September 8, 2026
Indigenous Liberal Caucus
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The Honourable Mandy Gull-Masty, Member of Parliament for Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Minister of Indigenous Services
The Honourable Buckley Belanger, Member of Parliament for Desenthé-Missinippi-Churchill River, Secretary of State for Rural Development
The Honourable Rebecca Chartrand, Member of Parliament for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs, Minister Responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency
Lori Idlout, Member of Parliament for Nunavut
Wade Grant, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change
Jaime Battiste, Member of Parliament for Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Chair of The Liberal Indigenous Caucus
Dear Liberal Indigenous Caucus,
I write today in response to the Indigenous Liberal Caucus Official Statement from September 3, 2026, regarding the spread of residential school denialism through an online campaign. I share the concerns outlined in the statement, and I too am deeply concerned about the terrifying and escalating attacks that endanger survivors, our families and our nations who continue the hard work of truth-telling.
Over ten years ago, the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed what Indigenous communities have known to be true for decades – that the Indian Residential School System was a genocidal project that sought to permanently eradicate Indigenous peoples.
Residential school survivors, families and communities have sacrificed so much to bravely share their truth, truths that Canada needed to hear: their experiences of violence, loss and resilience. Survivors' truth provided us with a path toward reconciliation, and we must ensure survivors, families, and communities are treated with dignity, respect and security. They must be protected from the dangerous incitement of hate being perpetrated by denialists who aim to justify, condone, downplay and minimize the genocide that occurred in residential schools. Anti-Indigenous racism and denialism are growing and have now resulted in the production of merchandise denying genocide and mocking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We must respond to this as what it is – the incitement, monetization and promotion of hate.
Survivors asked me to bring forward legislation that would protect their stories from residential school denialists. This is why I tabled a private member’s bill to criminalize willful promotion of hatred against Indigenous people by condoning, denying, justifying or minimizing the facts about residential schools. Survivors and their families deserve to heal from this intergenerational genocide. As members of the governing party, you have the power to table my bill as a government bill and put a stop to the harm that denialism causes survivors once and for all. Upholding the dignity and truths of survivors is not a partisan issue.
We are in agreement that residential school denialism must not be allowed to take root in this country. But we owe survivors more than words; we owe them action. You have the power to take action by tabling my bill as a government bill, ensuring that the hard-won truth of what happened in residential schools is never erased or denied again. I call on each of you to stand with survivors to protect truth, uphold dignity and walk the path of real reconciliation by putting an end to residential school denialism by ensuring my bill makes it to the floor of the House of Commons.
Sincerely,
Leah Gazan, NDP Critic for Indigenous Affairs and for Arctic Sovereignty