The former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc, in the B.C. Interior, in June, 2021.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Stephanie Scott is the executive director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the associate vice-president (Indigenous) Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba. She is a Sixties Scoop survivor and the daughter of a residential school survivor. Her family hails from the Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation, Treaty One Territory.
How can we still be debating how “bad” residential schools were? Or claiming, as a Canadian senator suggested in 2017, that some good came from these institutions? Or telling survivors to just “move on?”
That’s not history. That is denial.
Denialism has become a weapon wielded by pundits and public figures who twist facts and deepen divisions in our culture. What some call “debate” is often deliberate misinformation designed to silence survivors and stall justice. This denial fuels polarization, creating dangerous “us versus them” mentalities that make reconciliation nearly impossible.
For years, denialists could hide behind the excuse of “just asking questions.” Before, the law mostly stepped in after the fact, punishing hate propaganda only if prosecutors had the political will to chase it, and even then, it was slowed down by red tape. Now the federal government’s proposed Combatting Hate Act calls denial what it is: hate. Blocking communities, flaunting hate symbols or dressing up intimidation as “debate” isn’t free speech, it’s a crime. We pray this legislation is in place when we open the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s new permanent home, our sacred learning lodge.
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Some cling to the banner of “free speech” while spreading hate. But a blunt insistence on free speech cannot erase truth. And truth, carried forward in survivors’ voices, will always endure.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission painstakingly documented the brutal impact of residential schools, where Indigenous children were taken from their families, renamed and punished simply for existing as Indigenous. The system’s goal was, as the report found, nothing less than cultural genocide. It was the deliberate erasure of language, identity and family. Thousands of survivor testimonies and historic records confirm this reality.
If proof is still demanded, it lives in the testimonies of survivors and in the records entrusted to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Those voices speak with more authority than any ideological act of denial ever could.
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There are still those who suggest that residential schools had some positive effects because, for instance, trades were taught. But what was called “education” in those institutions was, in truth, racism disguised as education, designed to erase languages, cultures and identities. The presence of carpentry lessons or sewing classes does not change the fact that the system itself was built on harm.
The late Murray Sinclair (Mazina Giizhik-iban), the former chair of the TRC, put it plainly: “Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem. It is a Canadian one. It involves all of us. To come together, we must acknowledge the past and move forward with respect.”
His words remind us that denial fractures society. Truth can unite it.
Then there are those who cling to myths that settlers “brought civilization.” This claim ignores the fact that Indigenous peoples had thriving, complex societies long before contact. They had advanced systems of mathematics, law, medicine and governance.
True reconciliation requires emotional maturity. It takes courage to confront uncomfortable truths and strength to stand firm against hate, prejudice and whitewashing. It means moving toward true inclusion, not retreating into denial.
What happened in residential schools was genocide. Remembering is the only way to ensure it never happens again, just as we commit to remembering on Nov. 11. This truth, too, must never be set aside.
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Yes, it’s uncomfortable. But turning away won’t resolve that. It only keeps us from becoming the country we say we love. Real strength comes in facing what we don’t want to see.
It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay not to know what to do with this knowledge. But it is not okay to tell survivors how to feel, to gaslight their history or to erase their pain.
To engage in denial is to consciously choose to rewrite history, silence survivors and abandon justice. Leadership demands confronting these realities, not denying them to make them easier to accept. If reconciliation is to have real meaning, it must start with accepting the truths, and with an honest and genuine commitment to changing the structures that allowed this injustice to persist.
No child should ever be forced into a system that strips them of identity and language.
It’s time to stop denying that. It’s time to start reckoning with it.