A Senate committee has voted to amend federal hate-crime legislation to make publicly condoning, denying or downplaying the Indian Residential School system a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison.
Blacklock’s Reporter says the Senate Human Rights Committee approved the amendment by a 7-1 vote Monday evening as part of its review of Bill C-9, legislation that previously focused on restricting the public display of Nazi symbols.
Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut), who sponsored the amendment, said residential school survivors continue to face comments that minimize their experiences.
“I went to residential school,” Karetak-Lindell told the committee. “I lived through it. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Well, you got educated. Isn’t that a good thing to come out of having gone to residential school?’ It only points to one section of our experience.”
Karetak-Lindell said the impacts of the residential school system extended beyond formal education and included the loss of family connections, language and culture.
“Every survivor experienced it in a different way,” she said. “We lost a lot of family time. We lost a chance to grow up in our culture, in our language. Yes, I did get education, but I also lost out on a parallel education that I would have gotten if I had been able to stay home.”
Under the proposed amendment, the Criminal Code would state that anyone who, outside of a private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against indigenous peoples by “condoning, denying or downplaying” the residential school system could face prosecution by indictment or summary conviction.
Karetak-Lindell argued that denialism goes beyond debates over historical interpretation.
