An NDP MP has put forward a private member’s bill which seeks to criminalize “residential school denialism,” serving up to two years imprisonment for those found guilty of violating the law.
The NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre, Leah Gazan, introduced Bill C-413, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code, promotion of hatred against Indigenous peoples”, which passed its first reading in the House of Commons on Thursday.
The Bill says that anyone who “ by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against Indigenous peoples by condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system in Canada or by misrepresenting facts relating to it is guilty of an of an indictable offence.”
The guilty individual would be liable for up to two years of imprisonment or “is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”
Gazan said when introducing the legislation in parliament that the bill would tackle “calling irrefutable historical facts into question, a genocidal project,” as it was recognized unanimously in the House of Commons. She said the bill was a “gift” to the Indigenous community in Canada as it would protect Indigenous families from “violent hate” and criminalize anyone who might deny their testimony.
Both the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and the NDP party have put out statements supporting the bill.
Bill C-413 states that the law won’t apply to statements that are established to be true, are a subject of public interest, established that the one who said it believed it to be factual on reasonable grounds, are made in good faith, or are made in an attempt to develop an argument on a religious grounds, or were made to point out speech the accused disagreed with.
Tom Flanagan, former political science professor at the University of Calgary and chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Research Group, called Bill C-413 a “very grave threat to freedom of communication in Canada.”
“Even though there are some qualifications in the text, these are qualifications that you’d have to demonstrate in a trial,” Flanagan told True North in an interview. “Even if nobody ever went to jail because of it, it has an enormous tendency to harass writers and historians.”
He said the time and money that anyone charged with the law would incur trying to fight the charges would be enough to chill potentially essential discourse about the residential school system.
“Most researchers don’t have the funds to do that. The very existence of the legislation is a dark cloud hanging over free historical inquiry in Canada,” Flanagan said.
He said private member’s bills seldom pass in the House of Commons; however, they could pass if the government champions them.
Chantalle Aubertin, a spokeswoman for Justice Minister and Attorney General Arif Virani, told True North in a statement that they are grateful for Gazan “raising an important issue” through Bill C-413 and look forward to reviewing the bill as it is considered by parliament.
“Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide and mass human rights violations within the Indian Residential School System, some individuals and groups persist in downplaying or rejecting the severity of these crimes,” Aubertin said.
When asked if Aubertin was using the term genocide to denote a mass murder of Indigenous students, she referred True North to a “historic report” written by federally-appointed Independent Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray.
“Ms. Murray’s final recommendations will be critical in establishing a federal legal framework to preserve and protect rights and to respect the dignity of the children buried in unmarked graves and burial sites associated with residential schools,” Aubertin said on behalf of Virani.
Flanagan disputes the claim that residential schools were sites of genocide. He said there has been no evidence to support the claim, and there have been no bodies found from the purported unmarked grave sites of the alleged ethnic cleansing, though the bill would penalize saying so.
He said there are records of students dying, mainly from diseases such as tuberculosis, but the numbers were comparable to TB deaths on reserves as well. He also said some students might have been buried at the schools, especially in winter when travel to a remote reserve might have been difficult.
Murray’s report that Virani’s office cited used “testimonies and oral histories” from former residential school students. Flanagan said that although oral accounts are valuable, they must be corroborated with records and evidence.