Special interlocutor ‘waiting’ for MP bill criminalizing residential school denialism
Canada’s justice minister is considering options raised by the independent adviser on unmarked graves, who says Indigenous leaders want Canada to move on criminalizing residential school denialism.
Kimberly Murray called on lawmakers to consider “legal mechanisms” that could address the practice of denying or minimizing the abuses Indigenous children suffered at residential schools in her interim report released back in June.
One way to do that is by amending the Criminal Code to criminalize such actions, Murray said in a recent interview, noting Ottawa did so last year on the issue of Holocaust denialism.
“We could do the same for Indigenous people,” she said. “Make it an offence to incite hate and promote hate against Indigenous people by … denying that residential (schools) happened or downplaying what happened in the institutions.”
“Everybody in leadership when I speak about this, Indigenous leadership, … all want that amendment to happen in the Criminal Code.”
More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were placed into the government-funded church-run residential school system, which was largely overseen by the Catholic Church.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which spent six years investigating the system, heard from thousands of survivors who experienced physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse, as well as neglect and malnutrition.
An estimated 6,000 Indigenous children died at these institutions, while many experts believe the number to be higher. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has recorded the names of more than 4,000 who died.
Despite this evidence, Murray highlighted in her June report what she says is a concerning rise in denialism tied to what
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