Winnipeg MP’s private member’s bill would make residential school denialism a crime
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Manitoba New Democrat MP Leah Gazan reintroduced a private member’s bill Friday that would criminalize residential school denialism, saying “real action” is needed to combat rising anti-Indigenous hate.
Bill C-254, if passed, would amend the Criminal Code to include the promotion of hatred against Indigenous Peoples by “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system.”
“We cannot ignore the obvious, that residential school denialism is simply an act of inciting hate against Indigenous people,” Gazan, the MP for Winnipeg Centre, said in a news release.
Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files
Manitoba New Democrat MP Leah Gazan
“Members of Parliament must act immediately to uphold their safety, and I urge all my parliamentary colleagues to protect survivors and families by supporting this bill.”
The bill completed its first reading in the House of Commons on Friday. It was seconded by NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East).
Gazan, a Winnipeg resident and member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation in Saskatchewan, tabled similar legislation in the last Parliament in September 2024, but it did not move beyond its first reading.
The bill and all other business ended when Parliament was prorogued by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau in January.
Gazan, who is Manitoba’s only NDP MP, cited an October 2024 poll by Research Co., after tabling the new bill Friday.
The survey of 1,001 adults in Canada found 57 per cent of respondents would “definitely” or “probably” want their MP to back such a bill.
“I dedicate this bill to all residential school survivors and their families, who have endured unimaginable pain in their subjection to genocide through the residential school system,” Gazan said in the news release.
“They deserve protection from racist disinformation and the incitement of hate through genocide denialism.”
More than 150,000 children attended residential schools, which operated in Canada for more than 150 years. The last school closed in 1996.
Many survivors told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about the physical, sexual, psychological or emotional abuse they suffered.
An estimated 6,000 children died while attending the schools, although the Winnipeg-based National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has said the actual number could turn out to be much higher.
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