(OTTAWA) An NDP MP hopes all of her colleagues in the House of Commons will now recognize the federal residential school system as genocide, now that Pope Francis has used the term.
Posted at 5:04 p.m.
Leah Gazan, who represents Winnipeg Centre, had tried last year to win unanimous consent in the House to pressure the Canadian government to label what happened at federal residential schools as ‘genocide’. for Aboriginals. His motion referred to the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948.
This international convention defines genocide as the act of killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, intentionally subjecting them to living conditions calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures aimed at preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to another group.
Congresswoman Gazan argued at the time that Canada’s residential school policy met these five criteria. But some MPs said “no” in the House, so his motion, which required unanimous consent to be put to a vote, could not be put forward.
“Making the experiences of residential school survivors continually debated is another act of violence,” said Ms.me Gazan in an interview on Tuesday. We must be aware of this. »
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report, released in 2015, already called what happened in residential schools “cultural genocide,” but some Indigenous leaders have since argued that it should be called “genocide.” – without the adjective “cultural”.
During his six-day visit to Canada last week, Pope Francis repeatedly apologized for abuses at federal residential schools. But it was only on the plane that brought him back to Rome that the pope, questioned on this subject by journalists, spoke of genocide.
When asked why he didn’t utter the word on Canadian soil, the pope explained that he believed “genocide” was a technical term.
More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend these federally funded facilities, but operated by different religious congregations, for more than a century. The Catholic Church operated the majority of these residential schools in Canada.
Thousands of Indigenous adults who were forcibly sent there as children have reported constant physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as widespread neglect and malnutrition.
The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation keeps a memorial register of young students who died in these boarding schools: this toll now reaches 4,120 children.
Mme Gazan introduced his motion in June 2021, shortly after the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation announced that radar had located in the ground what appeared to be the remains of approximately 200 children buried at the site of a former boarding school in Kamloops, British Columbia.
She said on Tuesday that she now plans to introduce a new motion, but is still considering wording, during the summer adjournment in Ottawa.
“I hope that especially those MPs who are truly committed to reconciliation, to justice, will finally recognize what happened in residential schools for what it was: genocide. It is time for Parliament to recognize it as such. »
When unmarked graves were discovered last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he continued to adhere to the conclusion of the 2019 Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which used the term of “genocide”.
Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen had yet to respond Tuesday to a request for comment from The Canadian Press on whether she considers the residential school system to be genocide.