The Work of 'The Turn' and why it's worth supporting

And an update to the Indigenous File

Photo by Thomas Claeys on Unsplash

The Western Standard, and its astute content editor Nigel Hannaford, need to be commended. Last week, on Nov. 26, they published (with virtually no revisions, save for the title) a piece I wrote about New Democratic Party Member of Parliament, Leah Gazan, and her sponsorship of a motion which passed unanimously in the House of Commons, “to recognize Indian Residential Schools as genocide.” The previous week, On November 16, the Western Standard published (again with minimal revision) a piece I wrote about the role of Kimberly Murray, the Special Interlocutor looking into unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools. In that piece I compared the Aboriginal Industry to a casino.

The Western Standard continues to be one of few Canadian media outlets willing to publish writing that is critical of indigenous issues. I appreciate them immensely, and recommend readers who can afford it, to subscribe to their great platform (I believe it's around $10 per month).

On that note, I also wish to extend a big welcome and thanks to all the new subscribers of The Turn. As a result of great independent media outlets like the Western Standard, who are willing to publish my writing, and who on Sept 22 of this year had Cory Morgan  interview me about unmarked graves and Indian Residential Schools, along with the outstanding True North, who have published several of my indigenous articles (and also who have recently hired the great Canadian journalist Anthony Furey as their new content manager), the spirited Rebel News (who have produced a documentary on the unmarked graves story. I really like Drea Humphrey - she is one of my favorite young Canadian journalists), the brave and prestigious journals The Frontier Center For Public Policy and The Dorchester Review (who have both published longer form articles I have written), and of course the substack community (most notably Woke Watch Canada and Hymie Rubenstein’s The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter) - because of the actions of the great people involved in these organizations, The Turn has seen a rash of new subscribers. And I couldn’t be more pleased.

It was only a few months ago that I switched on The Turns ability to accept paid monthly and yearly subscribers. I did this fairly quietly, I have yet to mention it in any of the pieces I’ve written here. Instead, I added to the “Thanks for reading” tagline at the end of my posts, a suggestion that “If you appreciate the work I’m doing please consider becoming a paid subscriber.” Well, more of you came through with paid subscriptions than I ever imagined - in fact, I wasn’t expecting anyone to. I offer all the content for free, and I plan on continuing to do so. Anyone who chooses to take out the paid subscription, I would hope, is doing so because they believe in the work I’m doing. Some readers have even expressed that they feel this work is vital to Canada - that writers and researchers who seek the truth about Canada’s history, and offer objective critique of current public policy, at great personal cost no less, are acting as a vanguard of defense in the raging culture war. 

I agree with these sentiments, and I do feel this work (and the work of other independent truth seekers) is extremely important if a balanced and principled conception of Canada is to propagate in the hearts and minds of those making up North American society. If Canadians are taught that their society is a white supremacy where visible minorities are oppressed, or that our history is predicated on a genocide perpetrated by colonists, if these unbalanced, untrue, and anti-West notions of Canada are not countered with facts, evidence and arguments that objectively reveal the complexities of history and of modern society, then eventually Canadians will have no choice but to accept the narratives of the radical left, which means placing unprecedented amounts of power in an ideological movement with an increasing ability to shape what is considered social right and social wrong. The woke movement operates by way of subversion, not through transparent democratic processes. Of course, this is what the Woke Watch Canada essay series The Great Illiberal Subversion, is all about. In that series, I am collaborating with anonymous historian Mr. M. We have plans to turn this work into a full volume. I’ll have more to say on our approach to the Great Illiberal Subversion project in future posts.

Aside from what has already been mentioned, in July of this year I wrote a post sub-titled My Approach: Read, Write. Organize. It goes into a little more detail about the nature of my process. It is more than just researching and writing, it is about organizing with other Canadians concerned with the wokeism of radical leftist politics. In some cases I have joined and contributed to groups who tackle these issues, in another case, I started one. We call it the Lighthouse Think Tank. At this point it is just a research group. I was inspired to start the group based on the indigenous research group I was invited to join several months ago by Professor Frances Widdowson. The problems Canada is facing, both in indigenous issues and beyond, are far too complicated for me to tackle in isolation. So, part of my effort in this counter-revolutionary struggle is to network, collaborate, and team-build.

This work extended to me helping a few of this year's trustee candidates running for Ontario school board positions on anti-woke platforms. I handed out fliers, I door knocked, and I wrote an open letter to all trustee candidates asking essentially, if they support the political indoctrination of students.

This work must continue. And gentle reader, I promise it will.

If you decide to upgrade your subscription to a paid one, you will greatly assist my efforts. Your generous donations seem to be coming in steadily. At first there was one. Then 3 or 4 days later there was another. Then drip, drip, drip. However, there are signs that the rate of paid adoption is accelerating. There is a steady upward trajectory. Just this morning, as I write this, two yearly subscriptions have come in.

This is encouraging in so many ways. Your donations are empowering me to do more. If the donations increase, the depth of my research, collaboration, organizing and writing output will increase. That means, the chances of this hard work and sacrifice actually having a meaningful effect on the course of Canadian history also increases - and that, gentle reader is why I ask you to please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. There are not enough voices speaking truth to power in this country. I am one of them, and I humbly request your help.

Ok. Enough of all that. Let’s get back to indigenous issues.

As my regular readers know, claims of Canadian genocide are ridiculous and utterly unsubstantiated, yet all of the current members of parliament, none of whom possess even a hint of backbone, passed the NDP’s fallacious motion. Of course, this will only add more fuel to the fire of the Aboriginal Industry’s campaign to endlessly and unapologetically soak Canadian taxpayers from funds that could otherwise be put to more honest, transparent and productive ends for all Canadians. 

From my Western Standard piece:

Although it's repeated endlessly in the Canadian media indigenous children were ripped from their mothers' arms and “forced to attend” an Indian Residential school, what really happened was many indigenous parents petitioned the government to build more schools, or to continue the program after it had been announced it would be ended, as I wrote about in my piece, In 1959 Indigenous Leaders Wished to Expand the Indian Residential School System.

Regular readers will be aware of my criticism of the Canadian government concerning the Aboriginal Industry. Which is, that the majority of taxpayer funds extracted from the government by the rent-seeking Aboriginal Industry, goes to privileged Indigenous groups, not to destitute and suffering marginalized indigenous people living on remote reserves or in poor urban ghettos.

From an article that originally appeared in the Globe and Mail in August: 

 “As Canada has shown repeatedly over the past 40 years, governments can spend a lot of money and achieve mediocre or even terrible results – typically sparking more spending to solve those new issues, rather than fundamentally re-examining whether state funding was really needed.”

“Canadians have become numb to reading about public expenditures on Indigenous peoples, much as they have to federal spending generally. Routine announcements of millions or billions of dollars for Indigenous initiatives, court settlements, compensation payments and on-reserve infrastructure have dulled many Canadians’ sensitivities. Instead, many of us have grown to see the spending of public funds as evidence of affection: If Canada spends billions on Indigenous affairs, it must mean that we care deeply about First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.But it does nothing of the sort.”  - Ken Coates 

I’ll leave it at that for today. There is much to consider, and if you follow all the links, much to read as well. I do not wish to overwhelm readers any more than I already have. Once again thank you to all the subscribers and to everyone who shares my writing with others. Until next time gentle reader…

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Reach out to me through Twitter or Facebook if you would like to organize with other Canadians and become part of the pushback against the great illiberal subversion.

If you appreciate the work I’m doing please consider becoming a paid subscriber.