestors of present-day Canadians against Indigenous peoples, constitutes a dangerous, unjustified, reckless and irresponsible attack on the very social order that raised them all up to their present elite positions.
As Burke argues, the past is a part of the present. A reckless and dishonest attack on our ancestors is a de-stabilizing and demoralizing attack on our present social order, the preservation of which should be their highest concern.
The false “genocide” residential schools narrative, of which, as stated, the Kamloops mass grave lie is but one example, is a personal attack against the ancestors of every living Canadian whose roots go back to the 19th or early 20th century.
The fact is that our ancestors- not to be casually depersonalized, stereotyped and derided as “settlers”- were nearly as much the victims of larger forces and circumstances beyond their control as were the indigenous peoples of their “new” lands whose lives their arrival changed so profoundly. They were often themselves “oppressed” as much as they were ever “oppressors.” As Burke would have recognized, they have the same call on our powers of imagination, compassion, empathy, admiration and respect as do the ancient Indian peoples whose former lands they settled and whose way of life they only inadvertently helped to end. Our elites ignore this, and act counter to it.
Present-day Canadian elites are not superior to our ancestors, as they act. Our ancestors cannot be just dust to them or to any of us- of no consequence. Their massive accomplishments in trying circumstances cannot be just brushed off, as is happening. Our elites do a terrible disservice to our ancestors, and to their fellow Canadians, when they rashly deride and de-humanize them, as the Kamloops and residential school lies do.
Our elites do a terrible disservice to our ancestors, and to present-day Canadians, when they tear down their and our national, social order-preserving, symbols, namesakes and monuments.
Ancestor worship, in one form or another, has always been an important spiritual component of enduring cultures. Our modern Canadian elites have become so ahistorical and spiritually disconnected from this soulful part of our essential humanity that they think nothing of engaging in this almost-unprecedented, apostate-like behaviour.
We all stand on our ancestors’ civilizational shoulders.If we allow them and their memories and accomplishments to be sullied, we sully ourselves.
Our elites’ attacks on our ancestors are absorbed personally by present-day Canadians. (Including the writer.) They are inflaming. They warrant an apology, both to our ancestors and to present-day Canadians. They create a profound and dangerous disconnect between ordinary Canadians, “whose explicit habits of mind are often more sensible than the prescriptions elaborated in the minds of the intelligentsia”[2], and those elites who propagate, encourage and enable them.
This disconnect, happening across the country, is destroying the sense of trust and connection which, as Burke recognized, must exist for our social order- our nation- to remain healthy.
Our elites are making our country sick.
Traditional elite classes in the past were able to reform and renew themselves as circumstances warranted. But our present Canadian elites, having stifled free speech, dissent and open debate amongst themselves, and amongst everyone else in the country, on pain of social and career cancellation, have seemingly closed that ability off, leaving the country of which they have charge to become increasingly divided and disconnected-increasingly sick.
Edmund Burke wrote Reflections to warn his countrymen of the inevitable, chaotic consequences that occur when a society’s elites lose their sense of responsibility and actively enable the breakdown of the social order. In the past this phenomenon has been described as “trahison des clercs”, “the cancer of the clerisy”, or “the revolt of the elites”. This phenomenon is usually a sign of serious and dangerous social division, and even decay, in a society, and it always leads to bad ends. Our elites would be wise to read Reflections, remember their responsibilities, and try much harder to live up to them.
Peter Best
Sudbury
August 16, 2022
[1] Harper Collins Publisher, London, 2013
[2] Historian Robert Conquest, in his book Reflections on a Ravaged Century, W.W.Norton & Company, 2000, quoting George Orwell.