Across Canada, the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families in order to integrate them into Canadian society began in the late 19th century – after the passing of The Indian Act in 1876. For over a century, some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken away from their families and put in residential schools. They were prevented from speaking their own languages and practicing their cultural traditions. In many cases, they were subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse and denied proper nutrition and medical care – in essence, stripped of their identity. The intergenerational trauma resulting from this dark and uncomfortable period of Canadian history persists today.
The findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 concluded that the Canadian Government pursued a policy of “cultural genocide” during those years.
Many continue to debate whether the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada amounted to ‘cultural genocide’ or ‘genocide’. Genocide, as defined at the United Nations Genocide Convention in 1948, is "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 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." Given that definition, the treatment of generations of Indigenous children in Canada could indeed qualify as genocide.
When we, as a global community, reflect on such historical evils as the Holocaust, the Holodomor, or the Rwandan Genocide, we mustn’t sanitize such horrors by claiming that there is an “other side” – a good side. It would be deeply offensive to say, “The Holocaust was horrible, but look at all the good that resulted from it”. Instead, we have come to recognize that there is no condoning or defending such atrocities in a civilized society. Would Ken Allred dare ask a survivor of any of these genocides to recant “the good old times” from their personal experiences?
Perhaps Mr. Allred needs to educate himself further about the truth of the residential school system before jumping to former Senator Lynn Beyak’s defence. He might start with this short documentary found on The Canadian Museum for Human Rights website: https://humanrights.ca/story/childhood-denied. It’s time Allred checked his definition of what constitutes racism and offensiveness.
P.A. Maluzynsky, St. Albert
