Of course the ICMP is in it for money. The Great Canadian Grave Hoax is the Grift that keeps on giving. Everyone and his brother want a free ride on this gravy train. Just remember in todays miasmas of political delusion it is almost a certainty that, "a fool with our money, is soon parted".
A small clarification, re “attempts to enlist the ICC in prosecuting the Government of Canada and the Vatican for crimes against humanity.” The ICC role is to prosecute individuals and not governments or states etc. and as you note at the top no cases that occurred prior to the Rome Statute coming into effect can be pursued. The ICMP could still be useful in using its expertise to establish forensic evidence that can be used by other institutions— assuming they don’t politicize the project (the concern you raise here.) But it will have nothing to do with the ICC.
Yes, you are correct about the ICC only prosecuting individuals. However I was citing (perhaps less than clearly) the complaint made to the ICC by a group of lawyers within days of the Kamloops announcement: "The Complainants are lawyers in the Member State of Canada. The accused/suspects are agents, employees or actors working for the Government of Canada (“GOC”) and the Government of Vatican City State/Holy See (“Vatican”). These agents, employees and actors would be specifically known by the GOC and Vatican via their respective records.
Yesterday a Calgary judge ruled that a class action suit against a priest can go ahead, for the hurt caused to the IRS survivors by STATEMENTS the priest made in 2021 about the Kamloops "discoveries": https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-calgary-judge-permits-class-action-lawsuit-over-priests-residential/ (This is likely paywalled, so I'm copying a few paragraphs here to give you the gist of the offense in question. Michael, if you can't access the G&M article, let me know and I'll send the whole thing to you in a Word doc.) This would, I think, be the first legal prosecution of speech that merely questions the narrative of nefarious burials.
<< A proposed class-action lawsuit filed by a residential-school survivor against a priest and entities associated with the Catholic Church will move forward after a Calgary judge struck down a motion to dismiss the case on Monday.
Sphenia Jones, a 79-year-old elder of the Haida Nation in British Columbia who attended the Edmonton Indian Residential School in the 1950s, is the representative plaintiff in the proposed lawsuit. It names Rev. Marcin Mironiuk as a defendant. He is accused of making defamatory statements about residential-school survivors in 2021 and causing harm to their reputations by denying reports of unmarked graves.
Also named as defendants are the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, which placed Father Mironiuk on indefinite administrative leave after calling his comments “thoroughly unacceptable,” and the Oblate Fathers of Assumption Province.
The defendants presented arguments Monday to strike the claim, a procedural option available if a party believes the case has no merit. Justice James Farrington, in a same-day decision, said he is satisfied the claim has a “reasonable chance of success and completes the basics.”
A statement of claim filed in July, 2023, details how Father Mironiuk made a number of statements IN POLISH regarding the discovery of grave sites at residential schools and repeatedly described it as “lies” and “manipulation,” and claimed Indigenous children died of natural causes. He made his remarks after the discovery of unmarked burial sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. >>
This lead plaintiff, Sphenia Jones, has a Facebook page with not too many posts. I only had to scroll back a little to find a video she posted to her page in June of 2021 (in the emotional aftermath of you-know-what). In it she's urging that survivors "all across Canada" need to join together in a class action suit:
". . . to go after the government, the church, and the Queen. Cuz the Queen isn’t sitting pretty. She’s no angel in this. She used to go to the schools and take children out as well."
Her aim is to get "a whole bunch of healing places across Canada where we can all heal together." Because "money cannot take away the pain. No money on this earth."
The video is just over 6 minutes, but it makes NO MENTION of Father Mironiuk or any hurtful remarks he might have made (the Globe and Mail article doesn't say precisely when the priest made his remarks, or in what context). I suspect Sphenia was on the lookout for an offense that might meet the requirements for a suit, and someone got wind of the priest's remarks and shared them with her.
Not a very credible plaintiff. But I don't imagine Justice Farrington checked out Sphenia's Facebook page before ruling that the suit could go ahead and had "a reasonable chance of success."
Thanks for the tip about the FB video. I feel a little sorry for her; she's a victim of Kevin Annett's wretched conspiracy theories. The case has zero chance of success and most likely Jones is going to end up being the person upon whose back the whole fiction of missing and murdered IRS children will be broken.
She's of course also a victim of the Kamloops band and the hornet's nest it opened with its news release. I've seen so many videos and images of elders genuinely heartbroken over the missing children, unnamed and unknown to them, dredging up decades worth of grief and loss and calling it residential school trauma. I do feel sorry for them, and for Sphenia, whose moment of celebrity (see the FB page of Calgary photographer Albert Woo) will likely end in more pain and bitterness.
I hadn't yet read some of the older coverage when I mentioned the G&M article. I see that Rev. Mironiuk had made his offending comments "during and after" a livestreamed sermon on July 18, 2021, but they weren't reported and shared until August 11 (by Vice World News).
The lawyers defending Mironiuk and the Archdiocese need to bring this chronology to the attention of the court, to point out that the "defamation" angle was really just a convenient instrument for meeting requirements for an already-planned class action. In the emotional tsunami that followed the Kamloops quake, everyone was feeling they needed to DO SOMETHING . . . Most of the dollars for healing centres "across the country" were going to be quickly forthcoming from government anyway, without any need for a class action, but Sphenia (and others) couldn't have known that in June of 2021.
Of course the ICMP is in it for money. The Great Canadian Grave Hoax is the Grift that keeps on giving. Everyone and his brother want a free ride on this gravy train. Just remember in todays miasmas of political delusion it is almost a certainty that, "a fool with our money, is soon parted".
It's a shame the ICMP has hopped this gravy train, though, IMO. They used to be a credible organization.
A small clarification, re “attempts to enlist the ICC in prosecuting the Government of Canada and the Vatican for crimes against humanity.” The ICC role is to prosecute individuals and not governments or states etc. and as you note at the top no cases that occurred prior to the Rome Statute coming into effect can be pursued. The ICMP could still be useful in using its expertise to establish forensic evidence that can be used by other institutions— assuming they don’t politicize the project (the concern you raise here.) But it will have nothing to do with the ICC.
Yes, you are correct about the ICC only prosecuting individuals. However I was citing (perhaps less than clearly) the complaint made to the ICC by a group of lawyers within days of the Kamloops announcement: "The Complainants are lawyers in the Member State of Canada. The accused/suspects are agents, employees or actors working for the Government of Canada (“GOC”) and the Government of Vatican City State/Holy See (“Vatican”). These agents, employees and actors would be specifically known by the GOC and Vatican via their respective records.
Yesterday a Calgary judge ruled that a class action suit against a priest can go ahead, for the hurt caused to the IRS survivors by STATEMENTS the priest made in 2021 about the Kamloops "discoveries": https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-calgary-judge-permits-class-action-lawsuit-over-priests-residential/ (This is likely paywalled, so I'm copying a few paragraphs here to give you the gist of the offense in question. Michael, if you can't access the G&M article, let me know and I'll send the whole thing to you in a Word doc.) This would, I think, be the first legal prosecution of speech that merely questions the narrative of nefarious burials.
<< A proposed class-action lawsuit filed by a residential-school survivor against a priest and entities associated with the Catholic Church will move forward after a Calgary judge struck down a motion to dismiss the case on Monday.
Sphenia Jones, a 79-year-old elder of the Haida Nation in British Columbia who attended the Edmonton Indian Residential School in the 1950s, is the representative plaintiff in the proposed lawsuit. It names Rev. Marcin Mironiuk as a defendant. He is accused of making defamatory statements about residential-school survivors in 2021 and causing harm to their reputations by denying reports of unmarked graves.
Also named as defendants are the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, which placed Father Mironiuk on indefinite administrative leave after calling his comments “thoroughly unacceptable,” and the Oblate Fathers of Assumption Province.
The defendants presented arguments Monday to strike the claim, a procedural option available if a party believes the case has no merit. Justice James Farrington, in a same-day decision, said he is satisfied the claim has a “reasonable chance of success and completes the basics.”
A statement of claim filed in July, 2023, details how Father Mironiuk made a number of statements IN POLISH regarding the discovery of grave sites at residential schools and repeatedly described it as “lies” and “manipulation,” and claimed Indigenous children died of natural causes. He made his remarks after the discovery of unmarked burial sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. >>
This lead plaintiff, Sphenia Jones, has a Facebook page with not too many posts. I only had to scroll back a little to find a video she posted to her page in June of 2021 (in the emotional aftermath of you-know-what). In it she's urging that survivors "all across Canada" need to join together in a class action suit:
". . . to go after the government, the church, and the Queen. Cuz the Queen isn’t sitting pretty. She’s no angel in this. She used to go to the schools and take children out as well."
Her aim is to get "a whole bunch of healing places across Canada where we can all heal together." Because "money cannot take away the pain. No money on this earth."
The video is just over 6 minutes, but it makes NO MENTION of Father Mironiuk or any hurtful remarks he might have made (the Globe and Mail article doesn't say precisely when the priest made his remarks, or in what context). I suspect Sphenia was on the lookout for an offense that might meet the requirements for a suit, and someone got wind of the priest's remarks and shared them with her.
Not a very credible plaintiff. But I don't imagine Justice Farrington checked out Sphenia's Facebook page before ruling that the suit could go ahead and had "a reasonable chance of success."
Thanks for the tip about the FB video. I feel a little sorry for her; she's a victim of Kevin Annett's wretched conspiracy theories. The case has zero chance of success and most likely Jones is going to end up being the person upon whose back the whole fiction of missing and murdered IRS children will be broken.
She's of course also a victim of the Kamloops band and the hornet's nest it opened with its news release. I've seen so many videos and images of elders genuinely heartbroken over the missing children, unnamed and unknown to them, dredging up decades worth of grief and loss and calling it residential school trauma. I do feel sorry for them, and for Sphenia, whose moment of celebrity (see the FB page of Calgary photographer Albert Woo) will likely end in more pain and bitterness.
I hadn't yet read some of the older coverage when I mentioned the G&M article. I see that Rev. Mironiuk had made his offending comments "during and after" a livestreamed sermon on July 18, 2021, but they weren't reported and shared until August 11 (by Vice World News).
Sphenia's video urging a class action was posted on June 22, long before the priest's comments were made or had made it into the news. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-priest-apologizes-after-calling-unmarked-graves-lies-1.6139516 (Aug. 13, 2021)
The lawyers defending Mironiuk and the Archdiocese need to bring this chronology to the attention of the court, to point out that the "defamation" angle was really just a convenient instrument for meeting requirements for an already-planned class action. In the emotional tsunami that followed the Kamloops quake, everyone was feeling they needed to DO SOMETHING . . . Most of the dollars for healing centres "across the country" were going to be quickly forthcoming from government anyway, without any need for a class action, but Sphenia (and others) couldn't have known that in June of 2021.