[9][10] The Canadian government implemented policies such as the Indian Act,[b] health-care segregation, residential schools and displacement that attempted forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Euro-Canadian culture while asserting control over the land and its resources.

[15] This included recognition of cultural genocide,[16] settlement agreements,[15] and betterment of racial discrimination issues, such as addressing the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

[32] Scholars, namely, Pamela Palmater and James Daschuk, have used the term ethnic cleansing to describe the displacement and removal of Indigenous peoples from the Canadian prairies.

[33][34] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) in its final report in 2015 use the specific term cultural genocide, when addressed the history of the Indigenous residential school system.

[35] In 2019 the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) concluded that the crisis constituted an ongoing "race, identity and gender-based genocide.

[39] In 2021, the Canadian Historical Association (CHA), which includes 650 professional historians, stated that the history of violence against Indigenous peoples in Canada warrants the use of the term genocide.

Young and Susan Mann, disagree with the CHA's claim of broad consensus, reiterating the government’s goal was integration, not elimination and muting dissent and portray anyone who challenges the activists’ language as prejudiced or outdated.

[27] Carleton and Woolford state that dissent and calls for debate from the fringe are strategies used by genocide denialists to create doubt and undermine general consensus.

[13] Attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples were rooted in imperial colonialism centred around European worldviews and cultural practices, and a concept of land ownership based on the discovery doctrine.

Other actions which have been highlighted as indicative of genocide include sporadic massacres, the spread of disease, the prohibition of cultural practices, and the ecological devastation of indigenous territories.

[59] During the 17th century Beaver Wars, the Haudenosaunee brutally destroyed large tribal confederacies like the Mohicans, Wyandot, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and northern Algonquins.

[66] This manifests in forms of racially motivated discrimination,[67] such as criminal justice inequity, police brutality and high incarnation rates, that have been subject to legal and political review.

[70] During the 20th century, various Indigenous groups emerged to address issues like land loss, unrecognized rights, harmful policies, and poor conditions on reserves.

[73] During the Oka Crisis in 1990, the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) of Kanehsatà:ke protested against a golf course on their ancestral lands and faced military intervention.

The Beothuks emigrated from their traditional land and lifestyle, attempting to avoid contact with Europeans,[80] into ecosystems unable to support them, causing under-nourishment and, eventually, starvation.

[93][94] Beginning in 1874 and lasting until 1996,[95] the Canadian government, in partnership with the dominant Christian Churches,[96] ran 130 residential boarding schools across Canada for Indigenous children, who were forcibly taken from their homes.

[5] According to some scholars, the Canadian government's laws and policies, including the residential school system, that encouraged or required Indigenous peoples to assimilate into a Eurocentric society, violated the United Nations Genocide Convention that Canada signed in 1949 and passed through Parliament in 1952.

The TRC was not authorized to conclude that physical and biological genocide occurred, as such a finding would imply a legal responsibility of the Canadian government that would be difficult to prove.

[124] The experiments involved nutrient-poor isolated communities such as those in The Pas and Norway House in northern Manitoba and residential schools[125] and were designed to learn about the relative importance and optimum levels of newly discovered vitamins and nutritional supplements.

[141] Although Canadian eugenics beliefs and practices operated via institutionalization and medical judgements, similar to other nations at the time, some modern scholars contend this was a form of genocide, aimed at limiting the rights and existence of a group of people.

The Inuit were told that they would be returned home to Northern Quebec after two years if they wished, but this offer was later withdrawn as it would damage Canada's claims to the High Arctic; they were forced to stay.

Low salaries, poor working conditions, and the isolated locations of many hospitals made it difficult to maintain adequate numbers of qualified staff.

[160] On June 4, in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that, "Earlier this morning, the national inquiry formally presented their final report, in which they found that the tragic violence that Indigenous women and girls have experienced amounts to genocide.

"[156] Canadian history has evolved significantly over the years, with early interpretations often downplaying or denying the extent of violence and harm inflicted on Indigenous peoples.

[162] Indigenous leaders and scholars such as Phil Fontaine, Alice MacLachlan and David Bruce MacDonald have long argued that the Canadian government should "officially" recognize the totality of atrocities as "genocide".

[17] The report also resulted in an apology by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the Canadian government and its citizens for the residential school system was issued.

[165] In October 2022, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion to have the Canadian government officially recognize the residential school system as genocide against Indigenous populations.

[166][167] This acknowledgment was followed by a visit by Pope Francis who apologized for Church members' role in what he labeled the "oppression, mistreatment and cultural genocide of indigenous people".

[175] On National Truth and Reconciliation Day in 2023, prime minister Justin Trudeau stating that denialism was on the rise after disputes regarding the conclusiveness of the evidence of Indian residential schools gravesite discoveries.

Kimberly Murray from the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor, released a report in 2023 starting;Some still deny that children suffered physical, sexual, psychological, cultural, and spiritual abuses, despite the TRC’s indisputable evidence to the contrary.