A Statement on Canada’s Genocide: A Personal Manifesto
© Dr. Lynn Gehl, July 1st, 2020
Kwey Kwey,
Canada, the nation state, and Canada’s national policy continues to exist on the genocide of Indigenous Nations. Two public inquiries, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019) have concluded that Canada’s foundation is based on the physical, biological, and cultural genocide of Indigenous Nations and people. What is more, it was argued that this Canadian made genocide continues today through cultural means that include laws, policies, practices, and standard operating procedures, as well as through acts of neglect and omission. This is the case regardless of Canada’s so-called good intentions. A narrow focus on intent is not the definitive element in the case of the genocide of Indigenous Nations and people, and of Canada’s crimes against humanity in this regard. As long as this policy of genocide continues Canada, the prime minister, the privy council, the cabinet, and the members of parliament are human rights violators. There is no need to debate this.
Cultural genocide against Indigenous Nations and people is carried out through Canada’s laws, policies, and practices—both written and unwritten—of neglect and elimination such as the extinguishment of Indigenous rights through the land claims and self-government process and policies that Canada, through forked-tongue rhetoric, erroneously calls the “Modern Treaty Process”. Since its inception in the 1970s, and largely due to Indigenous opposition to the genocidal terms of the land claims process, over time Canada has manipulated its rhetoric in its policy from the use of such euphemisms as “extinguishing all our rights” to “extinguishing only our land and land related rights” to “relinquishing our rights” to “defining our rights completely”. Regardless of the shift in rhetoric and the misleading name the outcome remains the same–Indigenous Nations continue to be denied the land and resources needed to rebuild our governance systems and institutions such as schools, housing, courts, and health care that are rooted in our knowledge systems and thus culturally meaningful, relevant, and subsequently efficacious in a way that the good life is attainable. Canada’s failure to address the genocide encoded in their land claims and self-government policies has been, and continues to be, manipulatively disguised and this is intentional. It is now clearly understood that Canada’s policy and law makers first and only priority is to obfuscate the genocide rather than address the genocide–meaning crafting a better tool—law, policy, practice, or gap in law, policy, or practice—that disguises the genocide. As a result the oppressor’s culture continues to be imposed on Indigenous Nations. This cultural imposition is genocide. Raphael Lemkin was clear about this.
In offering another instance of Canada’s cultural genocide, although the “6(1)a All the Way” provisions in Bill S-3 were proclaimed through an order-in-council in 2019, thus ending the sex discrimination that Indigenous women and their descendants faced for 163 years, in its current form the Indian Act continues to legislate genocide through the codification and application of the second-generation cut-off rule whereby after two generations of parenting with a non-Indian person, Indian status registration is no longer conveyed to descendants. Canada refuses to address this.
There is more. Although most assimilated Canadians have forgotten and lost their ancient knowledge systems, all nations have sacred beliefs and sacred places. Indigenous Nations are rooted more closely within the naturalistic paradigm, and thus they respect natural law and they value the gifts of the natural world. Indigenous Nations inscribe their sacred stories in the natural world so all future generations can learn the knowledge, rely on the morals inherent, and be proud of who they are as human beings. One such place is Akikpautik, located just moments upstream from Canada’s parliament buildings. Akikpautik is an Indigenous location of reconciliation, the place where Creator placed Pipe Bowl Falls, also known as the First Sacred Pipe. Prior to European contact the Algonquin Anishinaabeg had, and continue to have, great reverence for this sacred place and the adjacent peacemaking islands. Algonquin petitions to colonial government officials regarding their jurisdiction to their traditional territory which includes this sacred place date as far back as 1772. Despite this, due to the wrath of the Doctrine of Discovery, Akikpautik and the islands continue to be desecrated by the City of Ottawa, the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and Canada who continually fail and deny genuine reconciliation. Again, the oppressor’s culture continues to be imposed on Indigenous Nations. Make no mistake, the destruction of Indigenous sacred places is an act of genocide yet Canada continues with its desecration. Colonial officials know that a huge avenue to destroying a people is destroying what is most meaningful to them.
Through Canada’s land claims and self-government process, the discrimination in the Indian Act, the desecration of Indigenous sacred places and Canada’s refusal to address these issues, Canada’s national policy of genocide of Indigenous Nations and people is not at all nearing an end. Rather it is perpetuated and defended by the prime minister, cabinet members, members of parliament, and the privy council. They are all guilty of genocide. This includes Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Carolyn Bennett and Minister of Indigenous Services, Marc Miller. They should all be tried for crimes against humanity.
In the work I do, and as a person who continues to survive Canada’s genocide, I always locate my discussions and effort in my lived experience because this is the Indigenous way. When it comes to the issue of Indigenous women and girls with disabilities I must speak up and act in a good way. It is my responsibility to stand up for people who cannot, some literally in a physical way. It is well known that Indigenous people have a higher rate of disabilities than the national average; some say four percent higher. This higher disability rate is the result of Canada’s genocidal processes that have led to poor housing, poor nutrition, neglect, more physical accidents, and poor health care. The incredibly sad thing about this is these Indigenous women and girls become bigger targets of sexual violence because sexual offenders know we are blind, deaf, and/or paralyzed and thus we cannot see them coming, cannot hear them coming, and cannot defend ourselves by running to a safe place. Any national policy or response to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry that fails or omits to address the particular needs of Indigenous women and girls with disabilities will once again be a policy of genocide. The Minister of Women and Gender Equality, Maryam Monsef, must immediately stand up and act on the behalf of them. It is her responsibility otherwise she too is guilty of genocide.
Drawing from the best thinkers and scholars on genocide the MMIWG Legal Analysis stated it is now understood that the focus of determining a nation state’s guilt of genocide is to look at state policy, meaning the focus is not the state’s intent as many people may argue. After all we all know the horrific wrath that good intentions rooted in the assumptions and paradigm of Europe’s model of civilization has caused. What this means is, when identifying the state’s culpability we are not obligated to pull forward written evidence of the genocide, an artifact or material manifestation if you will, of Canada’s intent. Rather, the focus is on the nation state’s policies and practices and the outcomes of them. Further to this, it is now known and appreciated that an “act of omission” or “a failure to act” is indeed an act of genocide. This is crucial to understand.
In a culture that thinks debate is a reasonable practice or method of obtaining knowledge versus doing what Jean has argued, that being “Shut up and listen!”, there is no need to debate; the International jurisprudential evolution and scholarship is now clear on this: Canada rests on the genocide of Indigenous Nations and people, and this genocide continues today. Canada can no longer hide from its ongoing genocide.
I will Never Forget what Canada has done to me, my family, and the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation ... .
© Dr. Lynn Gehl
Algonquin Anishinaabe-Ikwe
Canada, the nation state, and Canada’s national policy continues to exist on the genocide of Indigenous Nations. Two public inquiries, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019) have concluded that Canada’s foundation is based on the physical, biological, and cultural genocide of Indigenous Nations and people. What is more, it was argued that this Canadian made genocide continues today through cultural means that include laws, policies, practices, and standard operating procedures, as well as through acts of neglect and omission. This is the case regardless of Canada’s so-called good intentions. A narrow focus on intent is not the definitive element in the case of the genocide of Indigenous Nations and people, and of Canada’s crimes against humanity in this regard. As long as this policy of genocide continues Canada, the prime minister, the privy council, the cabinet, and the members of parliament are human rights violators. There is no need to debate this.
Cultural genocide against Indigenous Nations and people is carried out through Canada’s laws, policies, and practices—both written and unwritten—of neglect and elimination such as the extinguishment of Indigenous rights through the land claims and self-government process and policies that Canada, through forked-tongue rhetoric, erroneously calls the “Modern Treaty Process”. Since its inception in the 1970s, and largely due to Indigenous opposition to the genocidal terms of the land claims process, over time Canada has manipulated its rhetoric in its policy from the use of such euphemisms as “extinguishing all our rights” to “extinguishing only our land and land related rights” to “relinquishing our rights” to “defining our rights completely”. Regardless of the shift in rhetoric and the misleading name the outcome remains the same–Indigenous Nations continue to be denied the land and resources needed to rebuild our governance systems and institutions such as schools, housing, courts, and health care that are rooted in our knowledge systems and thus culturally meaningful, relevant, and subsequently efficacious in a way that the good life is attainable. Canada’s failure to address the genocide encoded in their land claims and self-government policies has been, and continues to be, manipulatively disguised and this is intentional. It is now clearly understood that Canada’s policy and law makers first and only priority is to obfuscate the genocide rather than address the genocide–meaning crafting a better tool—law, policy, practice, or gap in law, policy, or practice—that disguises the genocide. As a result the oppressor’s culture continues to be imposed on Indigenous Nations. This cultural imposition is genocide. Raphael Lemkin was clear about this.
In offering another instance of Canada’s cultural genocide, although the “6(1)a All the Way” provisions in Bill S-3 were proclaimed through an order-in-council in 2019, thus ending the sex discrimination that Indigenous women and their descendants faced for 163 years, in its current form the Indian Act continues to legislate genocide through the codification and application of the second-generation cut-off rule whereby after two generations of parenting with a non-Indian person, Indian status registration is no longer conveyed to descendants. Canada refuses to address this.
There is more. Although most assimilated Canadians have forgotten and lost their ancient knowledge systems, all nations have sacred beliefs and sacred places. Indigenous Nations are rooted more closely within the naturalistic paradigm, and thus they respect natural law and they value the gifts of the natural world. Indigenous Nations inscribe their sacred stories in the natural world so all future generations can learn the knowledge, rely on the morals inherent, and be proud of who they are as human beings. One such place is Akikpautik, located just moments upstream from Canada’s parliament buildings. Akikpautik is an Indigenous location of reconciliation, the place where Creator placed Pipe Bowl Falls, also known as the First Sacred Pipe. Prior to European contact the Algonquin Anishinaabeg had, and continue to have, great reverence for this sacred place and the adjacent peacemaking islands. Algonquin petitions to colonial government officials regarding their jurisdiction to their traditional territory which includes this sacred place date as far back as 1772. Despite this, due to the wrath of the Doctrine of Discovery, Akikpautik and the islands continue to be desecrated by the City of Ottawa, the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and Canada who continually fail and deny genuine reconciliation. Again, the oppressor’s culture continues to be imposed on Indigenous Nations. Make no mistake, the destruction of Indigenous sacred places is an act of genocide yet Canada continues with its desecration. Colonial officials know that a huge avenue to destroying a people is destroying what is most meaningful to them.
Through Canada’s land claims and self-government process, the discrimination in the Indian Act, the desecration of Indigenous sacred places and Canada’s refusal to address these issues, Canada’s national policy of genocide of Indigenous Nations and people is not at all nearing an end. Rather it is perpetuated and defended by the prime minister, cabinet members, members of parliament, and the privy council. They are all guilty of genocide. This includes Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Carolyn Bennett and Minister of Indigenous Services, Marc Miller. They should all be tried for crimes against humanity.
In the work I do, and as a person who continues to survive Canada’s genocide, I always locate my discussions and effort in my lived experience because this is the Indigenous way. When it comes to the issue of Indigenous women and girls with disabilities I must speak up and act in a good way. It is my responsibility to stand up for people who cannot, some literally in a physical way. It is well known that Indigenous people have a higher rate of disabilities than the national average; some say four percent higher. This higher disability rate is the result of Canada’s genocidal processes that have led to poor housing, poor nutrition, neglect, more physical accidents, and poor health care. The incredibly sad thing about this is these Indigenous women and girls become bigger targets of sexual violence because sexual offenders know we are blind, deaf, and/or paralyzed and thus we cannot see them coming, cannot hear them coming, and cannot defend ourselves by running to a safe place. Any national policy or response to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry that fails or omits to address the particular needs of Indigenous women and girls with disabilities will once again be a policy of genocide. The Minister of Women and Gender Equality, Maryam Monsef, must immediately stand up and act on the behalf of them. It is her responsibility otherwise she too is guilty of genocide.
Drawing from the best thinkers and scholars on genocide the MMIWG Legal Analysis stated it is now understood that the focus of determining a nation state’s guilt of genocide is to look at state policy, meaning the focus is not the state’s intent as many people may argue. After all we all know the horrific wrath that good intentions rooted in the assumptions and paradigm of Europe’s model of civilization has caused. What this means is, when identifying the state’s culpability we are not obligated to pull forward written evidence of the genocide, an artifact or material manifestation if you will, of Canada’s intent. Rather, the focus is on the nation state’s policies and practices and the outcomes of them. Further to this, it is now known and appreciated that an “act of omission” or “a failure to act” is indeed an act of genocide. This is crucial to understand.
In a culture that thinks debate is a reasonable practice or method of obtaining knowledge versus doing what Jean has argued, that being “Shut up and listen!”, there is no need to debate; the International jurisprudential evolution and scholarship is now clear on this: Canada rests on the genocide of Indigenous Nations and people, and this genocide continues today. Canada can no longer hide from its ongoing genocide.
I will Never Forget what Canada has done to me, my family, and the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation ... .
© Dr. Lynn Gehl
Algonquin Anishinaabe-Ikwe
