OTTAWA — Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak renewed her call Tuesday for Canada to criminalize residential school denialism as a form of hate speech.Woodhouse Nepinak identified the proposal as an AFN priority for Parliament’s fall sitting, three months after the Senate rejected an attempt to add a residential school denialism offence to the federal government’s hate-crime legislation..“As we start this Parliament, this starts with justice, with truth and reconciliation, and renewing our call for Indian residential school denialism to be criminalized as hate in this country,” Woodhouse Nepinak told reporters on Parliament Hill.She credited First Nations chiefs with advancing the issue at the AFN’s annual general assembly in Ottawa in July.“We need to call it what it is,” she said. “The truth is that First Nations are stronger today in Canada than ever before, but we know the stronger that we get, that the hate goes up.”Woodhouse Nepinak said the demand had taken on additional significance ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30.“Next week, Canadians from all walks of life will gather and wear orange to commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation,” she said.“Together we lift up the Indian residential school survivors and, of course, the day school survivors. But at the same time, we know others will continue to desecrate the truth. So we will keep up this fight.”.The AFN has previously defined residential school denialism as efforts to distort, reject or minimize the documented history and lasting effects of the residential school system.Parliament considered adding a related offence to Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, earlier this year.A Senate committee approved an amendment that would have criminalized publicly and wilfully promoting hatred against Indigenous peoples by “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying” the residential school system or misrepresenting facts about it.The full Senate rejected that amendment in June. Bill C-9 subsequently received royal assent without the residential school provision.Woodhouse Nepinak called the Senate’s decision “regressive” and a setback for survivors and reconciliation at the time.“Indian Residential School denialism is a hate crime and must be treated as a hate crime,” she said following the vote.A separate private member’s bill introduced by NDP MP Leah Gazan remains before the House of Commons.Bill C-254 would amend the Criminal Code to create an offence of wilfully promoting hatred against indigenous peoples through public statements that condone, deny, downplay or justify the residential school system.The bill has completed first reading but remains outside the order of precedence, meaning it is not currently scheduled to advance.Proposals to criminalize residential school denialism have prompted debate over freedom of expression, the scope of existing hate-speech laws and how prohibited denialism would be legally defined.Supporters argue deliberate denial and distortion are used to promote anti-indigenous hatred and retraumatize survivors. Critics have warned that an imprecisely defined offence could discourage legitimate historical research, disagreement or scrutiny.Woodhouse Nepinak said Tuesday that the AFN would continue pressing Parliament to formally recognize the conduct as hate under Canadian law.So far, not a single body has been retrieved from a residential school.
