Survey: Genocide?
Castanet Staff – August 2, 2022 / 19:30 | History: 378370
Photo: The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick
Leah Gazan stands during question period in the House of Commons in 2021. The federal NDP MP says she hopes all her colleagues will now recognize what happened in the residential schools as genocide, after recently Pope Francis called the system that way.
A New Democrat member of Parliament said Tuesday that he hopes all his colleagues will now recognize the residential school system as genocide, now that Pope Francis has used the term.
Leah Gazan, who represents Winnipeg Centre, tried last year to get unanimous consent from MPs in the House of Commons to pressure the Canadian government to call what happened at the residential schools genocide.
His motion referred to the United Nations convention on genocide approved in 1948, which defines genocide as the killing of members of a group, causing them serious physical or mental harm, putting them in conditions to destroy them, impose measures to prevent births or forcibly transfer them to children. another group
Gazan said at the time that Canada’s residential schools policy met all five criteria, but some voices in the House of Commons said “no,” so his motion requiring unanimous consent failed.
“Having the experience of residential school survivors continually up for debate is another act of violence,” Gazan said in an interview Tuesday.
“We have to be aware of that.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 2015 final report called what happened at the residential schools “cultural genocide,” but some indigenous leaders have since said it must call genocide, without the qualifying adjective.
During his six-day visit to Canada last week, Pope Francis apologized several times for the “evil” of what happened at residential schools. But it wasn’t until reporters asked the Pope about it on the flight back to Rome that he said he believed it was genocide.
Francis said he felt “genocide” was a technical term, when asked why he didn’t say it in Canada.
Read more
Do you have an opinion? Send it to [email protected]
Jul 30, 2022 – 13863 votes Will they get the monkey pox vaccine if offered?
Yes: 2291 No: 10239 Unsure: 1333
July 28, 2022 – 6972 votes Did the extreme heat change your long weekend plans?
Yes: 1411 No: 5424 Unsure: 137
July 27, 2022 – 7938 votesDoes telecommunications in Canada need more regulation?
Yes: 5607 No: 1692 Unsure: 639
July 26, 2022 – 7818 votes Is it a “desecration” to put a Canadian flag on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?
Yes: 1965 No: 4964 Uncertain: 889
July 25, 2022 – 8810 votes Did the Pope’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in residential schools go far enough?
Yes: 4628 No: 2975 Unsure: 1207