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Activists have strongly criticized Canada’s abstention from the historic United Nations vote on reparations for the serious harms caused by the transatlantic slave trade.
Canada missed an opportunity to defend the rights of people of African descent, according to Amnesty International Canada and the Black Canadians Civil Society Coalition (BCCSC).
In a joint statement on Wednesday, they hailed the landmark resolution formally declaring the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of African people as the gravest crime against humanity.
Initiated by Ghana, the resolution was adopted on March 25 at the UN General Assembly—123 countries voted in favor, 3 against (Argentina, Israel, and the United States), and 52 abstained.
Melak Gebresilassie, a racial justice campaigner with AI, said “Canada’s abstention is deeply discouraging,” accusing the country of avoiding a moment of accountability and prioritizing “political comfort over moral clarity.”
BCCSC co-founder, Hodan Ahmed, described the UN resolution as a powerful and long-overdue acknowledgment of truth—one that survivors, descendants, scholars, and activists have demanded for centuries.
“Canada was not a passive bystander to the transatlantic slave trade,” she stressed. “As part of the British Empire, it was complicit in and benefited from systems of racialized enslavement and colonial exploitation.”
Ahmed added that Canada refraining from a major decision that proclaimed slavery as cruelty to human beings “is a refusal to confront the truth and a failure to reckon honestly with our history.”
In their four-point demand, Amnesty International and BCCSC called on Canada to officially acknowledge its role in “the transatlantic slave trade and slavery under British colonial rule.”
The organizations requested that the government publicly support and advance international efforts toward reparatory justice for Africans and people of African descent.
They want Canada to participate in global reparations frameworks, including the African Union’s Decade of Reparations and the UN’s Second International Decade for People of African Descent.
AI and BCCSC also urge the authorities to partner with Black communities to address the anti-Black racism rooted in slavery and colonialism, through concrete policy, investment, and accountability measures.
The UN resolution encourages states to mediate on reparatory justice, restitution, rehabilitation, guarantees of non-repetition, and measures to address systemic racism and discrimination.
Defending its opposition, the U.S. said the assertion that some crimes against humanity are less severe than others diminishes the suffering of countless victims and survivors of other atrocities.
“This is not a competition,” Ambassador Dan Negrea stated while presenting America’s explanation of vote. “This attempted ranking is also simply incorrect as a matter of law.”
UN vote: Amnesty International, coalition demand Canada admit role in slavery
