The discovery of unmarked graves at former Canadian residential schools in spring 2021 received widespread coverage by Canadian national media over the past four months. But coverage of this topic has not been exclusive to domestic outlets; state-owned media in China, Russia, and Iran have devoted significant coverage to the subject while state-controlled social media accounts have actively amplified these foreign narratives. In so doing, these regimes have exploited the residential schools tragedy in order to discredit Canada and its voice as a global defender of human rights.
Authoritarian regimes often use a rhetorical tactic called “whataboutism” as part of their information and influence operations, whereby negative stories in western liberal media are exploited by these regimes in order to deflect attention away from their criminal activity and human rights abuses. Whataboutism was a frequent Cold War tactic of Soviet propagandists, who would, for example, point to the mistreatment of Black Americans whenever Soviet terror and repression were mentioned by Western media and officials. While historical and current injustices in liberal democratic societies must be addressed, the weaponization of those issues by malign foreign regimes for the purpose of propaganda, must be recognized, analyzed and exposed.
China has focused on the residential schools issue as a means to distract from the Xinjiang genocide by creating a false moral equivalency between the two events. Specifically, Chinese state-owned media have criticized the West (notably Canada and the US) for their alleged hypocrisy and have proclaimed that they have no moral high ground to rest on. The Chinese government tabloid, The Global Times, called on Canada to acknowledge and make amends for its historical genocide.
The Chinese government is distorting the issue by completely ignoring the fact that Canada has facilitated reconciliation for former students and families and admitted wrongdoing through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Additionally, Canada continues to address and make amends for past immoral action while China attempts to suppress its ongoing transgressions – including its mass human rights abuses in Tibet, Xinjiang and against Hong Kong pro-democracy activists. Chinese dialogue on the topic of residential schools may be further motivated as a defence mechanism to avoid calls by Canada to allow for immediate access to Xinjiang.
The narratives exploited by the Chinese government are meant to deflect Canadian attention away from its ongoing genocide, repression of democracy and the arbitrary detention of Canadians Michael Spavor, Michael Kovrig and Huseyin Celil. These narratives have been echoed in Canada’s parliament by Senators opposed to recognizing the Chinese government’s genocide in Xinjiang.
Russia and Iran have exploited the residential schools issue as a mechanism to discredit the Canadian government and undermine our credibility on human rights issues. In June, Russia supported a Chinese statement at the United Nation Human Rights Council demanding a “thorough and impartial investigation into all cases where crimes were committed against Indigenous people, especially children, so as to bring those to justice and offer full remedy to victims.” Russia has a history of undertaking foreign disinformation campaigns. In 2007, Russia used historical disinformation against Estonia to manufacture an ethnic conflict in the country during the Bronze Night Riots. Notably, during the COVID pandemic, Russia has promoted vaccine hesitancy in Western nations using state-controlled media and social media platforms to amplify them.
Foreign State Media Articles & Facebook Virality
The following data is based on articles published by Chinese, Russian and Iranian state media sites since the discovery of the unmarked graves on May 25 to August 11. Over this period, articles published by these outlets have been exposed to millions of Internet and social media users. The Facebook page for Chinese government tabloid, The Global Times, has 63 million followers, and Russia’s RT has 6 million. While most of the Facebook users who follow these pages will not interact with the content published by them, many will be exposed to these narratives – which is the ultimate objective of state propagandists.
Our data includes only a search of English language articles published – Russia’s RT and Sputnik have actively published articles on residential schools in other languages.
| State Media Outlet | Number of Articles | Facebook Interactions (likes/ shares) NOT IMPRESSIONS |
| China: Xinhua, CGTN, Global Times | 94 | 16614 |
| Russia: RT, Sputnik, TASS | 29 | 16331 |
| Iran: PressTV | 18 | 568 |
Chinese state media sites Xinhua, China Global Television Network (CGTN) and The Global Times collectively wrote 94 articles. These articles received 3158 shares and 16,614 reactions.
Twenty-eight Russian state media articles published on the issue generated 2634 shares and 3301 reactions.
Iran’s PressTV published 16 articles resulting in 419 shares and 146 reactions.
Twitter Analysis
Analysis of Russian, Chinese and Iranian official government and state-media Twitter accounts between May 23 and September 1 in 2021, using the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, reveals that the residential schools issue was mentioned in at least 617 original tweets that were retweeted over 15,000 times and liked over 40,000 times.
Fact: While the Canadian leaders were busy lecturing other countries on human rights, there were more than 1500 unmarked graves of Indigenous children in their country that the world didn’t know about.
#CanadaGenocide pic.twitter.com/g7F7sHlAtM— Press TV (@PressTV) July 6, 2021
Our search of these accounts used terms directly associated with the residential schools issue, thereby limiting results to those that are relevant.
Chinese government and state-controlled media were the most active on Twitter, with 361 individual Tweets.
According to the data, malign foreign Twitter activity about the residential schools issue intensified during the week before Canada Day on July 1. The timing of this intensification is not coincidental and is intended to exploit and amplify Canadian divisions on the issue ahead of the national holiday.
It should be noted that the efforts of Chinese and Russian state media and diplomats to exploit this issue in the late spring were followed up by silence on Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, 2021. While the Chinese embassy published one tweet, state media and the Russian embassy ignored the inaugural event which is intended to draw greater national attention to the injustices that Canada’s Indigenous communities have endured.
Impact on the Canadian National Debate and Democratic Processes
The narratives spread by foreign regimes have manifested themselves in our national debate.
In June, Senator Leo Housakos introduced the Non-Government Motion no. 79 calling on Canada’s Senate to recognize China’s treatment of the Uyghur as genocide; it was ultimately defeated.
While conferring over this motion, Independent Senators Group (ISG) Leader Senator Yuen Pau Woo declared Canada should not criticize China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims because of our own transgressions against Indigenous people. In discussing China’s arrests of Uyghurs on charges of “terrorism,” relocation of their villages and sterilization of women, Woo argued that Canada “did all those things, and we did them throughout our short history as a country, most appallingly to Indigenous peoples.” This statement legitimizes Chinese government propaganda narratives by directly undermining Canada’s moral credibility. Indeed this argument of false moral equivalence succeeded in defeating this motion – a result that was celebrated by the Chinese government, which proclaimed the “the hype of ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang is unpopular and doomed to fail.” The 33 Senators who voted against the genocide were praised as “people of vision” by the Chinese government.
Prime Minister Trudeau has acknowledged the difference between the residential schools and Uyghur cases. Canada has accepted its historical misconduct and undertaken meaningful action to make amends through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In contrast, China continues to commit systemic repression against the Uyghur Muslim minority and refuses to admit any wrongdoing. However, more than simple rhetoric of good and evil is necessary to defend against foreign efforts to manipulate Canada’s national debate and democratic processes.
Russian state media narratives that exploit the residential schools issue are intended to discredit Canada’s record on human rights and its criticism of the Kremlin’s well documented domestic human rights abuses and transnational repression. A June 25, RT headline reads: “The silence on Canada’s indigenous deaths shame shows there are double standards on global human rights.” The article strategically omits the existence of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report and condemns Canada’s hypocrisy on all human rights issues. The article was shared over 2000 times on Facebook and exposed to over 8 million Facebook users, according to CrowdTangle data.
The evidence of Russian, Chinese and Iranian government efforts to exploit and influence the Canadian debate on the highly sensitive residential schools issue is clear. While this research focused on just the issue of residential schools, we do not believe that such malign efforts are limited to only this topic.
As Canada celebrates its establishment over Indigenous lands, and the unmarked graves of hundreds of Indigenous children in residential ‘schools’ continue to surface, here is a quick look at Canada’s racism which continues to live on its banknotes: pic.twitter.com/O1EmJmgkkA
— redfish (@redfishstream) July 3, 2021
The federal government must recognize and address the serious threat that foreign disinformation and influence operations pose to Canadian democracy and society. As we await the return of Parliament, federal MPs should make addressing foreign information operations a priority.
