It makes me very uncomfortable to make speech and holding opinions (whether factual or not) illegal.

It sets a dangerous precedent and is a double edged sword. What if we’d declared criticizing internment camps or the 60’s scoop as hateful prejudice against Canada? What if the next government makes speaking against oil illegal?

Education and acknowledgement is the answer. We need to continue making everything about residential schools public. It should be easy to see evidence of their practices, know who ran them, how many children died and where they’re buried, etc. It should be obvious this happened and was awful.

I’d do better with just making such people laughing stocks and pariahs. I feel like criminalizing the behaviour gives it an aura of legitimacy and power it doesn’t deserve.

My mother was abused in a residential school. If there were anyone still alive that had anything to do with this I would gladly watch them set on fire... I am beginning to feel the same way about people who deny this happened.

~~Nah, take a page from the Germans and make it a mandatory part of the curriculum of every school board, across every province, build memorials and fund films and cultural programs to institutionalize the memory. It will take 10 years but it will work better than any criminalization.~~

EDIT: See comment below. Also, TIL: Holocaust Denial is criminal in Canada, too.

We need less criminalization of speech, not more.

Given the way the political climate is going, in Canada, criminalizing residential school discussion at all is more likely.