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Residential School Denialism


*National Indian Residential School Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) exists to provide support for former Residential School students.*


They get a token-First Nation, who has been so colonized he becomes a priest, to tell us to listen to the why*e man.


This video is PR for the catholic church to gaslight us, down play, why*e wash, residential schools. This is seen in video when they state 'the good' that came from residential school.

And of course disrespecting orange shirt day.


IN THE VERY BEGINNING, at that time, Chief Cadmus Delorme 'these are not mass graves, they are unmarked graves.' Also National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation had documented more than 4,100 deaths of children at these schools.




There should not be graves at schools at all. It is illegal to remove grave markers. First Nations children died at these schools - which should not have been there in the first place YET - the church continued to have their hands right in there.


Blame the specific media who used 'mass graves' at that time. Why put the blame on the survivors of residential school? Why try to silence victims?


AND what about all the Church records the church refused for decades to release. As 2021 CBC article states: 'Why retrieving former residential school records has proved so difficult

Discovery of unmarked graves has prompted calls for Catholic church to release records.'


They speak of "apologies" yet they don't speak on the inaction of the catholic church afterward:

CBC article 'Catholic dioceses previously failed to raise money promised to survivors. Will they now? Bishops vowed last September to put $30M toward initiatives for residential school survivors.'



New York Times 'How Catholics Avoided Paying Millions in Reparations for Residential Schools. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/world/canada/catholics-reparations-indigenous-canada-schools.html

During its final weeks in office, the previous Conservative government reached a deal allowing the church to walk away from most of its obligations.'


More worried about church's burning down. MAYBE all the catholic church's sins just burst into flames and burnt down these churches.


Read: 'The push to criminalize residential school denialism in Canada' Global News. By Alessia Passafiume The Canadian Press https://globalnews.ca/news/10833120/residential-school-denialism/

Posted October 27, 2024. Experts:

'Increasingly, however, those stories are subject to what historian Sean Carleton calls “residential school denialism.”

He said denialism is a strategy used to twist, misrepresent and distort basic facts about residential schools to shake public confidence in the stories of survivors, and in the process of truth and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.

“Overall, the goal of denialism is to protect the colonial status quo,” said Carleton, who is an assistant professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba.

He also said some media outlets have been used to spread this disinformation.

That includes misrepresenting the number of children who died from tuberculosis in the schools by saying a lot of people at the time died from the disease, and leaving out the fact the federal government’s policies exacerbated the impact of the illness in residential schools through overcrowding, poor nutrition and a lack of proper sanitation and ventilation.

Another common theme Carleton sees is that residential schools were “well-intentioned.” Denialists ignore that the stated goal of the institutions was to disrupt the connections of Indigenous families and accelerate their assimilation into settler Canadian society.

“It’s a constant sowing of seeds of doubt in things that we don’t need to be doubtful about, because we’ve already established the truth about them,” he said.

Some people even deny that students died at the institutions at all, even though that has been documented through Canadian and church records.

NDP MP Leah Gazan introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation that seeks to criminalize residential school denialism.

Canada enacted a similar law in 2022 to combat Holocaust denialism, though so far no case has been successfully prosecuted under that provision.

 
 
 
 

[GERMANY AFTER WORLD WAR 2: Denial of Holocaust (Prohibition) Law, 5746-1986 In this Law, "crime against the Jewish people" and "crime against humanity" have the same respective meanings as in the "Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law", 5710-1950. Prohibition of Denial of Holocaust 2 -Wikipedia.

AI Overview: Germany passed legislation that prohibits the denial of the Holocaust and the expression of sympathy for Nazi crimes:

    Prohibition of Denial of Holocaust

    A person who denies or diminishes the Holocaust in writing or orally, with the intent to defend or identify with the perpetrators, is liable to five years in prison.

    Prohibition of publication of expression for sympathy for Nazi crimes

    A person who expresses praise or sympathy for Nazi crimes in writing or orally is liable to five years in prison.]

 

READ:


 

Indigenous leaders praise report on Canada's 'disappeared' residential school children Story by Brett Forester 

October 2024

 

Kimberly Murray has opened an uncomfortable but long overdue conversation about justice for Canada's "disappeared" residential school children, Indigenous leaders say. 

Murray, the special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves at residential schools, got a standing ovation Tuesday after she released her two-volume final report in Gatineau, Que.

While the report spans more than 1,000 pages, Murray's overarching finding is that children who died and were buried at residential schools aren't missing, but were disappeared by the state.

That makes them victims of "enforced disappearance," a crime against humanity under international law, says Murray, a lawyer and a member of Kanehsatà:ke, a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) community northwest of Montreal.

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), says "it's an uncomfortable truth," but a necessary one.

"It has been a long time coming, and it's been hidden for so long," she told CBC News.

Instead of recommendations, Murray concludes her report with a list of 42 legal, moral, and ethical obligations she says governments, churches and other institutions must uphold.

One obligation urges the federal government to appoint an expert panel to explore the possible return of residential school properties, which stood out to the national chief.

"Land back to First Nations, and working towards getting that land back to First Nations, is a step forward," said Woodhouse Nepinak.

Murray's obligations also include referring the enforced disappearance of children to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, told the gathering Wednesday he is most interested in this call for Canada to submit to international processes.

"If Canada wants to stand firm and tall in an international context, and uphold itself as a nation-state that abides by the rule of law and cares for its citizens, it also has to understand when it does not hold up to those standards that it is accountable," he said.

Former AFN national chief Ovide Mercredi echoed the focus on accountability during a speech of his own to the gathering on Wednesday.

"Let's go international," declared Mercredi, a lawyer who led the Assembly of First Nations from 1991 to 1997. "Let's use the vehicles that are there. Even if we're denied access to them, let's go there anyway"

'Settler amnesty'

In her executive summary, Murray says "settler amnesty and a culture of impunity" has protected perpetrators and shielded the state from accountability.

Obed said "the settler amnesty concept is a long overdue conversation in this country," one the Truth and Reconciliation Commission "had to tiptoe around in many cases, but one that now in 2024 we can face head on."

The federal government appointed Murray in 2022 during the national reckoning that followed the locating of potential unmarked graves at former residential school sites.

Justice Minister Arif Virani received the report in person but said he wouldn't make any promises until he had thoroughly reviewed it, though he did offer his personal response as a parent.

"You can't hear stories about children," Virani told reporters, his voice seeming to catch with emotion, "about people being abused, young girls being impregnated and then their babies being taken away and incinerated, and not have a response."

The federal government estimates about 150,000 children attended residential schools, a government-funded, church-run system of assimilation that operated countrywide for more than a century.

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 concluded the system was a central element of a Canadian policy of cultural genocide. More than 4,100 deaths at the schools had been documented as of 2021.

 

APTN NEWS

NDP MP Leah Gazan is speaking to reporters about her bill that seeks to criminalize residential school denialism.

Gazan will be joined by survivors and the Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites, Kimberly Murray.nd Burial Sites, Kimberly Murray.




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