Manitoba chiefs behind renewed effort to criminalize residential school denialism

First Nations chiefs from across the country have unanimously passed an emergency resolution that calls on the federal government to criminalize residential school denialism as hate speech.

The resolution was adopted Tuesday at the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly in Ottawa. It was introduced by David Monias, chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba and seconded by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee.

“We must honour the survivors and we must honour every child who never came home,” Monias said Wednesday. “We must also support every person who was left behind and those children who never returned home. We are left to mourn those children. They would have been our grandfathers today, our grandparents.”

The federal government estimates about 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools.

Settee said the situation needs “dire attention.”

“It is a shame to live in a country that will not protect our people from hate crimes,” he said Wednesday.

“Today, the country that we live in perpetuates hate crimes because they refuse to make it a crime for people to deny residential schools existed… they condone it. And this is not acceptable to our people, to our survivors and those that did not survive. We should be ashamed as a country… this is genocide.”

The resolution states that governments and policing authorities were complicit in the forced removal of First Nations children through the residential school system, including amendments to the Indian Act in 1920 that made attendance mandatory.

Chiefs are calling on Ottawa to address that legacy by recognizing residential school denialism as hate speech under federal law.

Their call follows the Senate’s decision in June to reject a proposed amendment to Bill C-9 that had been approved by the Senate’s human rights committee.

Monias referred to it as a “shame” on the Senate on Wednesday.

“The government should stop hurting us, stop hurting our people,” he said. “Denialism seeks to minimize, distort and deny the harm of residential schools. That’s what the Senate did… it undermines reconciliation and re-traumatizes families.”

The legislation received royal assent in June. Amendments would require a full legislative process, which could takes months or years.

At the time, AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak called the Senate’s decision “regressive and a setback for survivors and for reconciliation.”

The resolution also calls for the creation of an independent complaints commission to address residential school denialism and hate speech directed at survivors, their families and First Nations communities.

Monias said he has experienced denialism firsthand. Last fall, while speaking about residential schools and reconciliation at the University of Winnipeg, former Mount Royal University professor and residential school denier Frances Widdowson protested outside with a small group of supporters.

“That was really concerning, and people were saying to be careful when you go out there,” Monias said. “It was very disturbing to see that happen.”

Rebecca Chartrand, who is Manitoba’s only federal cabinet minister, said Wednesday she welcomes the resolution, saying it reflects the urgency many First Nations communities continue to feel because of the lasting impacts of residential schools.

“The denialism re-traumatizes a lot of our survivors,” said Chartrand, whose family is from Pine Creek First Nation. “It undermines the good work we’ve been doing on reconciliation.”

The Churchill—Keewatinook Aski MP, who is the federal northern and Arctic affairs minister, said stronger education should be part of the response alongside changes to the Criminal Code.

“Which is why the work that our Indigenous leaders are doing on this is is so important,” said Chartrand, whose father attended a residential day school. “They’re keeping it in the public eye and it keeps us talking about the harms of denialism.”

Last fall, NDP MP Leah Gazan tabled a private member’s bill aimed at adding a Criminal Code offence for willfully condoning hatred against Indigenous peoples, including denying the harms caused by the residential school system. It awaits its second reading in the House of Commons.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca