Government of Canada ‘sustained a strategy to evade accountability,’ says tribunal judge
An international tribunal has ruled that the Government of Canada’s current policies constitute an ongoing genocide against Indigenous Peoples, following a gruelling week of hearings on intergenerational trauma.
Seven judges of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal — an international court of opinion which investigates human rights violations — issued the interim ruling on Friday.
The tribunal began its week-long investigation into missing Indigenous children and unmarked graves linked to residential schools on Monday at the daphne art centre in Montreal.
Requested by the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal in 2024, the panel has spent the week hearing evidence regarding Canada’s responsibility for the residential school system and its associated human rights violations.
Throughout the proceedings, witnesses detailed the devastating, multi-generational impacts of forced family separation and cultural destruction. They also recounted brutal physical and sexual abuse by school staff and clergy, which forced children to psychologically disassociate.