Letter to the Editor: There is no place for residential schooling denialism in Canada

Boozhoo Kina Weya, Greetings Everyone.

We are deeply disturbed by some of the publications in the news recently on the Anishinabek Territory. Specifically, the news articles published in the Sault Star on October 30, 2024 and again on November 4, 2024, these are reminders that some articles are written for a purpose while at the same time are not valid and reliable; readers need to determine or measure a source’s accuracy for themselves. We add our voices to those such as Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige’s statement in response to Residential School denialist news articles.

These types of articles are attempts to diminish the Canadian National Inquiry of the 2015 TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission). The TRC created a record of the residential schooling system. As part of this historical record, the Canadian Government provided in excess of 5 million records to the TRC. The inquiry took place over six years all across Canada from over 6,500 witnesses. The TRC comprises six volumes of work and the summary included 94 clear “Calls to Action” for mainstream Canada which have yet to be completed. Particularly troubling are these types of ill-informed incendiary pieces which deny in the face of facts, not unlike the church denying Galileo and issuing an apology 350 years later in 1992. The Canadian Government has already officially apologized for the horrors of Residential Schools in 2008, while in 2022 the Pope and Church of England’s Archbishop issued apologies without atonement.

It is disheartening when articles state “Show us a clear path to reconciliation” while the National Inquiry documents already do this for Canadians. It is devastating when years pass and no calls to action are completed and the tracking of these calls by institutes suggests that it will take decades at the current rate to see these realized. Recommending in writing that National Inquiries about Indigenous peoples not be Indigenous-led is tantamount to an admission of guilt. The same effect applied elsewhere in the world would have members of the United Nations declaring outrage for any other country. We raise the point that Canada was among a group of four nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States) which voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007 while the majority of the 144 states were in favour. Canada did not remove its objector status to UNDRIP until 2016. To suggest that Canada not refer to International Court and that the Dominion of Canada is a model to the world is a grandiose delusion. Free speech is the cornerstone of democracy, and to be truly democratic means to value difference. Articles that assert we do not yet have a clearly defined pathway to Reconciliation are repressive. These delusions of status-quo grandeur need not search out the “facts” they desire while ignoring the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) of 1996, UNDRIP of 2007, TRC of 2015 and MMWIG of 2019.

To quote statistics and then follow vaguely with “what ifs” regarding records and burials is a misrepresentation and misleading. As these types of problematic pieces form the echo-chamber of mis-education illustrate, they clearly cannot differentiate the between The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (Orange Shirt Day) and the Red Dress Project for awareness for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people (MMIWG2S). On November 3, 2024 Jody Wilson-Raybould and Roshan Danesh wrote in the Toronto Star that “True reconciliation means that there is no place for residential “school” denialism in Canada” which they also remind us in their new book “Reconciling History: A History of Canada” that as Dene leader George Erasmus noted that a “common memory must be created” – and needed now more than ever. Denialism as pretending to seek the truth, distorts and diminishes the National Inquiry documents and rejects Reconciliation. We extend our deepest sympathies to the survivors and families of those harmed by these recent denialism publications.

Miigwech,
N. Abotossaway
J. Pitt