Senate rejects amendment to criminalize residential school denialism

A proposal to make residential school denialism a criminal offence was defeated in the Senate on Wednesday.

The amendment, introduced by Nunavut Sen. Nancy Karetak-Lindell, would have amended Bill C-9, the Liberal government’s Combatting Hate Act, to make it a crime to “wilfully promote hatred” against Indigenous Peoples by “condoning, denying or downplaying the Indian Residential Schools System.”

It would have had people found guilty face up to two years in jail.

On Monday, during a meeting of the Senate’s human rights committee, the amendment passed a clause-by-clause study by a vote of seven to one. On Wednesday, in the Senate, the measure was defeated by a vote of 41-32. 

Government representative Sen. Pierre Moreau told the chamber that no consultations had been undertaken and no legal analysis had been completed prior to its introduction.

Karetak-Lindell, a residential school survivor, had argued the amendment was needed to address what she described as a growing wave of residential school denialism and anti-Indigenous racism.

“[Residential school denialism] can involve denying, minimizing or justifying the documented abuses, deaths, forced assimilation and intergenerational harms experienced by Indigenous Peoples through the residential school system,” Karetak-Lindell said during the committee hearing on Monday.

During Wednesday’s hearing, she argued that the amendment “does not restrict historical discussions, academic inquiries or personal testimonies.”

The amendment mirrors a private member’s bill introduced by Winnipeg Centre NDP MP Leah Gazan, who tabled Bill C-413 in September 2024 to criminalize residential school denialism. 

That bill got first reading in the House of Commons but has not advanced further.

Sean Carleton, an associate professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba, said the defeat of the amendment leaves what he described as an imbalance in Canadian law.

“You can’t downplay, minimize, twist or distort facts about the Holocaust because that’s engaging in antisemitism,” Carleton said in an interview. “But doing the same thing about residential schools, I think, teaches people that anti-Indigenous racism is fine.”

He also dismissed suggestions that the amendment would criminalize legitimate debate.

“This is not about people wanting more information or trying to learn more about residential schools,” Carleton said. “What it does target are very high-profile people who are publishing books and making money, materially benefiting from those kinds of disingenuous, bad-faith arguments.” 

Bill C-9, the federal government’s Combatting Hate Act, creates new Criminal Code offences to address hate-motivated intimidation and obstruction around religious and cultural institutions. It also strengthens penalties for hate propaganda.

The bill is currently in third reading in the Senate.