Sean Carleton and Claims of Genocide - Unquestioned

By Michelle Stirling ©2024

I watched the Dec. 4, 2024, Zoom presentation that Prof. Sean Carleton gave to Lasqueti Island and Powell River residents.

Sean Carleton’s talk was based on his peer-reviewed paper that denounces former Senator Lynn Beyak for her support of Indian Residential Schools. Carleton’s view is that anyone who doesn’t go along with the genocide narrative now attached to Indian Residential Schools in Canada is a ‘denier.’

So, I offered to give a counter presentation with broader historical context because I have written a paper rebutting Sean Carleton’s paper on Beyak. I have also written a report debunking his joint report with Reid Gerbrandt which reviews media coverage of the ‘mass graves.’ My offer seems to have inflamed a number of people in the Lasqueti community.

I certainly dispute this statement from Peter Johnston’s commentary above: “Sean Carleton, from U Manitoba, has been engaged in publicly countering this type of denialist writings and speech, because it is factually and morally wrong and very damaging.”

It is immoral and illegal to accuse people of things for which they have not been charged or found guilty. It is factually incorrect to claim that Indian Residential Schools were established for the purposes of genocide. It is very damaging to go along with the unproven, defamatory claims of genocide and to claim that a scholar from the University of Manitoba is doing the right thing, when it runs counter to University of Manitoba’s set of Values:

• Academic Freedom • Accountability • Collegiality • Equity and Inclusion • Excellence • Innovation • Integrity • Respect • Sustainability

Image licensed from Adobe Stock. I dedicate my presentation to Col. Macleod (Stamix-otokan) and the North-West Mounted Police who saved the Blackfoot Nation from whiskey-trader genocide.

Likewise, Sean Carleton’s presentation featured the University of Manitoba’s logo, prominently placed throughout. Does the University agree with him calling other colleagues ‘deniers?’ One colleague, Hymie Rubenstein, is an actual anthropologist, and another, Rodney Clifton, actually worked at an Indian Residential School, is married to an Indigenous woman and has co-edited the book “From Truth Comes Reconciliation (2nd edition)” with Mark DeWolf, former Indian Residential School student.

It was not my intent to inflame, but rather to tame the debate and calm these vicious accusations by providing relevant historical context. My presentation will be offered via Zoom on Dec. 17, 2024, 6pm Pacific, hosted by Dr. Frances Widdowson. If oversubscribed, look for the follow-up video recording.

Recorded event here:

Debunking Sean Carleton on Denialism

See clickable link below:

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.

When: Dec 17, 2024 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMlceqpqDwsHNdYzofRyOqkYS9uNAWwrppr

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

It is surprising to me that intelligent people and media repeaters unquestioningly accept Sean Carleton’s view that Canada is guilty of genocide, when by Canadian law and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all persons are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty of a charge. No one has been charged with genocide in Canada. Canada has not been charged with genocide. In fact, the International Criminal Court has twice rejected requests to investigate Canada for genocide. And under the Rome Statute, no one can be charged with genocide in Canada.

But Sean Carleton says we are guilty.

In a Global TV News interview, Sean Carleton states that genocide has been proven by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Reports (TRC), which came out 9 years ago on Dec. 15, 2015. But the TRC only went so far as to say a ‘cultural genocide’ had occurred. Many people like Tomson Highway, an internationally renown, multi-talented, Indigenous artist and former Indian Residential School student, dispute the plethora of negative claims of the TRC as not balanced by the unreported positive stories like his. So, Carleton makes quite an arrogant escalation as a ‘settler’ and academic scholar – from ‘cultural’ to physical genocide. Carleton claimed that a vote in the House of Commons to describe Indian Residential Schools as genocide is proof. But genocide is not decided by parliamentarians compliantly voting on a hot topic – none of them wanting to get ‘Beyak-ed’ for dissenting. Carleton claimed that the Pope said Indian Residential Schools were a genocide. But genocide is not decided by an exasperated phrase from a travel-weary aging Holy Father, badgered by journalists.

Though Leah Gazan’s argument is that questioning the genocide narrative is hurtful to survivors, it is the very lack of due process of the TRC which has led to this situation. Those giving their recollections were not cross-examined; statements were made in a public setting where some report that those with positive comments were shouted down!

It is known that researchers who were designated to gather recollections of former staff and their descendants (i.e. the adult perspective on Indian Residential School operations) had their budget drastically cut and were told their interviews would not be transcribed. Thus, we only heard the sad stories of people, most of whom were party to or familiar with various ambulance-chasing lawyer schemes for compensation. Most of whom were children at the time they attended Indian Residential School, many of them orphaned or rescued from destitution and domestic violence and given a safe home at the Indian Residential School. Like Lena Paul. This is what she had to say in the 1991 CBC Fifth Estate documentary:

• Lena Paul:

“I had a really good experience when I was at the residential school because with… with the chaos and the violence that was going on in my home when I came to the to the residential school it was some place it was clean, it was some place that was sober and I always knew what was going to be happening next because it was very structured and orderly there and for me it was a place that I felt safe.”

People have to remember that since the early 2000’s, ambulance chasing law firms had been sending out leading questionnaires with pat lurid answers and claim forms to former students, hoping to cash in big on class-action claims. Maclean’s, in 2006, reported that the biggest winner of the residential school claims was a lawyer hoping for a $100 million jackpot in fees.

Thus, we’ve had ~25 years of legal beagles tainting the testimony of people who stood to monetarily gain from saying vile things about their school experience, without the onus of due process and cross-examination.

Ironically, people like Sean Carleton and NDP MP Leah Gazan (proponent of Bill C-413 to silence people who question the residential school narrative) have the gall to accuse people like me of trying to cash in via ‘denialism.’

We who challenge the ‘genocide’ narrative are simply trying to staunch the bleeding artery of Canadian tax dollars, flowing to an ever-larger Indigenous grievance industry, most of the money never reaches the ordinary Indigenous person on reserve, huddled in a battered house with 10-15 others.

We are trying to restore pride in Canada’s history.

We are trying for true reconciliation – one where facts matter more than accusations.

It is not compassionate to bear false witness or to condone the breach of rule of law and the Universal Charter of Human Rights.

IF there was a genocide, then there must be evidence and due process to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt. That has not happened.

Many claim the Kamloops First Nation’s ‘find’ of 215 human remains of children in a mass grave in the orchard is the proof. But Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) cannot define human remains, bodies or coffins. The more compelling evidence is that someone jumped the shark on announcing the ‘mass graves’ claim based solely on GPR (including Sean Carleton).

No one asked any questions about previous land use in the Kamloops apple orchard. Records show that in the 1920’s there was a massive excavation of 2000 feet of septic field trenches that underlie the area surveyed. Decades later, an aging apple orchard had been removed – leaving the remains of tree roots which GPR can identify as ground disturbances. According to the BC government’s recommended planting of apple trees, in a two-acre area, there would have been 216 trees.

It is far more likely now that no one wants to be charged with fraud, mischief and more, related to the Kamloops atrocity claims. Therefore, escalation is the only possible path – not backing down or apologizing.

Lots of money and the threat of retaliatory criminal action against those who spun the story is riding on the ‘genocide’ narrative; money and ‘land back’ reparations. All of Canada is at risk of being splintered and Balkanized by no one ever asking questions. Soon, it may be too late to ask any questions at all if Bill C-413 is passed.

The “tweet that shook the world” coincidentally pushed the hotly-contested United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) legislation through parliament less than a month later. And the day after UNDRIP received Royal Assent, China accused Canada of genocide at the UN, citing the Kamloops atrocity claim as proof. Now Kimberly Murray and people like Sean Carleton are claiming that under UNDRIP, all of Canada’s laws and rights must be turned upside down. Murray’s final report demands reparations.

In these days of acknowledged foreign interference, should all of this go unquestioned? By anyone?

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