Residential school denialism is hate

Winnipeg Centre

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/11/2024 (375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Having represented Winnipeg Centre in Parliament since 2019, an issue I constantly encounter is the alarming rise of hate and misinformation that Canada has seen in recent years. It doesn’t take an expert to see this: for many people, including Black, Indigenous and other people of colour, and members of the 2SLGBTQ2S+ community, hate is something they regularly experience.

As of late, however, the rise in residential school denialism has been particularly concerning, as racist bad actors have sought to distort the truth and deny the obvious harms created by the Indian Residential School system. As the late Justice Murray Sinclair said, denialism is a major obstacle to reconciliation. Its growing harms were documented in the final report on Missing and Disappeared Indigenous Children and Unmarked Graves by special interlocutor Kimberly Murray, who stated the government has an obligation to uphold the truth and add residential school denialism to the Criminal Code.

To protect the stories of survivors, I recently tabled my bill to recognize residential school denialism as an incitement of hate. It’s essential that leaders fight back and protect the truth, and that means putting an end to residential school denialism. As the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission emphasized, we need to honour the truth if we are to embrace reconciliation, which requires real “awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour.”

The Criminal Code clearly outlines differences between free speech and the incitement of hate. Residential school denialism incites hate, full stop. It retraumatizes survivors of residential school violence and undermines steps towards healing and reconciliation. It falsely portrays Indigenous people collectively as dishonest and responsible themselves for the ongoing problems that several generations of genocide created. And it contributes to a dangerous, conspiratorial rhetoric surrounding Indigenous people that, if not stopped, can easily erupt into violence.

Denialists willfully omit the well-documented evidence of genocide perpetuated through the IRS system, as demonstrated by the stories of survivors and by government and church records. The expressed function of the system was to “kill the Indian in the child,” punishing the practice of Indigenous culture with physical violence. This abuse, along with the unsanitary and violent environments Indigenous children were subjected to, was even criticized by many people at the time, while today the Anglican Church confirms that nothing good came from these schools.

Denialism is simply a means of inciting hate, and it must be stopped. With my bill tabled, it’s now up to the Liberal government to show whether it cares about promoting reconciliation and protecting the voices of survivors.