A Reasonable Contrarian

Every public issue has two or more sides or viewpoints. Often, however, one side dominates and not always for good reasons. Ideology plays a big role, and the public narrative gets taken over by the loudest voice, whether or not the evidence and logic support that position. There are many issues in the news or floating around the Canadian context where one side has effectively been silenced by political correctness, the cancel culture, the supposed consensus, or other public power plays and pressures. In many cases, the other side needs to be heard, if only to balance the discussion and clarify the issue so that wise decisions can be made. 

I often find myself taking the minority perspective on public issues, sometimes at my peril. As a result, I cast myself as a contrarian. But rather than just being a curmudgeon against popular views, I feel that my views have quite reasonable arguments in their favour, which are often ignored, denied, dismissed, or insulted by those latched onto the official viewpoints and narratives.  I have written about some of these topics earlier, so will not repeat myself: evolution theory and Intelligent Design, global warming and climate change, atheism and scientism, capital punishment, the "gender gap" in engineering, the mainstream media, renewable green energy, and residential schools. Taken together, those posts should serve as my contrarian credentials regarding political issues and modern society!

But there are many other subject areas! The following are a few other issues on which I hold what may seem to be unpopular opinions. You may or may not agree with me, but reading the views of the other side is always a useful exercise toward better understanding. And in any case, surely I have the right to express my own views on my own blog without risking attack and cancellation? In no particular order then, here are some further contrarian positions explained briefly:

The Origin of Life:
The official status of OOL research is that science is making progress toward understanding the basis for life: the physics and chemistry, and biological processes involved. Multiple possibilities for how life got going on planet Earth have been proposed or are being actively investigated. Science publications hype up every supposed 'breakthrough' and will tell you that progress is being made and soon they will have a good idea about how life arose on planet Earth, and will be able to reproduce it in the lab. 

What they do not tell you is that most of the true 'progress' so far has been in finding out how many ways undirected, natural abiogenesis is impossibly difficult. Most reports on 'progress' are hypothetical theoretical looks at one aspect or other of the early Earth, of simple organic-chemistry building blocks, or other incidental aspects of the big picture - mostly just hand-waving speculation. Indeed, there has been no real progress toward creating life by credible processes using materials available on the early Earth. 

Some of the road blocks to true progress in this subject include: the chemical makeup of prebiotic Earth; the hard chemistry of forming suitable carbohydrates, lipids, amino-acids, and other necessary biological molecules; the total lack of homo-chirality (only left or right-handed molecules), which is needed for life; the natural unwanted reactions and thermodynamics  that work against biochemistry outside of cells; the difficulty of properly linking simple chemicals into the polypeptides and nucleic acid strings essential to all life; and of course, the total lack of any process to provide the vast amount of genetic information required for even the simplest protein, much less an credible protocell's DNA or RNA. None of these hurdles has been overcome in any credible lab research.

James Tour has done a huge service to explain these roadblocks, as well as to reveal and derail the biochemistry of pretentious OOL research in a series of YouTube talks. Another set of OOL refutations can be found here [?]. The bottom line is that science is farther away than ever from finding out how life could really have begun by natural means on our planet. Their search for spontaneous generation of life (abiogenesis) has come up short by several orders of magnitude. 

Abortion:
This was probably the original issue in the ongoing and ever-expanding culture wars! It has been in the news a lot recently, especially in the USA with the SCOTUS Dobbs decision, so of course, it has to be on my list here. The issue is polarized into two opposite positions: Pro-choice argues for women's "reproductive rights" and unencumbered access to abortion through the entire nine months of pregnancy, while the pro-life side argues for the rights and life of the unborn child from the moment of conception. Many people fall into one of these camps, but a sizable group - perhaps ebven the majority, properly understood - would like to see some resolution between these two extremes.

The pro-choice side - essentially demanding autonomy for women mostly for reasons of convenience - is pushed by feminists and numerous "progressives" with full support in the media, governments, medical establishment, universities and most other institutions. They dominate Canadian politics and public discussion. Meanwhile, biological science, long-standing morality, most religions and, many would argue, responsibility and decency, largely support the pro-life side. As a true contrarian, I have leaned toward the pro-life side for decades, but recently have shifted away from the conception end of the nine months of pregnancy. Thus, I disagree with both extreme positions.

Some time ago, I wrote a small book on the subject, Finding the Balance, which takes a scientific and logically reasoned look at the issue and comes up with an objective, quantitative way to balance the rights of the pregnant woman against those of her developing child in a fair and defendable manner. I won't divulge the results here; the book is available at a the lowest possible price on Amazon as a readable Kindle publication. See also my earlier post about the book.

Systemic Racism:
This topic exploded with the Black Lives Matter movement a few years ago. While no one claims there is no racism in North America, advocates of 'systemic racism' have gone to extremes to make everything about racism: microaggressions in every conversation, implicit racism in every public statement and public institution, violent uprisings in several cities, demonizing all whites as racists,  even calling out math, logic and science as inherently racist. This focus on racism has just made the problem exponentially worse in many people's minds, by polarizing society and identifying everyone first and formost by the shade of brown on their skin. Martin Luther King's progress against true racism has now been derailed by extreme ideological positioning.

In reality, and until 'systemic racism' became a thing, there was probably less racism in North America than at any previous time. Yes, there were long-standing statistical inequalities, and some subtle racist effects in society, as well as the usual outright bigotry from the few bozos, but overt racism had been on the decline for decades. Here in Canada, true racism was very rare, in my biased opinion. Such as existed was probably felt more by our First Nations peoples than by Blacks, Asians, or other visible minorities. However, with the claims of 'systemic racism' that situation has morphed into ideology, identity politics, and virtue signalling, driven by narrowly-focused social-justice warriors pushing their own agendas.

By various definitions of both words, you may claim 'systemic racism' exists, but it is pretty low level and hard to pin down in ways acceptable to most. From reports of overt racial discrimination elsewhere in the world, racism seems less of a concern here. Yet we now have newly racist policies to preferentially hire and seek out certain people based primarily on skin colour. Universities have racially designated processes, employers actively seek more visible minorities, whites are disrespected in some situations, and treatment is purposely different depending on one's race. While these changes claim to counteract past racist tendencies, they cannot help but be seen as codifying a different sort of stark racism.

Societal equality will never be reached (even if that is a meaningful goal) by forced inequality. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) seem like good goals at first, but those ends do not justify the means being employed and will probably end up making the inequalities worse. So let's please back away from the 'systemic racism' trope and focus on true equality and fairness for all before the law, and in every institution, just as Martin Luther King and his followers wanted.

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide:
This issue has been growing for a long time; another campaign by 'progressive' groups pushing the ultra-libertarian perspective of personal autonomy. Preceded by several European countries, Canada softened its position against assisted suicide a few years ago, pushed on by left-leaning courts and the mainstream media. The argument has always been that people in extreme pain from terminal diseases, with no hope of relief should be allowed to end their lives, and if necessary, to receive 'help' in doing so from willing medical professionals.

Such was the theory and there may be some moral and reasonable merit to that argument. However, that was just the starting point. Anti-euthanasia groups have warned all along about the "slippery slope" of assisted suicide, and time has proven them right. In Canada, it has not taken long for the law to be relaxed and amended to allow more and more cases of what is now referred to as "medical aid in dying" or MAID. The law now allows more people to be killed at their own request, from the disabled and mentally ill, to the depressed, to people just lonely or unhappy with their lives. And now there is pressure to extend MAID to sick children and even disabled new-borns, as if they can give informed consent to being killed. 

The slope has indeed been slippery as we approach the moral nadir of allowing almost anyone at all to ask to be killed. Not only does this go against centuries of moral and religious discouragement, medical ethics, and legal tradition, but it opens the gates for widespread abuse, notwithstanding the rules that are supposedly in place to prevent that - rules that often get bent or ignored as soon as they are signed into law. We how have hospitals suggesting MAID to patients who are expensive to care for, and to veterans of wars facing PTSD, as well as seniors who have lost their spouse, or people who cannot find suitable accommodations for managing their disability. Indeed, one of the arguments for expanding MAID is the savings in health-care costs that come from killing the patient!

Then there are the seniors who feel, often under subtle family or societal pressure, that they should just get out of the way, or that their life is meaningless now. When MAID is easy, this option will be taken more often, or even become normal or expected. Inevitably, however, mistakes are made, which of course, cannot be corrected after the fact. Moreover, some jurisdictions now require doctors and others to participate in MAID despite their personal ethical values against it, thereby undermining their freedom of conscience. On one hand, our society gets upset about drug overdoses and suicide attempts by young people, setting up hotlines and education for susceptible youth. Yet on the other we have now turned around and offer MAID to other people, including soon, some of those same youth.  

In my opinion, MAID was wrong from the outset. There are ways for doctors to sedate patients in severe pain, and if that leaves them unconscious or even hastens their passing, no real harm has been done. There is no need to kill people, even if that is what they supposedly want. Proper medical support and counselling usually improve people's quality of life so that they no longer wish to die, but you cannot give them that after they have been killed!

Darwinian Evolution:
Once life on Earth began, by whatever means, it is almost universally assumed that Darwin's theory of common descent, random variation and natural selection, fully accounts for the complexity and diversity of life we find around us today, as well as for the fossil record of extinctions and new species through the past billion years or more. The "neo-Darwinian synthesis", has been updated from Darwin's time to include genetics and other biological advances, and is the now the standard explanation in textbooks, science publications, and most media presentations.

Yet this monolithic perspective on "origin of the species" is, to put it bluntly, far from the truth. While the  Darwinian mechanism can explain minor shifts and adaptations in populations over time (like Darwin's famous finches), and simple mutational changes ("microevolution" such as antibiotic resistance in bacteria), it cannot explain major changes, new genetic information, and novel features in the creation of new and different species over time ("macroevolution" at the phylum, class, order and family levels). All attempts to apply the Darwinian mechanism analytically have come up short in terms of probabilities, credible processes, the available time, and the fossil record, which shows very few truly intermediate forms with gradual changes. 

The limitations of Darwinian evolution theory have been discussed and presented at considerable length for several decades now, and more and more evidence is accumulating showing the impossibility of new genetic code, new features in plants and animals, and any new families of organisms coming about through naturalistic Darwinian means. I have written about this in previous posts, (and here) and there is a wide range of material referenced there for those who wish to look into this subject. Sooner or later, the biological mainstream will shift away from Darwin's theory and be forced to look at alternatives.

Transgenderism:
If adults want to dress up and act like the opposite sex, that is their prerogative. If they do that well and can pass for the opposite sex in public, then let them do so and the public need not be any wiser. If they go further and seek drugs and surgery - at their own expense - to make them more like the sex they want to be, I will not stand in their way, but please don't ask me to knowingly affirm and encourage their gender dysphoria.

Unfortunately, here too, we now have a very one-sided narrative in the media and society at large, causing much confusion, disrupting societal norms, spreading public bewilderment, and even destroying more than a few children's lives. All manner of institutions have jumped on the 'trans' bandwagon for fear they will not be seen as sufficiently woke. People are being forced to use ungrammatical pronouns; men claiming to be women are gaining access into women's change rooms, sports programs, and even jails, with predictably disastrous results. Counsellors and even parents are legally prevented from advising mentally troubled youth and children against "transitioning". Children are being encouraged to doubt who they are, take hormone treatments and undergo mutilating surgery, only to become even more troubled, as well as permanently sterile and unhealthy. Any voices speaking against this seeming insanity are silenced or cancelled without being heard.

Transgenderism for children is unscientific and should be called child abuse in my opinion. It is based on a one-sided narrative pushed by special interests and the ever-eager media. Fortunately, some jurisdictions have begun to backtrack on blanket acceptance of transgender ideology, having woken up to its dangers and disastrous results for many. Alas, Canada has not yet seen reason in this area and presses ahead with laws and policies, school curricula and employee training, institutional pandering and media celebration, all in 'support' of anything LGBT, and especially 'trans'. Meanwhile, those of us wanting to hold onto sanity are judged, condemned and usually silence ourselves out of fear, or for lack of public places to turn to. We wonder how and when this departure from reality will end.

Israel vs. Palestine:
From a western, democratic perspective, this issue should be a slam dunk: one small country, the only open and stable democracy in the region, is surrounded by dysfunctional, backward, tyrannical  countries that want to destroy it.  Do you side with the democracy or their enemies? Founded after holocaust, Israel defends itself effectively and by necessity against attacks from three sides, and hateful diatribe from many other nations who should know better. Support for Israel should be a social justice cause, but it is not.  Instead, the left and progressives in general support Hamas and Hezbollah, recognized terrorist groups who continual threaten Israel, unwilling to negotiate in good faith, while unable to support their own people, giving them fewer human rights, unstable governments, conditions of poverty despite ongoing international aid and nearby oil wealth.

Yes, Israel is sometimes guilty of bad behaviour, including heavy retaliation for armed attacks, and building Jewish settlements on land claimed by Palestinians. But they also provide for Palestinians within their borders, allow them to live, work and vote peacefully, and even to serve in the government. Meanwhile, surrounding countries do not want the Palestinians in their lands and provide little actual support to them. (Such is my understanding from my limited exposure to Middle-East political reality.) I may be wrong in siding with Israel for the most part, but I do not understand those who side with Palestinians to the point of demonstrating on campus, denouncing Israel, or demanding that nations and corporations stop dealing with Israel. 

Okay, that's enough for now!

This, of course, is just a brief and partial collection. Any one of these topics deserves a full blog post (or even a book?) and perhaps I'll expand on a few of them later, or just add a few more briefs here. There are other subjects I could expound on, such as feminism, other LGBT aspects, additional woke causes, and a few more technical/scientific subject areas, but the above entries will have to suffice for now. They will certainly serve for many to pigeonhole me, without thinking, as a "far right monster", or something similar, but I prefer to be a 'contrarian' and a very reasonable one at that!

On many of these topics there are, of course, grey in-between positions, and perhaps I myself do not entirely hold the views outlined above. Is it also possible that you, if you've read this far and have studied these issues, may hold some of the same views yourself, at least in part? Indeed, it is my secret hope that many, perhaps even most reasonable people secretly hold some version of these same opinions; that the world has not gone completely crazy and that sanity may one day again prevail, at least on some issues.

Residential Schools Narratives

I have held off writing this for a while, unsure how the issue would play out, but also concerned about how my views would be received, including possible negative reactions. However, the subject keeps gnawing at me, so I will leap into it regardless. Please don't judge me too harshly.

By now the standard "Residential Schools" narrative is well known to Canadians. In the pre-confederation 19th century, the then British government decided to set up schools for Indian children in order to assimilate them into Canadian (mostly English) culture - "to take the Indian out of the child", as it was understood. After confederation, the government expanded the program, building more "industrial schools" to house and educate children from several reserves. Church groups signed up teachers and other staff to run the schools. Native children were taken, by force, if necessary, from their homes and families to distant schools where they had their hair cut off and clothing burned. They were given English names (or even just numbers) and school uniforms, forbidden from using their own languages, and forced to speak English, while undergoing harsh discipline as they attended and lived at the schools. The children were mistreated, undernourished, given little medical care, and prevented from returning home. Many were emotionally, physically and even sexually abused, and all were mistreated in various ways by the white adult staff, who looked down on them. Some were even beaten or starved and frozen to death, then secretly buried and never heard from again. 

In all, spread over more than a century, around 150,000 native children attended over 100 of these schools, some of which remained open into the late 20th century.  Of those children, several thousand died at the schools, and many were then buried on site in unmarked graves. Most of the children who attended these schools were emotionally traumatized and permanently bear the scars as victims of this "cultural genocide" - the stamping out of their native values, tribal history and beliefs. The government has since apologized repeatedly for the whole debacle and justifiably paid large sums to the survivors and their offspring as partial compensation for the widespread and long-term suffering that still carries over today in succeeding generations. Non-native Canadians, referred to as "settlers" - are now expected to acknowledge the widespread mistreatment and atrocities, and undergo continuing education and penance for this sad part of our national history.

Such is the story as pulled together over the past few decades and captured in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commision report, and its follow-up work. This narrative has been almost universally adopted by our governments, schools, churches, service agencies, and of course, the mainstream media, who have made it their duty to refer to it in news and opinion pieces as often as possible. All Canadian "settlers" are expected to accept the narrative as part of the reconciliation work and making amends. Churches are regularly shamed for their past roles, and often held to blame for most of the problems. The narrative is now part of Canadian history taught to all school children, and officials everywhere regularly acknowledge this shameful past.

Here is a somewhat different version of the story. In the 19th century the British, and later, Canadian governments were concerned that there was no public education for native children. Tribal leaders and native parents were mostly eager to have their children educated so that they would not be left behind in the burgeoning Canadian culture. Many native reserves were too small or remote to sustain schools, so the government organized and built the residential schools in more central locations, where the children could stay during school sessions. Wanting to educate and children in the faith and give them better lives and prospects for success, church groups agreed to fill the administrative and teaching posts in these schools. Many native children attended other schools in their own communities while living at home, but most who could not were transported to the residential schools, where they lived and learned together.

The schools were largely underfunded by the government, but the often-untrained staff did their best to make do with what they had and provide good education and care. Resources were often short however, the schools were understaffed, and medical care largely unavailable. Many children arrived with infestations, diseases like tuberculosis, or other health conditions. They had to be thoroughly cleansed and given new clothing, school uniforms being the norm in those days. Some of the staff were native adults, and some non-native children attended the schools as well. As the teachers could not speak the various native languages, English was taught and used in class and group activities, although most children could speak their native tongues outside the classroom. Most of the children were also able to return home between sessions, or even on weekends. 

Unfortunately, with childhood diseases uncontrolled in those days, some children did die and when they could not be sent home to their families, had to be buried in cemeteries at or near the school, with Christian burial rites and wooden markers. Records were kept at the schools and there was communication with the parents and reserves when possible. With high student-teacher ratios, including the work of food preparation and supervising the children, activities and residences 24/7, close oversight was limited. As a result, discipline had to be strict, as it was in most other schools at the time. While there were, no doubt, cases of abuse, most of it was from older to younger students, as was typical for any boarding school of that period. 

While it was understandably difficult for small children to be taken from their culture, language and family, most of the children at the schools did well enough and received a fair education. There are records and photos of happy teacher-student relationships, pleasant group outings, neat classrooms, and even hockey teams and other special activities. Many students went on to use their newly learned skills and education to help their reserves and First Nations groups, or to enhance Canadian culture. Yes, in hindsight, the rationale for the schools was partially wrong, and mistakes were doubtless made. As in any culture, some children were emotionally damaged, and the whole program could probably have been improved in numerous ways.

The former, negative narrative was developed over decades as "survivors" stories were collected and sometimes perhaps embellished with hearsay and rumours. The TRC was founded to collect and publish the history and native experiences, to put together a case for government and church apologies and reparation payments. With compensation on the table, more stories came out and the news media started to focus on the horror stories; the tragic abuse and deaths, culminating in the hyped-up reports of "unmarked graves" at various school sites in the summer of 2021.

The reader will notice that these two stories are very different. It stretches credibility to claim that both are entirely true, but both are probably mostly true, albeit biased in very different ways. While the latter story may be somewhat sugar coated, yet to publicly present only the former narrative puts a very negative spin on the residential schools issue. The fact that this is the only story the public constantly sees and hears about skews the truth and makes true reconciliation elusive.

I am not an expert on this subject but have read enough to know that the standard narrative is not the whole truth and that it is being used beyond reason - at least from my (admittedly biased) perspective - to push for repentance, apologies and reparation payments. The full truth and true reconciliation will only occur when all involved act and speak honestly. Clearly, a more balanced picture is needed, one combining both of these stories, comparing the different perspectives, while deleting any false or badly unbalanced aspects. 

The following are some questions I'd like to see answered in getting to the full truth and then to move on from the issue, so that native and non-native Canadians can live together without this hanging over their relationships forever.

1. First, what was the alternative? Everyone involved at the time wanted native children to be educated. Even in hindsight, how else could that have happened within the limitations and available resources of that century? How else could thousands of children from several hundred tribes and reserves have been educated? Who else would be willing to staff the schools if not nuns and other dedicated Christians, working far from their homes for a pittance? Where would the money to make the schools themselves, and the children's care better have come from? Which medical professionals would have been ready to live in the schools or nearby for improved medical care? How could children have been schooled in their various mother tongues? Even if the intent was colonialist and seems racist from our current perspective, at the time the residential school system seemed the best approach to address the native education problem.

2. Overall, what was the outcome for most native children: those who attended these schools compared to those who stayed home on the reserves, with or without schooling there? Have there been any statistical comparisons of how those children subsequently fared as adults in the Canadian milieu? Less than half of native children attended the residential schools, so there should be a large control group to provide such comparisons. 

Did those on reserves learn useful skills for living in Canada? Did they suffer less sickness, abuse and death than in the schools? Comparing them as adults today, can any trends be seen in personality, mental health, and other measures of well-being? Surely some of this data must exist, but have we seen it presented in an unbiased fashion? Not all residential school reports are negative. Many children did well, learned a lot and graduated as educated youth. Many staff and teachers treated them well, within the constraints of a formal school. The whole program was not entirely wrong as implied by the narrative. (See below for various references about this.)

3. How many children actually died at the residential schools and what did they die of? Compare that with deaths back on the reserves, or even with deaths in white communities of the same areas. Recall that tuberculosis was rampant on the reserves (and many other places) along with influenza (the 2019 Spanish Flu epidemic, for example). Then there were pertussis, diphtheria, measles and various other childhood diseases, each taking its toll without vaccines or antibiotics available back then. And of course, accidents and misadventure were more common as well, with fewer safety regulations in force. Children dying was altogether too common everywhere a century or more ago. Indeed, even in settler communities, 20% of children might have died before reaching adulthood.

4. How many children's bodies have actually been found in the "unmarked graves" so often reported by the media? Not how many disturbed plots of ground there seem to be, but actual exhumed skeletal remains? As I write this, I have heard of none! There is lots of talk and speculation, but no actual diggings. Not all of the graves we actually know about may have children from the schools. Adults must have died at the schools, as well, and some of the cemeteries were also used by the local communities. Moreover, one wonders, if it is not wrong to ask, how many "unmarked graves" there are for children on the reserves? Should we take a look?

Were the graves truly unmarked, or just minimally marked and the markers lost over time? Many cemeteries across Canada have lost grave markers, and some have even been bulldozed for development!  In any case, it is likely that almost all of the children buried near residential schools died from diseases rather than any mistreatment or violence at the school. We won't know until we do forensic digging or delve through whatever records still exist.

5. What other institution, active over 120 years, that kept 150,000 children 24/7 does not have a history of abuse, as viewed from the 21st century? There has been child abuse in every arena of life, and some things we call abuse today were normal disciplinary policy or children's treatment back then. Every institution has its horror stories, from English boarding schools, cadet training camps, boy scouts, hazing of college students, etc. Was the apparent mistreatment of children in residential schools worse than that seen in those venues? Or how about the legendary stories of mistreatment by nuns in Catholic schools in the last century? Any setting having children of varying ages together with few adults around the clock is going to yield abuse, especially in the years before child abuse was widely recognized and preventive measures put in place. Yet you never hear of reparations for all children who participated in those institutions. 

6. Which other country has had no historical problems dealing with its indigenous populations? Canada did not have widespread "Indian wars" like in the USA. Many countries had true genocides (mass killings) in their past, which they generally downplay. I expect that Canada's record of treating native peoples, although not stellar by 21st century values, would look better than most colonizing powers, or even many modern countries. Yet the negative media hype about our residential schools has given Canada a black eye internationally, even with China; hardly a bastion of human rights. However bad the residential school experience may have been for some, it pales in comparison with past events in other countries: six million purposely killed and burned or dumped in truly mass graves in Germany in the early 1940's; millions killed in Soviet Russia from 1920 to 1950; tens of millions dead in Mao's long march and great leap forward; the killing fields of Cambodia; the massacre of Armenians in Turkey; the Rwandan massacre; the list goes on. And all of this came after the colonial period of mass slaughters, forced slavery, tribal conflicts, slavery, etc. - atrocities stretching back into pre-history. Even our peaceful First Nations are not without guilt: the Mohawks wiped out some of the Huron tribes and killed many a settler. No people or nation is innocent in this regard!

7. Are we unfairly judging the 19th century based on 21st century values, mores and cultural norms? Regarding disciplinary measures, nutritional standards, health care, class size, human rights, family structure, pedagogy, expectations on children, social welfare, communications, and so on, the norms in past centuries were very different from those today. It is chronological arrogance and grossly unfair to judge people, processes and decisions from a hundred years ago by today's standards! How much of the supposed mistreatment being remembered is largely a projection of today's views onto the past? What aspects of today's Canadian culture will be severely judged a hundred years from now?

8. How much of the negative reporting can be counted as objective truth? Any five-year-old taken from her family to an alien culture and people, given a scrubbing and haircut, unfamiliar clothing, a set of rules and procedures in an unknown language, with strict discipline, would surely feel emotionally traumatized, however well the school staff tried to make her happy. Such treatment would loom large in her memory and, when discussed with other children, would surely grow in scope and import. Later in life, those memories would serve well as the presumed cause for her ongoing problems in life, and would be recalled when solicited, to bolster the narrative and justify payments from the government. I'm not saying that many native children were not ill-treated, but many settler children also bear scars of childhood abuse and emotional trauma, without blaming Canada and the entire school system, or expecting compensation.

9. Does repeating and promoting the standard narrative today resolve the issue for our native peoples? Has it led to proper reconciliation? Hyping incomplete stories, sensationalizing poor treatment with rumours and embellishments to gain attention is surely not the way to deal with past issues. Terms like "genocide", "settlers", "mass graves", "survivors", "murder", "victim", etc. are not conducive to reasonable discussion, freely given empathy, and mutual efforts to assess and sort through the past and its effects on the present. The churches involved in the residential schools are unfairly demonized despite their best intentions at the time, as well as various recent apologies, compensations and public repentances, including now, a visit from the Pope. Meanwhile, several churches have been burned down or vandalized, alternative reports are ignored, and little evidence has been provided for the worst parts of the standard public narrative. This is not the way to resolve the deep-seated and complex issues about the residential schools.

One could go on asking questions, but the above is summarized as follows. The residential schools were well intended, even though in hindsight, apparently misguided, poorly done, and pushed too far. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the subsequent public narrative are one sided, painting an incomplete and somewhat unfair picture of the past. Many native children had good experiences, learned a lot and came out ahead. Not all were abused, damaged and scarred for life. Most of the staff did their best in difficult circumstances with what they had, based on the standards of the day. The current narrative is unhelpful in that most people can see how skewed it is and may therefore, be inclined to take it with quiet cynicism, rather than full acceptance. Without looking into these matters using hard evidence in addition to the usual verbal reports of childhood memories, we will never clarify and sort out the full truth about the residential schools.

Canadians today are surely not to blame for what happened 100 years ago, and yet, we are now trying to make amends and work with the First Nations to improve their circumstances. When he expanded the residential school program, John A. McDonald (Canada's first Prime Minister, back in 1870's) was trying to do the right thing, based on what was then known and within the resource limitations of the day. But what "the right thing" looks like is hard to sort out even now in the current melee of media hype, biased presentations, expanding grievances, shifting reserve realities, and other aspects of the issues surrounding Canada's First Nations peoples. Indeed, all recent attempts to sort out and come to agreeable terms with Canada's indigenous peoples have been mired in confusion and disagreement. No government seems to have a plan that First Nations will accept and support.

One final clarification must be made. This piece - or rant, if you prefer - is only about the residential schools issue. It is not intended to reflect my views about First Nations in Canada or indigenous peoples in general. There is no doubt that when Europeans arrived in what is now Canada, the result was devastation for the indigenous population, primarily through diseases unknowingly transmitted, but also through mistreatment and abuse. Then there were the treaties which carved more and more of the native lands away, and which were often not implemented by the settlers. Add in the cheating and swindles that went on, and the racist presumption of white cultural superiority, as well as the technological disadvantages, and the native peoples of Canada have had very poor treatment over the centuries. 

Fortunately, however, this has largely shifted in recent decades as First Nations have come into their own, rebuilding much of their varied cultures, and now flexing their political power to assert their rights and wishes. But many cultural scars and serious problems on and off the reserves remain unresolved. The history of the residential school system probably contributed to both sides of this journey but adopting only the negative narrative is not fair and will probably not help the native peoples in the long run. Yes, Canada like many countries, has a problem dealing with its indigenous peoples. There are valid historical and ongoing grievances that need to be addressed, and no comprehensive solution is in sight. But there will not be a just and settled reconciliation until the full truth is available and all sides behave fairly and honestly with each other. 

This piece reflects my current opinion, based on incomplete readings and partial data, so I doubtless have some errors and am likely in need of correction in some details. My writings are not entirely original, of course. I have been greatly educated and aided by various pieces written by brave souls questioning the standard media narrative, mostly through smaller publications. Here are some of the ones I have collected for further reading and edification:

http://www.edmontonchina.ca/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=756776

https://c2cjournal.ca/2018/04/letters-to-senator-beyak-uncensored/

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/15/tomson-highway-residential-schools_n_8787638.html

https://fcpp.org/2003/05/01/residential-schools-story-more-complicated/

https://tnc.news/2022/01/19/an-honest-conversation-about-canadas-residential-school-system/

https://tnc.news/2021/12/19/the-misleading-claim-that-150000-indigenous-children-were-forced-to-attend-residential-schools/

https://tnc.news/2021/07/13/can-we-discuss-those-unmarked-graves-expert-panel-counters-the-uncritical-media-narrative-about-residential-schools/

https://tnc.news/2021/07/12/six-things-the-media-got-wrong-about-the-graves-found-near-residential-schools/

https://www.dorchesterreview.ca/blogs/news/the-false-narrative-of-irs-burials

https://www.dorchesterreview.ca/pages/mysteries-of-kamloops

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/rescued-from-the-memory-hole-some-first-nations-people-loved-their-residential-schools

https://hymie.substack.com/ 

Some Green Energy Reality

 There is a big push everywhere to reduce our use of fossil fuels, replacing them with renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power.  This pressure, of course, is driven by climate change ideology and related concerns about a warming planet.  The most eager folk hope that we will be "carbon neutral" by 2030, urged on by the United Nations and recent IPCC edicts and warnings.  Regardless of how important you think the issue, the push for "clean energy" will doubtless continue unabated for a long time.  Under the guise of "net zero", to stop emitting carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and gas, many governments and industries are slowly installing more wind and solar power.  Those both produce electric power, so there is also a push to switch vehicles and various industrial processes over to electricity. 

The often unrecognized problem with wind and solar energy is that they are intermittent; the sun doesn't shine at night, the wind often does not blow, and clouds come by at random intervals.  To make up for the times when renewable energy is unavailable, requires some form of backup energy storage medium; a system that can easily convert from electric grid power and back again in a controlled and practical fashion.  Replacing all other electric power sources with wind and solar would require absurd levels of backup storage for many days, or even weeks -- to get us through a Canadian winter, for example. 

To explain this better, consider a modest city of one million people, which typically requires 2 gigawatt (GW) of electric power on average, with likely variations between 1 and 3 GW. If all of that must come from wind and solar, the city would need at least 6 GW of solar and wind generating capacity to get an average around 2 GW, and a minimum of 30 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of backup storage just to make it through one windless night.  That is equivalent to more than 500,000 electric car battery packs.  Even then there would be a high probability of frequent outages.  Maintaining a truly reliable grid solely with wind and solar power would increase these numbers further.

Of course by 2030 wind and solar will NOT provide all our electricity no matter how loud the alarmists shout and the green people dream.  Nuclear energy will still be around, providing constant base generation (24/7), and with new technology, nuclear may be pressed into moderate, long-term growth, if governments can deflect or appease the anti-nuclear crowd.  However, nuclear power cannot easily be dispatched; that is turned up and down at a moment's notice to match the instantaneous demand in the power grid.  Nuclear takes days to start up or shut down properly and works best operating at a constant output power - hence the base supply.

Then there is hydroelectric power, which is somewhat or partially dispatchable, providing some limited "energy storage" by way of water reservoirs - not nearly enough, of course, to replace reliable and fully dispatchable fossil fuel plants, but some.  And hydro-power cannot be expanded much since all the good sites are already in use.  In addition to solar and wind, there may be other renewable energy sources that can run on stored energy; e.g. fuel cells and hydrogen, although I personally would not invest in that (see more below). 

Dispatchable loads may also come into play: allowing your air conditioning or electric vehicle recharging to happen at the whim of the grid controllers, so as to shift their loads into times when power is abundant - all for a modest reduction in your cost per kWh.  Mind you, industry and commercial enterprises have so far not been keen to accept brownouts in return for reduced rates, but some degree of "load shifting" should be palatable to most people if done well.  In addition, there will continue to be modest improvements in process efficiencies: better insulated homes, tightened up industries, reducing energy and heat waste a bit. Together these may reduce or flatten peak loads through the day.

These changes, together with the inevitable residual natural-gas generating stations (which are very dispatchable), other traditional generating plants, and possibly newer power sources such as biogas, ethanol and biodiesel, would greatly reduce the amount of energy storage required as we move toward a more sustainable future.  Nevertheless, huge investments in energy storage for electric power will have to be made if we want to continue adding wind and solar capacity while keeping our power grids reliable, as every consumer expects. 

The obvious choice for electric energy storage is batteries.  When grid power is plentiful, AC power is rectified to DC and used to charge electro-chemical battery cells.  When extra power is needed, the batteries discharge through inverter circuits to feed AC power back into the grid.  The current front-runner in this regard is rechargeable lithium batteries of varying internal chemistries and constructions.  Encouraged by the growing EV market, lithium cells are slowly getting better and less expensive.  They have a high round-trip efficiency (kWh returned to the grid vs. kWh required to recharge them) around 80%, are rapidly dispatchable in either mode, and have a decent usable life.  Potential problems with limited materials resources can probably be worked around over time, and the cells can be recycled. 

Large (gigawatt-hour - GWh) battery storage plants are currently in planning or under construction. They are intended to shift loads by a few hours at most, not by days or weeks, and even so, they will be expensive.  Many such plants would be needed (terawatt storage!) to do away with fossil fuel generation altogether, so that is unlikely to occur by 2030. 

There are other, often-hyped energy storage media possibilities, such as pumped water, compressed air, hydrogen, thermal storage, flywheels, artificial fuels, raised heavy weights, and so on.  However, they all suffer from either low round-trip efficiency (e.g. hydrogen, air, thermal), capacity and scalability issues (pumped water, raised weights), or large capital costs (most of these).  These technologies will find small, niche markets, but are unlikely to provide grid-wide backup power at the required level.

Combined with their low operating factor (less than 40% of the time storing and less than 40% releasing stored energy) means that any stored power supply is expensive on a dollars per delivered kWh basis (both capital and operating) compared to raw solar/wind or most traditional energy sources.  As far as I am aware, no other energy storage technology can match batteries for high efficiency, flexibility, and response time.  Yet even batteries can provide backup power at less than 33% utility (80% efficiency, combined with < 40% discharge time).  Thus, if a battery plant and nuclear plant cost the same on a per kilowatt rating basis (I doubt if they do, but just suppose), then the long-term cost per delivered kWh of the battery plant would be at least three times that of the nuclear power plant, depending on other assumptions and variables.

Ultimately, of course, reality will have its way.  Yes, we will get additional solar and wind energy, some large (but limited) battery storage plants, some percentage dispatchable loads, more nuclear, and slivers of additional hydro and other sources, but we will also keep many clean gas-fired turbine generators; and probably more than a few other carbon-based power plants will continue operating after 2030. Perhaps by then the "climate change" demands will become sufficiently subject to reason that the push for "net zero" will fade, diminish, or quite reasonably be pushed out a few decades more.

In the end, reality always wins, and we will continue to have a mix of energy sources and storage media going into the future.