Genocide or Mass Murder - Canadian and Church Officials Must be Held to Account
What
happened in residential schools was not “cultural genocide”. It wasn’t
“language genocide”. And it wasn’t “almost genocide”. What happened in residential
schools was genocide. Canadian officials targeted Indians for assimilation and
elimination purely for economic and political reasons. Scalping bounties on
certain Indigenous Nations are indicative of such a lethal mentality.
Selected Sources:
(1) Dr. Peter Bryce, "A Story of a National Crime: An Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada"
https://ia802705.us.archive.org/20/items/storyofnationalc00brycuoft/storyofnationalc00brycuoft_bw.pdf
(2) CBC News, "Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By the Numbers" http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-by-the-numbers-1.3096185
(3) The National Post, "Canada was ready to abandon 1948 accord if UN didn't remove 'cultural genocide' ban, records reveal"
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-threatened-to-abandon-1948-accord-if-un-didnt-remove-cultural-genocide-ban-records-reveal
(4) UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2078/volume-78-I-1021-English.pdf
(11) CTV News, Federal appeal court gives OK on hearing First Nations Day-School Suit
PLEASE SEE: Related videos on my Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFeKGf51lo&t=202s
Canada
wasn’t killing Indians because of our cultures; it was killing Indians to get
rid of the “Indian problem” as Indian Affairs officials kept referring to it. Commentators
often refer to Duncan Campbell Scott’s quote regarding Indian policy in Canada
as proof that the intention was assimilation and not elimination.
Scott was the
deputy superintendent general for the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913 to
1932, who explained in 1920:
“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. […]
Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that
has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and
no Indian Department”.
However,
there is more to the story than this. In 1907, Dr. Peter Bryce, the Chief
Medical Officer for the federal government, wrote a report on the conditions in
residential schools that detailed the astounding number of deaths of Indian
children in those schools.(1)
The
government’s own lawyer also warned Canadian officials in 1907:
“Doing
nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the Department
within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter.”(2)
Yet,
there was no shock and alarm at the time nor did anyone from Indian Affairs
come up with an emergency action plan to protect Indigenous children whom Scott
referred to as “inmates”.
Surprisingly, the deaths of Indigenous children
appeared to be in line with the objective of the policy.
In 1910, Scott explained
in a letter he wrote to one of his Indian Agents:
“Indian
children… die at a much higher rate [in residential schools] than in their
villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this
Department, which is geared towards a final
solution of our Indian problem”.
Residential
schools were never a well-intended policy “gone wrong” as claimed by former
Minister of Indian Affairs, John Duncan. They were death camps for nearly half
of all the “inmates” who entered some of those schools. The tiny hand-cuffs and
the electric chairs speak of horrors completely unrelated to “education”.
These
children didn’t die from smallpox or some other series of unfortunate and unpreventable
events in those schools. Many of these children were starved, tortured, beaten,
raped, and murdered. Nutritional tests and medical experimentations were done
on these children only to be denied to benefit of the very medicines created at
the expense of their suffering. This sounds eerily familiar to horrors
inflicted on other populations around the world.
Survivor
stories of frequent rapes, forced abortions, and unmarked graves stand in stark
contradiction to any notion of a benign education policy – especially once
government, church and law enforcement officials became aware of what was
happening. Why else did these schools have graveyards instead of playgrounds?
It
is too easy for politicians to claim “cultural genocide” now, when they are
well aware that cultural genocide was specifically left out of the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.(3)
Much of the debate has
focused on whether or not Canada “intended” to kill Indians. According to
international legal experts, leaders can be held accountable if they knew or
should have known about the actions and failed to prevent them. Direct evidence
of intent is not necessary but can be inferred from circumstantial evidence.
The few excerpts above prove that Canadian officials knew not only of the
poor conditions in residential schools, but the large number of deaths that were occurring, and that they could be held
accountable for “manslaughter”.
Genocide,
by the UN definition, is said to include:
-
“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.”(4)
Many
have argued that the totality of Canada’s actions towards Indigenous peoples
amounted to genocide. In other words, Canadian officials have been guilty of some
or all of the above genocidal acts.
What
is particularly striking is the genocidal act of deliberately creating the
conditions of life meant to bring about the destruction of the group in whole
or in part. The following acts have been found to be genocidal:
-
“subjecting
the group to a subsistence diet;
-
systematic
expulsion from homes;
-
denial
of right to medical services;
-
creation
of circumstances that would lead to a slow death, such as lack of proper
housing, clothing and hygiene or excessive work or physical exertion; and
-
rape.”(5)
Think
of the historic and ongoing conditions of many First Nations who were prohibited
from leaving the reserve by law and given only minimal rations; or the Inuit
and First Nations who were forcibly relocated from their homelands. There is
also a direct link between Canada’s purposeful chronic underfunding of
essential human services for First Nations (housing, water, sanitation) and
their pre-mature deaths. In residential schools, children were starved, denied
medical care, and many suffered slow deaths.(6)
Genocide
is the material destruction of a group – even if not all members of the group
are destroyed. There is no set number of people that must be killed for the
crime of genocide to occur. It does not need to mimic the worst holocaust to ne
genocide. It must be a substantial part of the group. There is also no need for
a government plan or policy to exist in order to find genocide. Even without a
finding of genocide, the officials could still be charged with crimes against
humanity or related crimes.(7)
Given
the significant death tolls, it does not matter whether the courts have
accepted the claim of genocide, whether lawyers agree with the claim, or
whether communications specialists think it might be too harsh a term to
present to the Canadian public. What happened in residential schools were
criminal acts back then, just as they are now. All of the people who had the
power to stop these deaths (RCMP, Indian Affairs and the churches), not only
knew about the deaths - but refused to
act. At the very least, that is criminal negligence causing death.(8)
We
will never get to reconciliation unless we know the truth – all of it. So far,
we have only scratched the surface.
Residential
schools can’t be looked at in isolation. Indian policy included the forced sterilizations
of Indigenous women and little girls. Forced sterilizations were never about
our cultures – it was about eliminating our populations.(9)
We
are not over-represented in prisons, in child and family services and as
murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls because of our cultures.
We
are targeted because we are Indians. Indigenous Nations stand in the way of
unfettered land and water use, resource extraction and industrial development –
i.e. complete environmental destruction in the name of corporate profit.
Justice
Murray Sinclair and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) team have
done the impossible – they succeeded in ensuring the voices of survivors were
heard, that the atrocities committed in residential schools were documented,
and that the truth be told. So far we have only seen the Executive Summary –
the final report, which will be many thousands of pages long, will no doubt
shed light on even more disturbing details.(10)
In
addition to the incredible emotional and psychological toll this must have
taken on Justice Sinclair and his team, they stood strong in the face of the
most aggressive anti-First Nation government Canada has been in years. They,
together with the survivors, are true heroes.
But
we can’t expect the TRC to carry this burden alone. Nor is this story complete.
The
TRC went as far as it could to address the issue of genocide in the face of various
legal considerations and consistent political denial that these schools were
anything other than well-intended educational institutes.
It’s
on the rest of us to stand up for the truth and ensure Canadians know
everything that happened in the schools covered in this report and the ones not
yet exposed.
Canada
tried in various ways to eliminate our cultures – through residential schools
and outlawing our ceremonies and practices in the Indian Act. This is all true.
But
Canada also created the conditions which led to our deaths by the thousands inside
and outside residential schools. This is also true and this is genocide.
Once
we can put the truth in the table, then we can talk about reconciliation. We
need to act on the TRC recommendations related to truth-seeking: a national
inquiry on murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, an investigation
into the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in prison, and immediate
action and reporting on the over-representation of Indigenous children in
foster care.
The
Indian day school class action has just been accepted by the courts and that
will likely also reveal similar abuses suffered by Indian children in even more
schools.(11)
We
must focus on getting all the facts so we can finally see justice for
Indigenous peoples and true reconciliation. A determination that Canada did not
commit genocide does not put an end to the story. It’s only just the beginning
and it’s not going to be as easy as saying sorry. Canadian and Church officials
who committed such horrific crimes upon Indigenous peoples need to be brought
to justice.
The
mass murder or manslaughter of our people requires criminal prosecution – just like
it would anywhere else in the world. Canada doesn't receive a "Get out of Jail free" card simply because it hid its atrocities so well. Real reconciliation requires justice.
(1) Dr. Peter Bryce, "A Story of a National Crime: An Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada"
https://ia802705.us.archive.org/20/items/storyofnationalc00brycuoft/storyofnationalc00brycuoft_bw.pdf
(2) CBC News, "Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By the Numbers" http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-by-the-numbers-1.3096185
(3) The National Post, "Canada was ready to abandon 1948 accord if UN didn't remove 'cultural genocide' ban, records reveal"
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-threatened-to-abandon-1948-accord-if-un-didnt-remove-cultural-genocide-ban-records-reveal
(4) UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%2078/volume-78-I-1021-English.pdf
(5) Module 6: Genocide (International Criminal Law Services, European Union) pg. 26 http://wcjp.unicri.it/deliverables/docs/Module_6_Genocide.pdf
(6) P. Palmater, Stretched Beyond Human Limits: Death by Poverty in First Nations
(7) Module 6: Genocide (see above)
(8) P. Palmater, Genocide, Indian Policy and Legislated Elimination of Indians in Canada
(9) Karen Stote, An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women
(10) Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
PLEASE SEE: Related videos on my Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFeKGf51lo&t=202s
A tremendous job Pam.Those early politicians were just clearing a path for the mess we have today for corporate control.Yes they should be held to account for these crimes and genocide is the appropriate term.I tried last Sunday to voice my opinion on cross country checkup but was put off continually when I told the person screening the calls that the root was the doctrine of discovery and the monarchy that led the way.Censorcism is alive and well in Canada.
ReplyDeleteVery good Dr. Palmater. You clear things up.
ReplyDelete