{"id":8805,"date":"2023-06-21T11:40:56","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=8805"},"modified":"2023-06-21T11:41:32","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T15:41:32","slug":"kimberly-murray-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=8805","title":{"rendered":"Kimberly Murray &#8211;A dangerous attempt to shut down free enquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Kimberly Murray &#8211;A dangerous attempt to shut down free enquiry<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BWestern%20Standard%20New%20Media%20Corp.%5D%20GIESBRECHT%3A%20A%20dangerous%20attempt%20to%20shut%20down%20free%20enquiry&amp;body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\">Email<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/westernstandard.news\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/a\/ea\/aea2e66a-983a-11ed-af2f-7f9cc8104252\/63c9ad08b79d6.image.jpg?resize=400%2C235\" alt=\"Indian graveyard\"\/><figcaption>An early 20th century&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/AAAA-Hamilton-Report-Illustrations-final.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">photo&nbsp;of the cemetery<\/a>&nbsp;associated with the St. Mary\u2019s IRS, Kenora, Ontario, showing wooden grave markers of students&nbsp;that were allowed to disintegrate over time, proving that students were given a proper Christian (Catholic) burial.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?&amp;text=GIESBRECHT%3A%20A%20dangerous%20attempt%20to%20shut%20down%20free%20enquiry&amp;via=WSOnlineNews&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?&amp;text=GIESBRECHT%3A%20A%20dangerous%20attempt%20to%20shut%20down%20free%20enquiry&amp;via=WSOnlineNews&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> Twitter <\/a><a href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BWestern%20Standard%20New%20Media%20Corp.%5D%20GIESBRECHT%3A%20A%20dangerous%20attempt%20to%20shut%20down%20free%20enquiry&amp;body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\"><\/a><a href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BWestern%20Standard%20New%20Media%20Corp.%5D%20GIESBRECHT%3A%20A%20dangerous%20attempt%20to%20shut%20down%20free%20enquiry&amp;body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernstandard.news%2Fnews%2Fgiesbrecht-a-dangerous-attempt-to-shut-down-free-enquiry%2Farticle_f9000032-0d27-11ee-9b3c-838e237d09e9.html%3Futm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Duser-share\"> Email <\/a><a href=\"javascript:window.print()\"><\/a><a href=\"javascript:window.print()\"> Print <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernstandard.news\/content\/tncms\/live\/#\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernstandard.news\/content\/tncms\/live\/#\">Save<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We must protect the truth.&#8221; That\u2019s what Kimberly Murray gave as her motive for demanding those she called \u201cresidential school deniers\u201d be criminally prosecuted or subjected to civil liability for raising questions about unmarked graves and other related topics that Murray and her colleagues find uncomfortable. Murray believes anyone who questions claims made by anyone who attended a residential school about unmarked graves, or who claims that anything positive came from residential schools should fall into this criminally and civilly punishable \u201cdenier\u201d category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are problems with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first place, if saying that anything positive came from residential school attendance is a crime, it would put many indigenous people who attended residential schools in legal jeopardy \u2014 even the people who wrote the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Because even that report contains a section titled \u201cWarm Memories\u201d that contains only positive accounts of indigenous residential school attendees who remember their years at residential school fondly, and credit their school attendance for their success in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That section is short, but there are hundreds of other personal accounts \u2014 and even entire books \u2014 of people who speak of how their attendance changed their lives for the better. The best book written by a residential school attendee is \u201cPermanent Astonishment\u201d by acclaimed indigenous playwright, writer and pianist Tomson Highway. In the book, Highway describes his experience at the Guy Hill Residential School in northern Manitoba as \u201cnine of the best years of my life\u201d during which he not only acquired the skills he needed to become an internationally acclaimed author, but learned to play the first piano he had ever seen, and developed his skills to a professional level. Many other important indigenous leaders received the educations that equipped them to succeed at residential schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if merely stating the truth \u2014 namely that some people benefited from their residential school experience \u2014 becomes a criminal offence, expect to see some of Canada\u2019s most successful indigenous leaders in the criminal dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are other problems as well, because Kimberly Murray wants to criminalize anyone who raises questions about what residential school \u201csurvivors\u201d have claimed to be the truth. Readers will recall that two years ago the Kamloops chief and her colleagues claimed that 215 graves had been discovered containing the remains of 215 children who had died under sinister circumstances at the school, and who had been secretly buried \u2014 with the forced help of six year olds. Almost immediately copy-cat claims followed, with allegations that there were thousands of such \u201cmissing children\u201d buried all across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Senior indigenous leaders weighed in with allegations that there were \u201ctens of thousands\u201d and \u201c25,000-maybe more\u201d such \u201cmissing children.\u201d &#8216;Survivors&#8217; claimed they had personally observed priests clubbing indigenous children to death and throwing them into pits; that dead indigenous children were hung on meat hooks in barns; that the bodies of indigenous children were \u201ctossed into rivers, lakes and streams,\u201d and even that Queen Elizabeth herself had kidnapped ten indigenous children from the Kamloops School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if Kimberly Murray gets her way, and anyone who questions any of these claims becomes a criminal, they had better start building more jails. Because there is not a single shred of evidence that would stand up in any court that any of those fantastical claims are true. Never mind \u201cthousands\u201d there is no credible evidence that even one single child was murdered or secretly buried at any residential school. And it is now almost certain that the 215 \u201csoil disturbances\u201d detected at the Kamloops school were not graves at all, but were from previous excavations on the school grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201csurvivors\u201d who made the false claims might believe that they are true. But they are not. And the fact that these stories have circulated in indigenous communities for years does not make them true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, Kimberly Murray\u2019s demand that anyone who refuses to accept her odd version of reality must become a criminal will go the way of most expensively produced government reports \u2014 sitting on a dusty shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Murray is right about one thing \u2014 \u201cWe must protect the truth.\u201d Indeed. But we do that not by making criminals of those who ask questions. Instead, we welcome those questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we do our best to answer them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kimberly Murray &#8211;A dangerous attempt to shut down free enquiry Email Facebook Twitter Email Print Save &#8220;We must protect the truth.&#8221; That\u2019s what Kimberly Murray gave as her motive for demanding those she called \u201cresidential school deniers\u201d be criminally prosecuted &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=8805\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4826,942],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8806,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8805\/revisions\/8806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}