Days before my termination for being off script as a history teacher, the CBC reported that NDP MP Leah Gazan – who on October 27, 2022, managed to get the House of Commons to unanimously recognize that genocide occurred at Indian residential schools – 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, who represents the riding of 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 as 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.
