Talk:2021 Canadian church burnings

Scope of this event and number of incidents.

The citation for the first sentence of this article, "A series of vandalizations, church arsons, and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 desecrated, damaged, or destroyed 68 Christian churches in Canada." now leads to a 404 error on the True North website.

I gave the title of the original cited article a web search, "A Map of Every Church Burnt or Vandalized Since the Residential School Announcments", to see if it had just been moved and it appears that article was updated with additional occurrences. The title is now "UPDATE: A map of the 83 churches that have been vandalized or burned since the residential schools announcement"

I was scanning through the article and it caught my eye that at least some of the occurrences are from 2023. The title of this wiki article is "2021 Canadian church burnings" and the date in the info box is given as "21 June – 8 July 2021"

Also, while virtually all the occurrences in the True North article properly cite news articles and web pages, a good portion of the linked articles don't reference any connection to the "probable discovery of over 1,000 unmarked graves at Canadian Indian residential school sites." that is mentioned in the wiki article.

I went through every occurrence of "arsoned or burned" and "vandalized" listed on the updated True North article and this is what I found:

10 of the 35 listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences linked to articles that did not mention any connection to the probable discovery of unmarked graves.

18 of the 35 listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences did not occur between 21 June – 8 July 2021.

12 of the 48 listed "vandalism" occurrences linked to articles that did not mention any connection to the probable discovery of unmarked graves.

26 of the 48 listed "vandalism" occurrences did not occur between 21 June – 8 July 2021.

1 of the listed "vandalism" occurrences was an altercation with no vandalism.

1 of the listed "arsoned or burned" occurrences is from April 4, 2021, before the reports emerged in May 2021 of probable the unmarked graves.

1 of the listed "vandalism" occurrences is from April 18, 2021, before the reports emerged in May 2021 of probable the unmarked graves.

I was going to just update the link for the citation and update the number of occurrences, but it doesn't appear that the number is correct, based both on the nature of the events included and the timeframe of the events.

So my question is, what would a reasonable timeframe for events related to this article be? 21 June – 8 July 2021 seems too short as there are events that occurred later into July and earlier into June that are related, even some into August and Sept.

For that matter, should a definitive number even be listed, if the article cited for that number includes 22 occurrences that are not related.

Perhaps there should be a table added that lists each of the occurrences?

I will await others input before I make any edits.

Bussche (talk) 18:26, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bussche: Thank you for your interest in improving the page. If possible, I would encourage you to seek sourcing that comes from an entity other than True North, as they are a partisan political outlet. English Wikipedia doesn't appear to have a standard for dealing with True North as a source, but right-wing political news outlets have a habit of being deprecated as sources (I think their coverage here is reliable, but others might think differently). In order to ensure any improvements you make survive longterm, sourcing from more mainstream news outlets (like the CBC) or government publications/announcements helps. Thank you! ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bussche Thank you for going through the sources in such detail! The article as it currently stands mentions fires "of all causes", and I'm curious if the number listed is counting confirmed natural causes under "all", eg the June 30, 2021 wildfire that damaged hundreds of buildings in Lytton BC including a church. That fire falls under the time frame, but it would obviously be misleading to count that fire in this article without explicit clarification. Elfangor9 (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Elfangor9 and Bussche: I asked the same question and apparently it is "bizarre" to think that "stuff burns all the time in BC". By the way I volunteered to help refugees from the Lytton fire and followed it very closely. That fire was started by a train. That is general knowledge but might be hard to source. The people who saw the train on fire were scattered. But apparently Lytton is confident that the fire started at the tracks not at the church. But that is just what several people from Lytton told me; I do not have a source. And yes, that fire was right in that period 15:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

the United States is not in Canada

The section specifically says there are ties to increased vandalism in Portland. Npthing about those fires is Canadian. If you want to write about them start another article or rename this one Elinruby (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Per COMMONNAME, the relatively few fires in the US that were tied to the Canadian fires can easily fall under this broader heading. There is no basis for removing that information (which reliable sources tied to the Canadian incidents), and continued coverage since 2021 has focused largely on the Canadian incidents. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:19, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

post your evidence Elinruby (talk) 15:32, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, the Catholic News Agency is an RS, and the National Catholic Reporter (which follows standard editorial practices and is wholly independent from the church) also covered the subject. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Does anybody say they are RS besides you? Elinruby (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Does anybody but you say that there is any link at all between the fire in Portland and what happened in Kamloops? Elinruby (talk) 16:24, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Is there any evidence at all that anyone in Portland can find Kamloops on a map even? Elinruby (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Per the most recent discussion at RSN, there are serious concerns about the Catholic News Agency. I also generally wouldn't trust anything from a .org unless there's broad support for it at RSN. If we're to report that vandalism of U.S. churches is connected to vandalism of Canadian churches, I think we'll need reliable, secondary, independent sources. Woodroar (talk) 16:40, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Article now at Neutral Point of View noticeboard

courtesy notice Elinruby (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

RSN is not a first step. You also are edit-warring to enforce your BOLD changes. I recommend slowing down. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

• This has been copiously discussed at Canadian Indian residential school gravesites already
• I question whether the Catholic Standard is a BESTSOURCE for this material
• Portland is still not in Canada
• These fires were probably not set by Canadians
• I need you to explain to me in what way that fire in Portland is "Canadian"

WP:ONUS is on you Elinruby (talk) 16:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

PS I am also not edit-warring. Please look up the definition of that, and strike your untrue aspersions above. Correct the noticeboard while you are at it. Elinruby (talk) 16:13, 24 June 2024 (UTC)