Chief Justice says Canada attempted ‘cultural genocide’ on aboriginals

[KamaAina]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/chief-justice-says-canada-attempted-cultural-genocide-on-aboriginals/article24688854/

Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says Canada attempted to commit “cultural genocide” against aboriginal peoples, in what she calls the worst stain on Canada’s human-rights record.

Genocide – an attempt to destroy a people, in whole or part – is a crime under international law. The United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, does not use the phrase “cultural genocide,” but says genocide may include causing serious mental harm to a group.

Chief Justice McLachlin appears to be the highest-ranking Canadian official to use the phrase. Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin used it two years ago in describing residential schools for aboriginal children when he testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by the Conservative government. That commission is to make its report public next week.

“The most glaring blemish on the Canadian historic record relates to our treatment of the First Nations that lived here at the time of colonization,” Chief Justice McLachlin said. She was delivering the fourth annual Pluralism Lecture of the Global Centre for Pluralism, founded in 2006 by the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, and the federal government.

[delrem]

1. It's a plain fact. I've known it for decades. nt

[malaise]

2. To the greatest page

for truth

[Fred Sanders]

3. Justice Murray Sinclair, the aboriginal judge in charge of the Federal Commission, will release a report

that will shake the planet.



Commissioner and Chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba

The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair was appointed Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which looks at those affected by the Indian Residential School system, in June 2009. He was Manitoba's first Aboriginal Judge and the second Aboriginal judge in Canada. He was appointed Associate Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba in March of 1988 and to the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba in January 2001, and Co-Commissioner, along with Court of Queen's Bench Associate Chief Justice A. C. Hamilton, of Manitoba's Aboriginal Justice Inquiry. In 2000, Justice Sinclair completed the Report of the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest, into the deaths of 12 children in the pediatric cardiac surgery program of Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre in 1994. He was awarded a National Aboriginal Achievement award in addition to many other community service awards, as well as 8 Honourary Degrees for his work in the field of Aboriginal justice.




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Interim Report:

http://www.myrobust.com/websites/trcinstitution/File/Interim%20report%20English%20electronic.pdf

[PowerToThePeople]

4. Truth

People need to speak to it.

[laundry_queen]

5. K&R nt