DAYS BEFORE MY termination as a history teacher for being off script, the CBC reported that NDP MP Leah Gazan – who on Oct. 27, 2022 managed to get the House of Commons to unanimously recognize that “genocide” occurred at Indian residential schools – now also wanted legislation to outlaw attempts to “deny” this putative genocide or to make “false” assertions about residential schools. “Denying genocide is a form of hate speech,” said Gazan, the MP for Winnipeg Centre. “That kind of speech is violent and re-traumatizes those who attended residential school.” I certainly don’t wish to retraumatize the many former students at residential schools who suffered from abuse or neglect. Nor do I wish to appear to be an adherent of the theory of Presentism: the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and thinking. I simply wish to tell my story.
