Minister won't commit to criminalizing residential school denialism

Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty listens during a funding announcement for "For Indigenous, By Indigenous" (FIBI) housing projects with the National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Inc. (NICHI), in Ottawa, on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

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OTTAWA — Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty was noncommittal Monday when asked about criminalizing residential school denialism after a group linked to white nationalism reportedly staged a demonstration in the B.C. interior over the weekend.

Roseanne Casimir, chief of Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, said on Sunday a group of masked individuals dropped a banner from an overpass in Kamloops, B.C., The banner, with the words “Got bones?” appeared to be questioning reports of human burials at the former sites of residential schools.

The demonstration — which included the display of a banner bearing the message, “Got bones?” — happened just days ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day to honour the children who attended residential schools and to remember the ones who never came home.

“White supremacy will not instil fear in generations of survivors and intergenerational survivors who have already carried fear for far too long. Our people know what it means to live with fear imposed upon us by others,” Casimir said in a media statement Sunday.

“Yet we also know the strength, resilience and courage of our survivors, families, and community members. We have endured fear, and we will not be intimidated. We stand together, day after day and generation after generation, to ensure that this history is never repeated.”

In May 2021, the First Nation announced ground-penetrating radar had uncovered what were believed to be 215 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. That news made international headlines and led to the community being attacked online.

Some outside individuals brought shovels to the community to dig for the remains of children, and the First Nation was forced to increase security around the site of the former school.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996. Thousands of children died in the institutions.

NDP MP Leah Gazan has a private member’s bill currently before the House of Commons which would criminalize as hate speech condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying residential schools. That is the language used to criminalize Holocaust denialism in the Criminal Code.

In a media statement issued Monday, Gazan said survivors deserve more than just words of condemnation for what happened in Kamloops on Sunday.

Chiefs at the Assembly of First Nations have called on the government to enact Gazan’s legislation on multiple occasions and passed a resolution to that effect in July, not long after the Liberals passed a new hate crime law.

Some senators tried and failed to amend that law to cover residential school denialism.

Some First Nations chiefs have asked the Liberal government to introduce a similar bill, which would be more likely to pass. Gull-Masty would not commit to that on Monday.

“While I acknowledge that the opposition is taking a position and trying to move something forward, that comes from them,” Gull-Masty said at an unrelated news conference in Ottawa.

“We have to be led by community to ensure that the decisions we make is truly reflective of what they want to receive in terms of support.”

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree was not made available for an interview. His office told The Canadian Press it has “nothing further to add at this time” and pointed to an online statement from Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In that statement, Carney called the demonstration “cowardly” and said it has no place in this country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2026

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press