In a series of tweets between 2019 and 2021, the Conservative candidate for North Island Powell River, Aaron Gunn, argued against the the idea that residential schools were a form of genocide.  In the first of these he agreed that they were ‘truly horrific events,’ but added that people should not refer to them with a loaded word like ‘genocide’ that does not remotely reflect the reality of what happened.” He was wrong, residential schools are a perfect example of genocide.

Mr Gunn’s understanding of the term appears to be limited to ‘killing of a large number of people,’ but when Raphael Lemkin coined the term he stated it wasn’t necessary to kill people. There were also genocides of political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups.

Lemkin was a Jewish lawyer who fled from his native Poland after the Germans overran it in 1939. He was deeply concerned about NAZI Germany’s extermination policy.

In his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), Lemkin wrote: 

“By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thus corresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homocide, infanticide, etc. Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”

He added that. “Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain upon the territory …”

Lemkin also coined the term cultural genocide, which is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another. 

How does this relate to Aaron Gunn’s Tweets?

These three appear to be misguided: 

• “There was no genocide. Stop lying to people and read a book …”; 
• “I understand that people have a misinformed view of history which they have reached following a steady and persistent attempt to discredit Canada’s past in order to undermine its institutions and future.” 
• “Residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands in Eastern Ontario when John A MacDonald was still a teenager.”

This last remark refers to residential schools in eastern Ontario sometime between 1828 and 1835, when John A MacDonald was a teenager, but according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the purpose of residential schools changed during the 1870s.

“With the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, and the implementation of the Indian Act (1876), the government was required to provide Indigenous youth with an education and to assimilate them into Canadian society.” 

“ … Overall, students had a negative experience at the residential schools, one that would have lasting consequences. Students were isolated and their culture was disparaged or scorned. They were removed from their homes and parents and were separated from some of their siblings, as the schools were segregated according to gender. In some cases, they were forbidden to speak their first language, even in letters home to their parents. The attempt to assimilate children began upon their arrival at the schools: their hair was cut (in the case of the boys), and they were stripped of their traditional clothes and given new uniforms. In many cases they were also given new names. Christian missionary staff spent a lot of time and attention on Christian practices, while at the same time they criticized or denigrated Indigenous spiritual traditions.”

This seems more in line with the stories coming out of British Columbia’s residential schools – which are largely, to quote Gunn, ‘horrific’ – and is also what Lemkin wrote about.

When the Truth and Reconciliation Comission stated the residential school system was a form of ‘cultural genocide,’ in 2015, they were using a term coined by Raphael Lemkin.

On October 27, 2022, the Parliament of Canada unanimously passed the motion “that, in the opinion of the House that the government must recognize what happened in Canada’s Indian residential schools as genocide, as acknowledged by Pope Francis and in accordance with article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

Links of Interest:

• First Nation Leaders Call Upon Conservative Party To Drop Aaron Gunn As A Candidate 
• Elected and Former Politicians Calling For Aaron Gunn To Step Down
• Elected & Former Politicians In Support of Aaron Gunn

Top image credit: “Selection” of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Auschwitz-II-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, May/June 1944, during the final phase of the Holocaust. Jews were sent either to work or to the gas chamber. The photograph is part of the collection known as the Auschwitz Album, which was donated to Yad Vashem by Lili Jacob, a survivor, Yad Vashem regards the Auschwitz Album images as in the public domain – courtesy Wikimedia

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