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Australian new source News.com.au reports

On Tuesday, it was reported in Canadian media that in 2019 a “flame purification ceremony” was held by the French language school board Conseil scolaire catholique Providence, which oversees elementary and secondary schools in southwestern Ontario.

This involved destroying thousands of books.

National Review reports similar action as well as theWeek.

However, I was unable to find local sources corroborating the story and thus remain skeptical.

Were there book burning(s) in Canada 2019 or recently?

Fizz
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pinegulf
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    Wow. Book burning is indeed a pretty weird way to celebrate something. – Dmitry Grigoryev Sep 21 '21 at 09:47
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    @DmitryGrigoryev: The TL:DR summary here (from the answer and comments) seems to be that these were books with racist / problematic depictions of First Nations peoples ("Indians"), and they ceremonially burned *30* of them as part of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. So it sounds a lot different from what we normally think of as "book burning" as blanket censorship, not just getting something out of *schools*. IDK what they did with the other copies; maybe some scholars want some of them to preserve the evidence of our colonialist past. – Peter Cordes Sep 21 '21 at 11:57
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    @PeterCordes Removing problematic books from schools didn't have to involve actual book burning, and I'm really wondering whether people who organized it were oblivious to the connotations such an act has, or planned this deliberately. And "racist" is an awfully strong word for books such as [this one](https://images.radio-canada.ca/q_auto,w_960/v1/ici-info/perso/indiens-livre-providence.JPG), don't you think? Ironically, some of the destroyed books were written by people with Native American origins who dedicated their lives to promote their ancestors' culture. – Dmitry Grigoryev Sep 21 '21 at 12:45
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    @DmitryGrigoryev: I don't know the details of the case or the books in question, or how hard anyone had to try to find some of the books at least somewhat problematic. (And yeah, it's ironic if some of the books were written with good intentions by past Native Americans and/or Canadians.) I get that "book burning" definitely has cultural connotations, which is why it's not surprising they carefully avoided that phrase. I'd assume they still considered the optics and decided that fire as a purification ceremony was still something they wanted to do. – Peter Cordes Sep 21 '21 at 12:51
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    @PeterCordes Has there ever been a public book burning which *hasn't* been thought of as a purification ceremony? – John Coleman Sep 21 '21 at 15:10
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    @PeterCordes Claims of material being racist or problematic are very different from material being racist or problematic. – Just Some Old Man Sep 22 '21 at 02:52
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    @JustSomeOldMan right, every book burner thinks the books they are burning are problematic (such as the famous case of the Nazis burning the books on sexuality). Are these books problematic? Dunno, I'd have to actually see them. – user253751 Sep 22 '21 at 09:58
  • @user253751 the Nazis didn’t only burn books on sexuality but in particular books of authors opposing the nazi ideology. – Hartmut Braun Sep 22 '21 at 10:42
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    Maybe the main point is that there is always some justification. The censors always think they are right 'in their case'. Personally: it doesn't matter which color flag you wave but what you do. – pinegulf Sep 22 '21 at 11:22
  • @JohnColeman: Great point. The distinction I was trying to make was that this is about removing them *from schools (not from existence)*, and trying to atone for (perceived) harm done by spreading ideas the people involved now recognize as not great. I guess symbolically burning some of the books might have been tied to some idea of purifying the "unclean" ideas in the book, which is closer to more traditional book-burning, though. – Peter Cordes Sep 22 '21 at 12:50
  • @JohnColeman: But my thought was that Indigenous peoples have ceremonies like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudging which involve burning herbs and so on to cleanse the *people* taking part. So I was assuming that was the intent, moreso than just purging the books directly. I don't know, I've never taken part in such a ceremony, but I think this could be part of a reasonable explanation for what's going on here, so I'm not prepared to negatively judge people who want to have a little ceremony to feel better about things after taking a look and curating their library collection. – Peter Cordes Sep 22 '21 at 12:52

1 Answers1

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Yes.

There is an incidence where one school board decided this would be a great idea and proceeded to see this done within its jurisdiction in Ontario, Canada.

Canadian news outlets reporting on the 2019 book burning and its recent aftermath:

A major literary purge has taken place in the libraries of the Conseil scolaire catholique, Providence, which includes 30 French-language schools across southwestern Ontario. Nearly 5,000 children's books about Aboriginal people were destroyed in an effort to reconcile with the First Nations, Radio-Canada has learned.

A ceremony of purification by flame was held in 2019 to burn about thirty banned books, for educational purposes. The ashes were used as fertilizer to plant a tree and thus turn the negative into positive.

...

[Lyne Cossette, spokesperson for the Conseil], added that the works withdrawn from the libraries had "out-dated and inappropriate content."

[Suzy Kies, leader of the initiative] denounced the indigenous characters presented in the childrens' books as "untrustworthy, lazy, drunk, stupid... When we perpetuate this sort of image in the minds of youths, it's hard for them to get rid of it."

'fertilising' trees with ashes from burned books

— Des écoles détruisent 5000 livres jugés néfastes aux Autochtones, dont Tintin et Astérix — Radio Canada 7 septembre 2021 (translated from French)

Co-chair of Liberals' Indigenous commission resigns after questions emerge about ancestry — Reporting from Radio-Canada cast doubt on Kies' claims to Indigenous ancestry — Richard Raycraft · CBC News · Posted: Sep 08, 2021

Ontario school board 'regrets' burning books in the name of reconciliation​ as part of educational program — Abby Neufeld — CTV News, September 10, 2021 3:52PM EDT

School board says it got burned in Indigenous book burning project. Aboriginal credentials of a person they partnered with on the project are in question — Toronto Sun, Joe Warmington, Sep 09, 2021

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LangLаngС
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    The news.com.au article says "schools burned almost 5000 books". I think it's worth saying explicitly in the answer that that claim is wrong, but National Review and theWeek are correct that about 4700 books were discarded from district libraries and 30 of them were ceremonially burned. – benrg Sep 20 '21 at 21:50
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/129838/discussion-on-answer-by-langlng-was-there-recent-book-burning-in-canada). – Oddthinking Sep 21 '21 at 08:07
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    They burnt *Asterix* comics?!? – AnoE Sep 22 '21 at 08:00
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    @AnoE - I don't have my _Asterix_ collection any more so I can't check right now, but _Asterix and the Great Crossing_ was a product of the mid-70s so I would be stunned if there _wasn't_ something (accidentally) offensive in there, and all older works are currently subject to comparison with modern sensibilities, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise if Asterix and Obelix got caught up in the furore (such as it was). At least the sky didn't fall on their heads. – Spratty Sep 22 '21 at 08:40
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    @AnoE Tintin and Asterix _books_ are indeed full of stereotypes, and Great Crossing therefore indeed wildly 'inaccurate' for depicting East Coast inhabitants of the land. That's of course the entire point of Asterix, to present and make fun of _stereotypes the French had_ of everyone else when the book was written (with 'Indians' being a mix of all US citizens today!). Curiously, the reporting about the event in Q is inaccurate all around in all venues I looked at. The Radio Canada piece for example uses a picture that might look like French Asterix 1975 book, but is from a German 1994 movie… – LangLаngС Sep 22 '21 at 09:12
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    I had a complete collection of Asterix up to the late 80's (about to the time they started dying...), and am aware of the stereotypes - I agree with you that that was kind of the point @LangLаngС. The fun part was that *every* nationality got their share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Great_Crossing did of course feature Native Americans and there were some slapstick scenes involving cultural cliches, but .... well I guess I'm too old to see anything particularly offensive in it. O tempora o mores. – AnoE Sep 22 '21 at 09:30
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    @AnoE: Realizing that everyone is being caricatured is a pretty subtle point that young readers (especially elementary school age, even high school age) could easily miss, especially many years after it was written and for kids growing up in a different culture. It's understandable for librarians to worry that kids would take it at face value, if they weren't doing a social-studies or English course where they examined and talked about those stereotypes in Asterix. Shaping kids views doesn't require something specifically offensive, just repeated patterns, at least that's the concern. – Peter Cordes Sep 22 '21 at 13:01
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    @PeterCordes : this argument *"it poisons the minds of the young"* was used by basically every book burning, for example done by the inquisition or the nazis. – vsz Sep 22 '21 at 17:10
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    @vsz: Sure, that's another way to phrase the same idea. It always comes down to how the argument is being used, and about what, and exactly what measures are being taken about it. It works because it's a valid concern, at least in the most general terms. (Or at least widely believed to be valid; I'm not a child psychologist.) – Peter Cordes Sep 22 '21 at 17:26
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    @vsz [Conversation ender](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52361/was-there-recent-book-burning-in-canada#comment248401_52362), [Godwin's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law) – chux - Reinstate Monica Sep 22 '21 at 18:21
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    @chux-ReinstateMonica : isn't Godwin's law supposed to be used against someone who names the Nazis just as some generic evil in an attempt to say *"I think you're evil, and you know who else is evil? The Nazis!"*? If someone literally promotes the exact same policy the Nazis promoted, does calling that out also fall under Godwin's law? – vsz Sep 22 '21 at 20:07
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    The Nazis burned medical information about transgender people, queer erotica, and other such "illegal" literature. This is tangibly different not least because the people depicted in the books actually object to their depictions, and also because they are not erasing the sole source of those books. The books and records collected and written by Hirschfeld were unique and irreplacable. Asterix is most definitely not irreplaceable as you can still buy them. The ceremony also represents accurate depictions and the removal of racism rather than the *erasure of people*, which is a large concept gap – Aster Sep 23 '21 at 09:21
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    @Aster : no, it's not a "removal of racism", it's a bunch of white people playing the role of the "White Savior", which is more denigrating by far than any caricature or stereotype they pretend to fight against. In most cases it's not even the depicted groups who cry out (remember Speedy Gonzales, they wanted it banned because of "stereotypes" but the Mexicans love him), it's a bunch of white people (or *"1/64 Native"*) who cry out allegedly in the name of minorities, thereby signaling that those minorities can't do anything on their own and they need their Saviors to stand up for them. – vsz Sep 23 '21 at 14:08
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    @Aster Again, a claim of material of being racist is not equivalent to material being racist. The claim reveals nothing more than the opinion of the claimant. – Just Some Old Man Sep 23 '21 at 16:23