Combating denialism

Opinion

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This article was published 23/06/2023 (841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is something especially cruel and inhumane about denying, or downplaying, the intergenerational trauma caused by Canada’s residential school system.

A small group of Canadians has been trying to push their way onto the national stage in recent years with false claims that residential school atrocities, including reports of unmarked graves around the former facilities, have been fabricated or wildly embellished.

They claim, falsely, that the churches that ran the institutions and the governments that enforced their use were simply trying to provide Indigenous children with an education. They ignore the mountains of historical evidence, written and oral, and the academic research that contradicts their assertions.

The motivation behind this crusade is not entirely clear. However, it appears at a minimum to be an insidious and malicious attempt to prevent the further interrogation of Canada’s history regarding its treatment of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people in order to preserve a glorified and mythical version of the country’s past.

In so doing, denialists are causing significant harm. They are further traumatizing residential school survivors, their relatives and their communities, who continue to struggle with the effects of Canada’s harmful assimilative policies.

Kimberly Murray, the independent special interlocutor appointed by the federal government to help Indigenous communities search for unmarked graves, is calling on government to consider legislation that would combat those attacks. In her interim report released last week, Murray says the federal government should give “urgent consideration” to legal mechanisms to counteract the growing dissemination of denialist propaganda around residential schools.

“Many international experts point out that denialism is the last step in genocide,” Murray wrote in her report. “Denialism is not harmless, yet its destructive impacts are not widely recognized or understood.”

Murray says residential school survivors and their families face continual attacks from those who deny or downplay the atrocities that occurred at residential schools. Each time new information is released around the discovery of unmarked graves, Indigenous communities are accused of fabricating the findings and spreading “fake news,” the report states.

“This violence is prolific and takes place via email, telephone, social media, op-eds and, at times, through in-person confrontations,” she wrote.

Murray, who plans to release a final report with recommendations next year, says a legal mechanism to combat denialism should include “both civil and criminal sanctions.” A legislative response is needed so that residential school survivors and their families are not left to bear the burden of the attacks on their own, she wrote.

“Denialism is a uniquely non-Indigenous problem,” the report states. “It therefore requires non-Indigenous people to actively work to counter denialism and to create and implement strategies to do so.”

Federal Justice Minister David Lametti said he would consider legislation designed to outlaw residential school denialism, similar to a provision in the criminal code that makes it unlawful to willfully promote antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust.

Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, like all protections under the Charter, it is not an absolute right. It is subject to reasonable limits prescribed by law “as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” Freedom of expression does not mean people can publish and disseminate falsehoods that traumatize others.

Such wanton aggression demands a legal response. Indigenous people should not be forced to disprove the malicious fabrications of those who seek to erase the black mark on Canada’s human rights record. Combating such harm deserves the attention of Parliament.