



This column is prompted by the refusal of the Powell River newspaper, the Powell River Peak, to publish an advertisement for a talk to be given on March 30 in Powell River by Frances Widdowson, a contributor to the excellent book “Grave Error.” It was an honour to have been asked to contribute a foreword to that book, which was a carefully researched collection of learned and impartial opinions about the controversy in 2021 over the so-called unmarked graves of Indigenous children near the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The excuse given in writing by the publisher of the Peak, Kelly Keil, on March 17 for refusing to advertise this event was that “Grave Error” “appears to centre around the denial of well-documented historical facts regarding residential schools, which contradicts the overwhelming evidence provided by survivors, historical records and independent inquiries.… Our advertising standards require that we do not publish content that promotes misinformation or undermines established historical facts. This is not an issue of limiting free expression but rather of ensuring that our platform is not used to spread content that distorts history and may cause harm, particularly to Indigenous communities.… We cannot in good conscience facilitate the promotion of material it denies documented historical atrocities.“