Protecting Historical Truths and Residential School Denialism Accountability
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) acknowledges recent comments made by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew regarding residential school denialism. We maintain the deepest respect for Premier Kinew, his leadership, and his commitment to Indigenous Peoples, truth and reconciliation across Manitoba and Canada.
The NCTR shares the Premier’s belief that education is a vital tool in combatting misinformation and building mutual understanding—a responsibility the NCTR proudly carries out every day. While teaching the true history of Canada’s residential school system is essential, education alone is not enough.
Residential school denialism is not simply a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding of history—it is a deliberate form of harm. The willful spread of false narratives, hate-filled rhetoric, and the belittling of Survivor experiences inflicts real, recurring trauma on Survivors, their families, and communities.
When denialism targets communities, dishonours missing children, and disputes documented evidence, it crosses the line from debate into active harm. For this reason, the NCTR stands in firm support of legislative measures, including criminalization, that target the intentional promotion of residential school denialism, creating enforceable legal mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable.
Our concern over denialism is inseparable from our sacred duty to protect historical records. Truth requires evidence, and evidence must be safeguarded.
The upcoming destruction of Independent Assessment Process (IAP) / Alternative Dispute Resolution records highlights the severe risk facing our national memory. These confidential records contain irreplaceable first-hand accounts of systemic abuse endured by thousands of residential school Survivors. Allowing these records to be destroyed creates dangerous voids in the historical record, voids that denialists will exploit to question the realities of genocide and state-sanctioned harm.
As highlighted in the recent Judgment of the 57th Session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, preserving evidence and combatting residential school denialism are fundamental obligations of justice, human rights, and state accountability. The destruction or suppression of records directly enables the erasure of history, fueling the cycle of denialism.
Reconciliation cannot exist without truth, and truth cannot survive without protection. Education forms the foundation of understanding, but legal accountability provides the safeguard needed to protect Survivors from hate and ensure that historical truths are never diminished or erased.
