Canadian Genocide and Official Culpability

• Published in: International Criminal Law Review
• Main Author: Akhtar, Zia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Brill 2010
• Subjects: Law; Political Science and International Relations; Sociology and Political Science; Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157181209x12584562670938; https://brill.com/view/journals/icla/10/1/article-p111_6.xml; https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/icla/10/1/article-p111_6.xml

Abstract In the last 20 years the native people of Canada have asserted their sovereignty by rejecting their status as wards. Their subordination had caused removal of their children to boarding schools to remerge as imitation white adults. It involved the purging of their own culture, including language, names and religious symbols. There is now evidence that there were thousands of preventable deaths in these schools, because the conditions were criminally negligent and the teaching was backed up by corporal punishment. In response to these allegations the Canadian government has set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but it lacks any investigative or punitive powers. As it has no right to compel witnesses, the First Nations have established their own International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC). This has the objective of presenting evidence to the United Nations in order for a court to be empowered on lines of an international tribunal investigating crimes of ethnic cleansing to try the officials of the government and the Churches. Will the redress the IHRTGC is seeking stand the test of evidence that proves beyond reasonable doubt the culpability of the accused? Can the appropriation and abuse of aboriginal children be abated? What kind of compensation will be payable once guilt has been proved?