Canada should consider legal solution to fight residential school denialism: report

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau places a pair of children shoes as he takes part in ceremonies for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Ottawa, Sept. 30, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — Canada should give "urgent consideration" to legal mechanisms as a way to combat residential school denialism, says a new report from the independent special interlocutor on unmarked graves.

Justice Minister David Lametti said he is open to such a solution.

Kimberly Murray made the call in an interim report released Friday, just over a year after she was appointed to an advisory role focused on how Ottawa can help Indigenous communities search for children who died and disappeared from residential schools.

The former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada spent much of the past year travelling the country and hearing from different communities, experts and survivors.

The Liberal government created her role as it looked for ways to respond to First Nations from across Western Canada and in parts of Ontario using ground-penetrating radar to search former residential school sites for possible unmarked graves.

In her interim report, Murray raised concerns about increasing attacks from "denialists" who challenge communities when they announce the discovery of possible unmarked graves.

"This violence is prolific," the report said. "And takes place via email, telephone, social media, op-eds and, at times, through in-person confrontations."

Murray listed several examples, including after the May 2021 announcement by the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Nation that ground-penetrating radar had discovered what are believed to be 215 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The findings garnered international media attention and triggered an outpouring of grief, shock and anger from across the country, both in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Murray said in her report that on top of dealing with an onslaught of media attention, the First Nation in British Columbia had to deal with individuals entering the site itself.

"Some came in the middle of the night, carrying shovels; they said they wanted to 'see for themselves' if children are buried there. Denialists also attacked the community on social media."

Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir of Tk'emlups te Secwepemc said she no longer uses social media without heavy filters because of the intensity of the "hate and racism" she experienced, according to the report, and believes the issue needs more attention.

Murray said Canada has a role to play to combat this sentiment and that "urgent consideration" should be given to what legal tools exist to address the problem, including both civil and criminal sanctions.

"They have the evidence. The photos of burials. The records that prove that kids died. It is on their shoulders," Murray told a crowd gathered Friday in Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan.

"The government of Canada and the churches must step up," Murray said.

Lametti, who appointed Murray to her role and joined the event in Cowessess First Nation by video conference on Friday, said that he is open to all possibilities to fighting residential-school denialism.

He said that includes "a legal solution and outlawing it," adding that Canada can look to other countries that have criminalized Holocaust denial.

Cowessess First Nation announced in June 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had identified 751 potential unmarked graves at a community cemetery, near a former residential school.

Murray's interim report also underlined the need for greater access to records, including the highly sensitive documents compiled to adjudicate compensation claims under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. They are set to be destroyed by 2027, as decided by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The records detail the abuses survivors suffered. Survivors are able to request copies of their own records or consent to them being sent to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, the archive designed to house documents from the residential school system.

Murray's report said only 30 survivors have chosen to have their records preserved.

She said their pending destruction is concerning because they could contain information relating to the deaths and burials of other children.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2023.