(LifeSiteNews) – One of Canada’s top constitutional lawyers blasted what he said are “false” and “virtue-signaling” displays of “truth and reconciliation” goals pushed by the federal government and media when it comes to indigenous “land acknowledgments.”
In a recent opinion piece, John Carpay, founder and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), said the “unsubstantiated claim” that thousands of indigenous kids were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools must be countered.
“Truth and reconciliation are goals worth pursuing,” wrote Carpay, adding, “which is why all Canadians, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, should not settle for the hypocritical virtue-signaling displayed through land acknowledgments.”
“Nor should we embrace false claims that foster division, or race-based laws that generate strife,” he noted.
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools. The reality is, after four years, there have been no mass graves discovered at residential schools.
However, as the claims went unfounded, since the spring of 2021, over 120 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada.
Carpay observed how the “inflammatory assertion” of the graves claims was based on ground penetrating radar, “which can only locate soil disturbances beneath the ground, and cannot locate human remains.”
He noted that the only way to find out for certain is for “excavation” to take place, to uncover the “truth.”
To date, the reality, as stated by Carpay, is “no field work has been conducted.”
“Rather, this unsubstantiated claim fosters the hatred that was on display when, following the May 2021 allegation, dozens of churches in Canada were burned and destroyed by arson, with dozens more vandalized and desecrated,” he said.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said in October 2024 that Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the now former federal government of Justin Trudeau for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children.
Carpay noted how the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has “censored all details of what became of” some $12.1 million the k’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc First Nation received to conduct yet to be done excavations.
“This strongly suggests — but does not prove — that the claim about buried bodies is false,” Carpay wrote.
“Do the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc fear embarrassment and humiliation if an excavation fails to turn up the remains of 215 children? Where is their respect for the taxpayers’ money that was provided to them for a specific purpose? How is this refusal to conduct an excavation helpful to the goal of reconciliation?”
Carpay: ‘True’ reconciliation will only come once laws based on race or ancestry are ‘abolished’
Residential schools, although run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and established by the federal government. They were in operation from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.
While some children did tragically die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children passed away as a result of unsanitary conditions due to underfunding by the federal government, not the Catholic Church.
Carpay said the only way for reconciliation among Canadians to happen is if everyone to truly has equal status under the law.
“Ultimately, true reconciliation among Canadians can only be achieved after we have abolished laws that are based on race, ethnicity, ancestry, or descent,” he wrote.
“When some Canadians — based on their ancestry or descent — have special, different, or superior rights, it necessarily leads to friction, strife, and resentment.”
Carpay added that the “best way” to achieve reconciliation is for all “Canadians to pay the same taxes, for all Canadians to have equal access to public spaces, for all Canadians to enjoy the same hunting and fishing opportunities, and for all Canadians to be equal before the law.”
“Anything else is, quite simply, racist,” he added.
Recent polling has shown that over two-thirds of Canadians want some kind of proof of the “unmarked graves” before believing the claims that Indigenous children were secretly murdered and buried at residential schools by Catholic clergy.
