EDITORIAL: Good riddance to a dangerous idea

It defies logic to believe any serious research was done into this proposal

Published Jun 04, 2026  •  Last updated 4 minutes ago  •  2 minute read

Exterior of the Kamloops Indian Residential School building in Kamloops, B.C. Photo by Nicholas Rausch /Getty Images

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In a rare burst of common sense, the Canadian Senate has rejected a proposed amendment by its human rights committee to make residential school denialism a crime punishable by up to two years in prison.

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The fact it made it to a vote in the Senate, where it was defeated 41-32, is alarming.

The proposed law would have become part of the already flawed Combatting Hate Act, making it a criminal offence to wilfully condone, deny, downplay or justify the Indian residential school system, or misrepresent facts relating to it.

Even the Mark Carney government, which passed the Combatting Hate Act, said it would not support the amendment.

It defies logic to believe any serious research was done into this proposal before the Senate’s human rights committee recommended it.

A poll last year by the Angus Reid Institute found 63% of Canadians surveyed said they would need more evidence before accepting that about 200 soil “anomalies” are in fact unmarked graves of children at the former site of a residential school in Kamloops, B.C., which has become an international flashpoint in the residential schools debate.

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Believing there is insufficient evidence to establish that unmarked graves exist in Kamloops is not “wilfully downplaying” anything and yet someone holding this belief could conceivably be caught up under such a law.

Aaron Pete, Chief of the Chawathil First Nation in B.C., posted recently on X he would go to jail in defiance of such a law.

“I have interviewed people who went to Indian Residential Schools. I have interviewed people who believe (they) were awful, horrible schools, meant to remove the Indian from the child.

“I’ve also interviewed people who believe they were well intended, generous investments by Canadian taxpayers meant to assimilate a society and had shortcomings.

“Like with many things, the history is dark, complicated, and with any policy that existed for a long time, across a whole country — there were different experiences.

“No one story tells us everything … The path forward is not to criminalize speech, questions, or debate.”

We already have laws against promoting hatred on the basis of race, colour, national or ethnic origin, or ancestry, which includes indigenous people.

We need to enforce them, not make up ill-conceived new ones.

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