Photo: PPT screenshot
By: Lucas-Matthew Marsh
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Iori:wase
After careful consideration, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) found the Canadian government responsible for committing an ongoing genocide against Indigenous peoples.
Delivering its interim verdict on Friday, PPT co-chair Francis Weber stressed the tribunal’s mandate was to go beyond hearing survivors’ stories and deliver a definitive verdict on Canada’s actions.
“We’re not here to produce another report,” Weber said. “There have been many reports. We have been asked to respond to the indictment and judge Canada’s responsibility in international law for the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.”
Established in 1979, the PPT is an independent international rights body that has investigated 56 cases of human rights violations. The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal requested the latest session of the PPT to examine the missing Indigenous children crisis and unmarked graves across Canada.
Speakers from across Canada gathered in Montreal to testify before the international tribunal. Among them were journalist Tanya Talaga, Residential School Survivor Betty Ross, and Kimberly Murray, former Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with the Indian Residential School System.
“I saw the lived impact of Indian Residential Schools on the survivors — the living witnesses of these institutions — and of their families,” Murray said. “I know that their truths are something that this country needs to acknowledge, recognise, and provide reparations for.”
The tribunal panel included seven judges from the United Kingdom, Spain, New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada. After four days of hearings, the panel ruled that the Canadian government wasguilty of genocide against Indigenous Peoples, a crime that continues today.
The tribunal upheld its decision by citing the targeting of Indigenous children in the Residential Schools System and during the Sixties Scoop, which meets the United Nations’ 1948 definition of genocide.
“Genocide need not involve mass killings, it can be a slow and continual process taking place over centuries,” Weber said. “In Canada, the genocidal acts include the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group.”
Specifically, the PPT argued that the intergenerational trauma caused by these crimes continues to impact Indigenous communities and is proof that the genocide is ongoing to this day.
The PPT has called on the Canadian state to meet its international obligations under the Rome Statute and take action to address the rise of Residential School denialism, hate speech and misinformation spreading online.