PPC leader Maxime Bernier faces a ‘hate crime’ complaint from Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Cindy Woodhouse-Nepinak over his National Day for Truth and Reconciliation remarks.

Bernier criticized residential school findings on social media on September 30, the federal statutory holiday created in 2021 to ensure "public commemoration" of First Nation history and "legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process."

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“… let’s remember that no bodies were found, that the residential schools’ ‘genocide’ is a hoax, and that reconciliation requires an end to the BS, the victim mentality, the fake white guilt, and the grifting based on it,” Bernier wrote.

The RCMP's eight-year investigation into B.C. residential schools confirms no evidence of murders or clandestine burials, according to the Real Indigenous Report.https://t.co/SFy1yyDvvt

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) September 2, 2025

The government holiday arose from the alleged finding of human remains at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021. No remains were recovered, despite the First Nation receiving $12.1 million for exhumation and forensic testing. 

The holiday has since ignited a national debate with mixed views.

An Angus Reid Institute survey found 68% believe the residential school system was cultural genocide, while 63% want more evidence, including exhumations, to confirm unmarked graves. Nearly three in five (56%) Indigenous respondents agreed.

Chief Woodhouse-Nepinak echoed Quebec chiefs, stating First Nations have endured ‘hate speech’ and discrimination since Canada's inception. She plans to address Parliamentary committees on Bill C-9 and hate speech this month.

Bernier dismissed Woodhouse-Nepinak’s complaint as censorship, stating she "reacts like a typical petty tyrant who thinks she can use state coercion to shut down political opponents."

FULL DOCUMENTARY | Kamloops: The Buried Truth

Rebel News reporter Drea Humphrey and Matt Brevner take you on an investigative journey to uncover the truth about a story that misled a nation, the truth about what is actually known about what lies beneath the soil at the former… pic.twitter.com/gdtyBo7FT4

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) September 2, 2023

In September 2024, NDP MP Leah Gazan introduced Bill C-413 to criminalize residential school denialism with fines and jail time. It only had a First Reading before Parliament was prorogued on January 6.

“Nothing I wrote can be considered a hate crime under current Canadian law — at least until new censorship laws are adopted by the Carney government. Everything I wrote is true,” Bernier told the Western Standard.

The PPC leader also accused Woodhouse-Nepinak of caring only about "billions of tax dollars from Ottawa," not "truth and reconciliation," and wanting to "ban any questioning of the narrative."

In 2022, cabinet allocated $238.8 million to the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund to locate, document, and commemorate unmarked burial sites. The fund, extended to March 31, 2026, has disbursed $246.7 million since with requests for the fund totalling $704.3 million.