Party in Rome

Everyone seems to have forgotten (including the guy who said it) that back in 1990, Phil Fontaine, for many years a well-known leader and spokesman for natives who attended residential schools, told the late Barbara Frum that student-on-student sexual abuse was rampant, but he did not mention clergy abuse at the time.  I'm sure there was some abuse, but now it's an out-of-control, massive tidal wave.  Fontaine is in Rome, leading a delegation of "multi-generational victims" who are demanding an apology and...and...and from the pope for widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests in residential schools.  Here is Fontaine in Rome, looking somber and aggrieved:

Firstly, what is "multi-generational abuse"?  I mean, how can teens who have never attended a residential school claim they have suffered from sexual abuse?  Is it tales handed down by parents and grandparents?  Is is mob rule and group thinking?  Is it a thirst for media attention?  Is it because all their friends and families are urging them to go for it?  Is it grandparents whispering from the grave?  Frankly, who knows?  But one thing is certain:  Many of the fantasmagorical claims of murder and abuse are turning out to be false.  In Kamloops, where the whole fantastic story began, no bodies or remains have been found -- in spite of the $321 million given native communities to search for bodies that, frankly, aren't there!  Gee, wonder where that money went?

In his autobiography, Breaking Trail, Senator Len Marchand, the first status Indian to be appointed to the federal cabinet, recounted his experience at Kamloops Indian Residential School, which he attended by his own choice for a year.  Marchand praised the quality of teaching there and said he knew of no abuse: “The reader might be expecting me to tell a few horror stories about physical and sexual abuse at the residential school. But I know of no incidences at KIRS.”

The research I have been doing for this blog tells me that much of the hype and hysteria about mass killings, babies being thrown into incinerators, children forced to dig their own graves are just that:  Hype and hysteria.  As usual, all such venom is directed solely at the Catholic Church, which operated 130 schools, or three-quarters.  Of the 150,000 children who attended all such schools, an estimated 3,200 died -- or so it is claimed.  But it has now emerged that poor record keeping resulted in many deaths being counted more than once in different reports by different departments and agencies, so no one knows the actual number.

"We all heard horrible lies created by some individuals in order to receive as much money as they could," said former Dene Chief Cece Hodgson-McCauley in 2018.  Contrast this to the remarks by that disgraceful charlatan Perry Bellegarde, who keeps saying that the church "killed" children.  Jagmeet Singh, another stranger to the truth, goes even further, claiming that hundreds of children were "murdered".  

So, the Pope has met with native delegations and has said he was personally sorry for what happened, but, of course, he cannot apologize on behalf of the church because that would open a Pandora's box of lawsuits -- many of which would be as bogus as the tales, currently being circulated and re-told by people who weren't even there, about bodies that can't even be found.  It's also why the church can't release records because they are admittedly inaccurate -- a dangerous trifling in the minds of lawyers that would not inhibit any of them from charging ahead.  If only 10 percent of "victims" launched suits, that would be a whopping 13,000 cases that would wind their way through years of wildly expensive litigation. 

In the words of an "inter-generationally traumatized" teen delegate, who did not attend a residential school, I heard interviewed on the radio today, "We have a lot of 'asks' of the Pope," she said.  "Like what?" the interviewer asked.  "Well, for sure compensation," she replied -- giving her position away immediately.  As to what's going on in Rome, looks like there's a lot of fiddling, dancing and -- dare I say, partying -- going on.          

The Liberal government is only making the situation worse.  Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister and another of Trudeau's McGill party buddies, Marc Miller, recently announced that he believes all these claims -- no matter how preposterous -- and hinted that anyone disputing them could be charged with hate speech.  

I KID YOU NOT!!!!!

As a journalist who plied her trade in Toronto for a number of years, I am ashamed of those scribblers who refuse to report the truth in its entirety.  They call for truth, reconciliation and healing?  How about starting with truth and then let's see where that leads.