When Even the Most Rational Man is Fooled by Empathy

By Michelle Stirling ©2026 Many thanks to Nina Green for her research.

It’s hard for me to write this article. I am a big fan of Dr. Jordan Peterson. I watched with horror as he became ‘public-enemy-number-one’ over his stance against compelled speech and pronouns. I felt his professional society was an embarrassment to the profession of psychology when they went after him with a vengeance in an unwarranted witch hunt.

But since I may soon be facing jail or fines or being ‘disappeared’ from social media or sent to a gulag for my stance on Indian Residential Schools and their historical context, I must speak up, too.

As Dr. Peterson has always advocated for acting on one’s convictions and the truth. Despite his presently reported frail condition, health-wise, I hope he and his supporters will take my comments as wanting to stop the victimization of all Canadians and the blood libel against the Roman Catholic Church. He has said many times that one must be willing to be ‘cruel’ to keep from being a victim. Canadians are victims of a genocide blood libel by what I refer to as the Indigenous Grievance Industry of lawyers, elites and opportunists. I want to expose it and stop it. I have no malicious intent.

I will start with a question.

Did Dr. Jordan Peterson inadvertently lend credence to the premise of “Sugarcane”, the Oscar Nominated documentary that boosted the Indian Residential School Survivors’ unproven claim of “incinerated babies”?

Cruelty | Charles Joseph | EP 223 is an episode of Dr. Peterson’s podcasts where he interviews his long-time friend, Indigenous sculptor, Charles Joseph. Peterson was still recovering from a difficult detox program from benzodiazepine that was conducted in Russia, where he was reportedly put into a coma for several days; subsequently, he suffered through a bout of severe pneumonia which dramatically affected every aspect of his health.

Source

Consequently, though mostly recovered, Peterson was not his usual combative self. His voice and tenor expressed deep sorrow as he spoke of the news of unmarked graves at Indian Residential Schools (indirectly referencing the story of the Kamloops Indian Band’s claim claim of finding the human remains of ‘215’ children in unmarked graves in the old apple orchard of the Kamloops Indian Residential School). Perhaps this podcast was Peterson’s effort to reconcile and give voice to the downtrodden. Indeed, his friend Charles Joseph, had been downtrodden, an alcoholic and drug user for years, before he got into carving, returning to his Indigenous roots.

Peterson’s connection to Joseph is years long. As detailed in this post, Joseph also granted Peterson and his wife, Tammy, Kwakwaka’wakw names, in an elaborate two-part ceremony.

In the podcast “Cruelty”, Charles Joseph was webcasting from the Williams Lake Indian Reserve, known as “Sugarcane”. Joseph tells his personal story, a rambling, gut-wrenching tale of rampant abuse at St. Michael’s Anglican Indian Residential School in Alert Bay. In the story he claims that the school incinerated the bodies of kids who died of Tuberculosis in the school’s garbage burner.

“You know, Jordan, they would they would wrap these kids up if they died from Hep C (Hepatitis C) or Tuberculosis. They would wrap them up and put them inside this big thing called the incinerator. It was a big drum, really huge drum, about six feet tall. Maybe taller. And they’d fill that up with paper and put that wrapped child in there. And they would make us light that fire. And the whole town would stink; the whole place would stink. You could smell, smell the body burning.”

I think if Dr. Peterson had been interviewing anyone other than his close friend Charles Joseph, he would have had many of his typically terse, blunt questions.

For instance, Hepatitis C was discovered in 1989. At the time of the Peterson interview, Joseph was 62, so he was born in 1959. He says he was taken away to St. Michael’s Indian Residential School when he was 5 and news stories relate that he stayed there until he was 13 years old, which would have been 1972, long before Hepatitis C was ever identified or named. Indian Residential School death records show that, of two full death certificates, one of the students who died while enrolled at St. Michael’s was buried on their home reserve, the other in the Alert Bay cemetery.

There are other inconsistencies in Joseph’s story. He says his father and mother gave him to his great grandparents. Then he tells Dr. Peterson that he had also been in hospital for some time with consecutive or concurrent bouts of measles, mumps and chicken pox, saying that he was isolated in an incubator tent of some kind. After his release from hospital, he states that the authorities took him away to St. Michael’s Indian Residential School at Alert Bay and he had to stay there for 9 years.

Dr. Peterson is in tears at hearing Charles Joseph’s account of abuse. It is heart-rending. At 32:22 in the show Charles Joseph says, “I was five, five-and-a-half years old, when I got raped by nun and then I got raped by a preacher the next day.”

This statement is horrifying. When discussing my article with a friend, as soon as I mentioned that phrase they were disgusted and enraged. Something terrible happened to Charles Joseph. But is there anything to verify his statements that this happened at the school? What of his years imbibing alcohol and drugs? No effect on memory or confabulation?

The minimum age for Indian Residential School enrollment was 7 years old. Children who were orphaned, from destitute or neglectful families could be enrolled at a younger age, like 5. So, this suggests there are things we don’t know about Charles Joseph’s family life than may add context to the story. Why did his parents give him to his grandparents, for instance?

Also, curiously, as a practicing psychologist, Dr. Peterson should have been aware that eye-witness testimony, and in particular Historic Sexual Assault claims that people suffered as children are not considered to be reliable, by the American Psychological Association, without further evidence. Furthermore, common sense should have told Dr. Peterson that crematoriums need several hours and extremely high heat to incinerate a body. According to Wikipedia, there were Indigenous staff at St. Michael’s, usually employed in maintenance, janitorial and child care support. It beggars belief that they would allow their children to be so harmed, then deceased and incinerated – and further, as with Kamloops, where is the list of names of children alleged to have been disappeared in this way?

Peterson would not have known at the time, as the document had not yet been made public (at least in redacted form) that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police spent 8 years from 1995-2003 and $1 million investigating claims of abuse at 15 Indian Residential Schools across British Columbia, including St. Michael’s in Alert Bay where Charles Joseph attended. A special protocol for the RCMP investigation was developed with Indigenous activists like Charlene Belleau, and every allegation anyone made was thoroughly investigated. Despite these extraordinary efforts, the RCMP were unable to substantiate all but a handful of the allegations. Perhaps because of that, the final report of the RCMP Task Force, completed in 2003, was never released to the public.

Now we come to the point of my article.

It is an unusual coincidence, to me, that Emily Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat, began making the documentary “Sugarcane” in 2021. Kassie said she was ‘gut-punched’ to hear the news of the Kamloops Indian Band’s claim of finding the human remains of 215 children in the old apple orchard near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. However, she saw a similar claim pop up in the media about the Williams Lake Indian Band, and she contacted Chief Willie Sellars. Chief Sellars is the son of Darrell Sellars on whose land Charles Joseph had his carving tent (though the Chief was raised by his step-father, Vern Grant Michel). At the very beginning of the interview broadcast, Jordan Peterson explicitly gives credit over the air, stating:

“We’re going to start by thanking the crew, Chris Wycotte, that helped Charles set up this interview from inside his carving tent at Sugar Cane.”

Chris Wycotte is a long serving councillor for the Williams Lake Indian Band.

As per interviews, Kassie claims she then contacted her Indigenous writing friend from their days at the Huffington Post, to ask if he’d like to collaborate on this story – while Julian Brave NoiseCat recounts his surprise and shock to her, that this just happens to be the band where he and his family have their roots, and where he is an enrolled member of the Canim Lake Indian Band.

Western Standard

It turned out that Julian’s father, Ed Archie NoiseCat, is also a well-known Indigenous carver. Furthermore, he was found, as a baby, in the incinerator at the local St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School, which served the Williams Lake and area reserves.

The story of Ed being found in the incinerator was a fact well-known in the community because as we later learn in the film, Ed was called “Trash can baby” when he was growing up. And in fact, it was Julian’s grandmother – indeed, Ed’s birth mother, who put Baby Ed in the incinerator, after giving birth to Ed alone, at age 20, on a hot summer’s night, at St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School. I’m guessing she went into labour on her way home from Williams Lake to Canim Lake and pulled in to where, as a former student, she knew there was an infirmary at the school. She had trained as a practical nurse in Vancouver, so she had the skills to deliver her baby, albeit alone. She told the court she thought he was dead, and put his body in the incinerator.

The story was big news in the Williams Lake Tribune. And though this news story flashes by in “Sugarcane”, the mother of Ed is never identified by name. Julian’s grandmother who appears several time on camera in public settings, is only ever identified as his kyé7e – “grandmother” in the Secwepemc language.

In my opinion, from the success of narrative of Peterson’s podcast “Cruelty” with Charles Joseph, the ‘documentary’ “Sugarcane” was born!

But the thing is, “Sugarcane” features the far more charismatic father of Julian, Indigenous carver, Ed Archie NoiseCat. “The only child known to have survived the incinerator.”

In fact, the only child known to have been put there.

A central figure in “Sugarcane” is Julian’s aunt, Charlene Belleau, who, in a smudging ceremony in the old barn at St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School, entrusts him as filmmaker, to tell the story of his people.

“Sugarcane” echoes the inadvertently market-tested story in “Cruelty” told to Dr. Jordan Peterson by his friend Charles Joseph, which some 618,000 of Peterson’s 8.85 million subscribers have now seen. I don’t see any comments that reject or question any aspect of Charles Joseph’s statements. Most of the comments are deeply emotional, people are crying, and people are enraged.

The same is true of comments by critics and members of the public alike for the documentary “Sugarcane”, as can be seen on “Rotten Tomatoes” film review website where the critics reviews still sit at 100% “fresh”. “Sugarcane” even won a “Best True Crime Documentary” award, even though it is not true, and the biggest crime is that it deceives the public and blood libels a whole nation and faith.

How do I know? Watch my mini-doc rebuttal, “The Bitter Roots of ‘Sugarcane’.”

This is what reconciliation has become. Believe the story. No questions can be asked.

But I’m asking these questions.

Was the Dr. Jordan Peterson podcast, which I think he meant to help reconcile and heal the deep wounds of his good friend, and the grief of our nation, was it the inadvertent impetus for the theme of the subsequent documentary “Sugarcane” that cruelly blood libels all Roman Catholics and Canadian history?

I don’t expect an answer – but I want you to keep asking questions.

Almost no one is standing up for Canada and the Roman Catholics blood libelled by “Sugarcane”. I am. Because presumption of innocence is a fundamental human right, as is due process of law. Both are being denied to Canadians with the same kind of push for compelled speech and censorship on residential schools, that Dr. Peterson experienced on pronouns, compelled speech and professional censorship.

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PS. I know Dr. Peterson has been quite ill. I wish him a full and complete recovery. And for Canada, the truth shall set you free.

Image licensed from Adobe Stock. Text added.