CANADA
The Globe and Mail
GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jul. 30 2013, 6:00 AM EDT
First Nations leaders and human rights experts will press the federal government to recognize that Canada’s historical treatment of native people, including nutrition experiments conducted on children at aboriginal residential schools, constituted a genocide.
Phil Fontaine, a former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Bernie Farber, a social activist who is the former executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and Michael Dan, a former neurosurgeon turned philanthropist, have been talking with native leaders about the need for Canada to admit that the word applies to the cumulative actions taken by the government against First Nations.
As early as this fall, they could ask the United Nations to apply its definition of genocide to Canada’s historical record. This push comes five years after Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian government for the treatment of children at aboriginal residential schools.
Mr. Fontaine said he has been trying to elevate the issue so that more Canadians become aware of the history of the First Nations. He said he hopes that the government does not force native leaders to pursue the matter in the courts or at the UN.
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