Quotes:
Loss of Language:
“While Canadian domestic law has no language in which to express these losses as a legally cognizable harm, International law instruments have articulated several cognate and relevant rights. The assumption of control over Indigenous peoples in the IRS prevented them from educating their children -sometimes from even communicating effectively with them - and, thus, from reproducing their lifeworlds as they saw fit. ” Page 20

“While an analysis of potential breaches of rights to cultural identity are beyond this article, it is sufficient for our purposes to note that in international law the assimilative practices of residential schools may best be understood as an attack on self-determination rather than on culture alone.” Page 22

“That is, while a distinctive identity or culture may be seen as justifying a claim of self-determination, and identities may in turn be valued because they are seen as the result of the efforts of Indigenous polities to express their collective selves, neither are natural starting points, and both have been shaped in response to outside - often hostile - forces.” Page 22
“Understanding the harm of residential schools in this holistic, historical, and dialectical sense helps us widen the lens so as to point the finger of responsibility, not simply at an anachronous government policy but also at the very concept of modem, state-based sovereignty that would permit - as constitutionally valid - a like degree of control over Indigenous peoples.” Page 22