As Canada continues to deal with Indian Residential schools, new research shows most people believe the schools caused “cultural genocide.”
However, a significant majority also feel more evidence is needed before accepting soil anomalies at the former Kamloops school represent unmarked graves.
Released today, the Angus Reid Institute survey found 68% of Canadians agree the residential school system constituted cultural genocide.
Half (54%) say the country must keep working to address the damage done to indigenous peoples.
More than 150,000 indigenous children, about one-third of the indigenous child population, attended these government funded schools.
The report comes over four years after the Tkʼemlúps te Secwépem First Nation announced finding soil anomalies using ground-penetrating radar at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
This was the largest indigenous residential school in Canada.
To date, no human remains have been confirmed or dug up at the site.
The suspected anomalies remain unverified despite the federal government spending more than $12 million to help the investigation.
The survey revealed that 63% of Canadian respondents and 56% of indigenous respondents agree that additional evidence, such as the possibility of exhumation, is essential to prove the burial of children.
This means two-thirds want additional evidence before accepting the anomalies are unmarked graves.
The study also explored attitudes towards people who publicly question the conclusions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
In recent years, some professors, teachers, lawyers, and politicians faced job loss or pressure to resign for doing so.
Most Canadians feel such job losses are unfair.
Fewer than three-in-10 Canadians (less than 30%) would support firing professors, high school teachers, or lawyers for raising questions about the TRC report.
Approximately half said firing would be unfair.
Views on politicians who question the report are more divided.
Canadians are equally split on whether it is fair or unfair to force a politician to resign or be fired for such statements.
Support for removing politicians breaks sharply along party lines, with Conservative voters much more likely to see it as unfair.
A clear majority of Canadians also oppose making public denial of residential school harms a crime.
This idea has been suggested by some, including Kimberly Murray, the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves.
Her 2022 report called for "urgent consideration" of civil or criminal penalties for denialism.
By a wide margin (63% to 24%), Canadians reject criminalizing such statements.
Indigenous respondents were split on criminalization, with 45% opposing it and 42% supporting making denialism a criminal offense.
