Photo credit: Canada’s National Observer
An international human panel of human rights experts has accused Canada of committing genocide against its Indigenous population after a week of hearings in Montreal.
CTV News reports that the Permanent People’s Tribunal was mandated to look at missing and disappeared children and unmarked graves at Canada’s residential school sites, as well as the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, through the lens of international law.
The panel of seven judges said Canada historically adopted a series of policies that they deemed were crimes against humanity, with great genocidal intent, including the residential schools, which were in operation for over 150 years. The last residential school closed in 1996.
Survivors at the hearings held onto each other and wiped away tears as three tribunal members read out the decision.
Roberta Hill, a survivor who testified, said she welcomed the judgment, and she hopes it will lead to answers and better reconciliation efforts.
During the trial, survivors of the residential school system recounted being subject to nutritional and medical experiments, including being underfed and malnourished, and to forced labour. Children were made to live in cold, unsanitary and crowded conditions, leaving them vulnerable to infection.
Witnesses gave harrowing accounts of sexual and physical abuse, including being beaten or put into solitary confinement for speaking their language or helping other children.
While reading out the panel’s decision, Permanent People’s Tribunal Judge Frances Webber cited the testimony of one survivor, Audrey Hill, who said, “They didn’t care, that was the thing.” She had also described days spent locked in a dark closet alone with no food or water.
Webber said between 4,000 and 5,000 children are known to have died or disappeared while in the residential school system. Dr Scott Hamilton, a witness in the hearings, said the numbers are likely to be underestimated as many deaths were not recorded. Of the recorded deaths, almost half were caused by tuberculosis.
Witnesses spoke of infected babies left to die alone in tents in the cold.
Parents were often never notified of their child’s death, Wrbber said.
The panel also heard testimonies from women who were forcefully sterilized. They said they faced racism from medical professionals who told them they were unfit to be mothers and lied to them about the irreversible nature of the procedures.
The International Opinion Court was created in 1979 to investigate crimes against humanity and human rights violations. The hearing on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves was the 57th case the tribunal has overseen.
The Government of Canada did not participate in the court of opinion’s hearings. However, the tribunal said it has sent its findings and recommendations to the government and will hand down its full judgment on Sept. 30, for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
