Conrad Black: BC Town Council’s Censure of Mayor Over Book Yet Another Instance of Canada’s Cultural Self-Hate

Commentary The unanimous decision of the town council of Quesnel, British Columbia, to condemn the book “Grave Error” by the distinguished public intellectuals C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan because some claimed that it disputed that cultural genocide occurred in the Indian Residential Schools, is another powerful illustration of the extent to which this country is falling into the habit of uncritically accepting even the most heinous charges against Canada’s ethical and moral history. This gullible condition is confirmed and aggravated by the government’s false admission that Canada committed cultural genocide against indigenous people. There is, in fact, no such thing as cultural genocide. It is known as assimilation, and is the ancient fear of the French Canadians: that they are surrounded by so many more English-speaking Canadians that they will ultimately be assimilated into English Canada. This has happened with many French Canadians in predominantly English-speaking jurisdictions, such as parts of Western Canada, Louisiana, and the United States generally, where many hundreds of thousands of French Canadians emigrated, knowing that they would be assimilated....