Canada is criticized by a global human rights organization for not fulfilling its international legal obligations in investigating the wrongdoings within its residential school system. The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal released a 78-page report stating that the residential schools committed severe human rights violations on a widespread and systematic scale.
The report, timed to coincide with the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, called on Canada to thoroughly investigate, prosecute, and penalize the individuals responsible for these violations. It also urged the country to provide reparations and highlighted the lack of efforts to prevent ongoing discrimination against Indigenous Peoples.
According to the tribunal, Canada has shown intentional disrespect towards the international community by refusing to sign specific conventions and amend its laws to include genocide, enforced disappearances, and apartheid. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the House of Commons acknowledged the residential school system as genocide in 2019 and 2022. However, the tribunal criticized these acknowledgments for not translating into tangible changes due to the limited criminalization of genocide in Canadian legislation.
The report emphasized the lack of practical impact of these recognitions on public policies towards Indigenous Peoples. Evidence presented during the tribunal’s hearings revealed the mistreatment of approximately 15,000 Indigenous children in residential schools, where they were subjected to various abuses, including language suppression, poor living conditions, inadequate healthcare, malnutrition, forced labor, harsh discipline, punishment, and sexual abuse.
Continued discrimination against Indigenous people was highlighted, including forced sterilization of women and the removal of children from communities by welfare services. The tribunal concluded that Canada failed to address and rectify acts of genocide, citing the government’s reluctance to support efforts to locate missing Indigenous children and their burial sites.
The report accused Canada of ongoing land theft, the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders, and crimes against humanity, such as forced labor, population transfer, severe deprivation of liberty, sexual violence, forced sterilization, and racial persecution. It also asserted that Canada had an apartheid system in place, defined as institutionalized segregation and discrimination against a subjugated racial group by a dominant racial group.
Among its recommendations, the tribunal called for comprehensive investigations into missing children in institutions, preservation of residential school archives, financial support for research on burial sites, protection of these sites, and revitalization of Indigenous languages. It also urged the return of sacred objects to Indigenous communities and proposed measures to improve conditions on reserves, respect territorial rights, and provide reparations for land dispossession.
Additionally, the recommendations addressed the Catholic Church and other religious bodies involved in operating the residential schools, calling for reparations for stolen land and the restitution of these lands where former churches were located.
