LAGRANGE MUST DISAVOW CHRIS CHAMPION AND PULL CURRICULUM FOLLOWING GENOCIDE-DENIAL TWEETS

EDMONTON - Alberta’s NDP Opposition is calling on UCP Education Minister Adriana LaGrange to sever all ties with Chris Champion, who she hired to write her social studies curriculum draft, after his magazine repeatedly questioned the horrors of residential schools.

“These tweets are disgusting, and I know Alberta parents and teachers are horrified to think they were published by the man who held the pen on the Alberta curriculum,” said Sarah Hoffman, NDP Critic for Education.

This week, The Dorchester Review sent out a series of tweets that suggested Indigenous children had “an absolute blast” at residential schools, that photos suggest children were “apparently happy & healthy” and references a 1997 article in Alberta Report titled “The Proceeds of Victimhood.”

The Dorchester Review is edited by Chris Champion, a former federal staffer for Jason Kenney who was brought in to write the social studies component of LaGrange’s curriculum, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by Alberta school boards, teachers, Indigenous groups, and Francophones.  

Champion is on the record, in The Dorchester Review, calling inclusion of First Nations perspectives in education “a fad” and techniques such as the blanket exercise “brainwashing.” Indigenous leaders have called for Champion to be fired.

“While Canadians are grappling with the discovery of a mass grave of children at the residential school in Kamloops, Chris Champion continues to try and erase the genocide inflicted on Indigenous people,” Hoffman said. “That’s unacceptable. LaGrange must sever all ties with Champion and pull this curriculum.”