The Cost of Comfort: How Communication Enables Residential School Denialism

Background: Residential school denialism in Canada is often framed as a problem of ignorance, as if improved education or clearer evidence might resolve resistance to acknowledgment and accountability. This commentary argues that such framing misunderstands how denialism operates.

Analysis: Drawing on communication scholarship and genocide studies, this commentary conceptualizes denialism as a communicative practice that reorganizes how established facts are received and acted upon rather than rejecting them outright.

Conclusions and implications: The commentary introduces a framework identifying five recurring communicative frames: reversal, minimization, moral offsetting, exceptionalism, and epistemic flattening. These frames convert acknowledgment into ethical and political avoidance through appeals to neutrality, balance, and civility.