Should the UN recognize Canada's treatment of First Nations' people as a genocide?

A demand to recognize an old policy as a diabolical crime

"Government and aboriginal people agree that education is a key issue that needs to be addressed. Reconciliation needs to happen. There's agreement that the situation of murdered aboriginal women needs to be addressed. That's the starting point. There's agreement on this. And what is being discussed is the best path forward".James Anaya, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur

James Anaya, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, finished a Canadian tour this week with some advice for Ottawa. He's calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, a more cooperative approach to First Nations' education and a renewed commitment to ending the disparity between native and non-native communities.

• What Canada committed against First Nations was genocide. The UN should recognize it By Bernie Farber & Phil Fontaine -- The Globe & Mail

Phil Fontaine, the former head of the Assembly of First Nations, hoped for something more. Mr. Fontaine, along with a group of native and non-native Canadians, wants the UN to declare the treatment of Canada's First Nations ... a genocide. But for the UN to do that, fairly specific criteria must be met.

As it stands now, Canada recognizes five genocides ... its treatment of Native Canadians is not among them.

• Raphael Lemkin, the man who defined the term "genocide." -- Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform

Canada recognizes these genocides: the starvation of Ukrainians in the 1930s, the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Turks, the Rwandan carnage, the killing of 8,000 Bosnians in Srebrenica, and of course, the Holocaust.

Does Canada's treatment of First Nations deserve a place on that list?

• Bernie Farber is a human rights activist, the former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Senior Vice President of Gemini Power Corporation. He co-wrote the letter with Phil Fontaine. Bernie Farber was in Toronto.

• William Schabas teaches international law at Middlesex University in London. He was also one of the commissioners for the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. William Schabas was in The Hague.

What are your thoughts? Should the UN define the treatment of First Nations' people in Canada as genocide?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Gord Westmacott, Vanessa Greco and Nuruddin Qorane.