Canada’s reconciliation with Indigenous People will be incomplete without official acknowledgement of the Indigenous genocide on Canadian soil

By Fareed Khan

Today, September 30th, marked the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.  It is seen as a historic occasion where Canada officially acknowledged the history of what was done to Indigenous People on this land.

Creation of this commemorative day was one of the 94 "calls to action" in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was released in December 2015.  Establishing the holiday, according to the TRC report, was intended to honour survivors of Residential Schools, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.  It is also an opportunity for settler-Canadians to consider the trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous Peoples, and the trauma that they have been dealing with generation after generation until the present day.

Establishment of this day is a positive development in the process of reconciliation, but it is still only a small step forward since most of the TRC calls to action have yet to be implemented.  Canada still has a long way to go to address and undo the legacy of anti-Indigenous racism on which this country was founded.  While acknowledgement of Canada's racist legacy towards Indigenous People is part of the process of reconciliation it also needs to include an official acknowledgement by Canada's Parliament that colonial authorities and the Canadian government willfully and knowingly committed genocide against Indigenous People on the territory that became Canada.  Without this the process of reconciliation will be incomplete.

Evidence in the form of academic research, historical documents, actions by political leaders, and policies established by colonial and Canadian governments demonstrate that Canada was founded on policies of white supremacy, anti-Indigenous racism, and acts which constituted the genocide of Indigenous People.  The Indian Act and Indian Residential Schools are two examples of Canadian government policies that attempted to suppress and eliminate the Indigenous history, culture and people of this land.  Combined with colonial policies in the centuries before Confederation this led to a precipitous 95 per cent decline of the Indigenous population on Canadian territory.  This needs to be acknowledged officially at the highest levels of political leadership if the process of reconciliation is to have any meaning, and if Canadians are to understand the history underlying the nation that Canada became.

Under the Genocide Convention there are five acts which constitute genocide.  They include: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.  All the crimes defined under the Genocide Convention have been committed by colonial and Canadian governments against Indigenous People.  While officially acknowledging these crimes as genocide was not part of the TRC's 94 calls to action, doing so would send a strong message to Indigenous People about the desire of the government and political leaders to accept Canada's anti-Indigenous history.

The Indian Residential Schools system is one area that has received considerable public and political attention, especially so since the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools since the spring of 2021.

 

From 1831 to 1996 there were 140 residential schools across the country operated directly by the federal government or in collaboration with various Christian church denominations.  For decades, school survivors and communities spoke out about the intergenerational trauma caused by these institutions, which included physical and emotional trauma inflicted on Indigenous children, loss of language, community, and culture, and the ongoing forcible removal and assimilation of children under the present day child welfare system. 

 

An estimated 150,000 children were forcibly taken from their families and communities, and sent to residential schools, which in many instances were thousands of kilometres away from their homes. They experienced horrific conditions of physical and sexual abuse, unsanitary conditions resulting in disease, malnutrition and starvation, forced labour, and indoctrination to wipe out their identity, languages and cultures. Thousands of them never returned home, dying and being buried on residential school sites without their families being informed, or running away from the schools and dying in their attempts to return to their families. 

 

The colonial policies and practices which created Residential Schools continue today.  Indigenous children are overwhelmingly represented in Canada’s child welfare system. Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people experience staggeringly high rates of violence. And governments frequently approve industrial projects on Indigenous territories without the free, prior and informed consent of the communities directly affected. 

 

As Canadians observe this historic day they also need to think about pressuring the Canadian Parliament to officially acknowledge that an Indigenous genocide was committed on Canadian soil.  Because if Canada is going to recognize and condemn international genocides, like that of the Uyghurs, the Rohingya, and the Yazidis, then it would be supremely hypocritical for Canada's political leaders to refuse to acknowledge the genocide perpetrated on Indigenous People in Canada.  It is something that our political leaders must do if we want to demonstrate our integrity in the process of reconciliation. 

 

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