ottawa –
Victims of residential schools are calling on Canada to criminalize residential school denialism, days after the release of a report into unmarked graves and burial grounds associated with the facilities.
Doug George, a Mohawk Institute survivor, says Canadians need to acknowledge the school’s place in history and ensure the children who died are not silenced.
“Canadians, you may be feeling a little bit devastated right now over the last few years,” George said, referring to First Nations announcements about search efforts for missing children. No,” he said.
“But can you imagine what that’s like for us, our children, and our communities? … We can’t hide behind these things. We need to take this issue seriously.” You have to understand that.”
More than 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996.
An estimated 6,000 children died in the school, but experts say the real number may be much higher.
Canada’s Special Interlocutor on Unmarked Graves and Missing Children says that despite the “well-documented reality” of these deaths, some Canadians still believe that survivors, Indigenous families, He said there was a concerted effort to attack the truth of the community.
Kimberly Murray, who was appointed to the role in 2022, released a two-volume report this week after conversations with experts, boarding school survivors and their descendants.
Murray said rejecting residential schools protects those in charge of the system by enforcing a false view of Canada’s history and justifying their actions.
She wrote that while many people do not completely deny that boarding schools exist and operate, they misrepresent the system’s intentions, results, and impact.
“Negationism is not just a misunderstanding of the facts. Consciously or unconsciously, denialists work toward achieving psychological, practical, or political goals,” she wrote. .
“India’s boarding school denialism must be taken seriously, as it jeopardizes the important work of truth and reconciliation. It should not be dismissed as a harmless fringe phenomenon.”
She considered several examples of what she called boarding school denialism. These included comments from politicians who said the good deeds of residential schools were being overshadowed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and that residential schools were necessary and that unmarked graves associated with residential schools were banned. Contains books that claim to exist. “Moral panic” based on “wild accusations” and a Catholic priest who told his congregation that Indigenous children were having a good time at school.
“If left unchecked, this denialism will become a major obstacle to reconciliation,” Murray wrote.
NDP MP Leah Gazan introduced a private member’s bill last month that would criminalize residential school refusal. The Liberal Party has not said whether it supports the bill, but it is unlikely to pass without government approval.
The bill provides that anyone who promotes hatred against Indigenous Peoples by “accepting, denying, belittling, or justifying Canada’s Indian Residential School System, or by misrepresenting facts related to it” outside of their private time will be subject to up to two years’ imprisonment. It suggests that he could be sentenced to prison. In prison.
The bill provides several exceptions. For example, a comment does not violate the law if it is true, relates to the public interest, aims to point out hatred against indigenous peoples, or is a religious opinion.
Canada enacted a similar law in 2022 to combat Holocaust denialism, but so far there have been no successful prosecutions under the provision.
Mr Murray has long called for legislation like the Gaza bill and said in last year’s interim report that denialism was on the rise.
In May 2021, the Tukemlups Te Secwepemuku Nation announced that ground-penetrating radar had discovered 215 suspected unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Aboriginal Residential School site. This made international headlines and sparked outrage from people attacking the community online.
“Some people came in the middle of the night with shovels and said they wanted to ‘see for themselves’ whether the children were buried,” Murray said in an interim report.
In his final report, Mr Murray said the government will introduce the Online Harms Act (a bill currently being debated in the House of Commons) to address the harms associated with residential school refusal, including missing, missing and unmarked children. ) was also proposed. burial.
Justice Minister Arif Virani said on Tuesday that the government needs to review the report and the “obligations” it contains, including whether to adopt the Gaza bill.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.
