Dr. Hewage’s claims regarding Canadian court ruling on ‘Tamil genocide’ denied

Appropos front-page news item ‘Bid to include genocide allegation against Sri Lanka in Canada’s school curriculum thwarted’ in the March 31, 2025, edition of The Island, Viresh Fernando, CA, CPA, Barrister and Solicitor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has sent us the following statement:

In 2021, the Provincial Legislature of Ontario passed a Bill, titled Tamil Genocide Education Week Act. The legislation, popularly known as “Bill 104,” simply assumes that the Tamil people of Sri Lanka were subject to genocide. No evidence was provided or discussed during legislative debate.

The Government of Canada has repeatedly stated that it has no evidence of alleged “Tamil Genocide”

A very small group of relatively uneducated Sinhala Canadians reportedly paid as much as $350,000 (dollars three lakhs fifty thousand) to two white, Canadian, incompetent, and ignorant lawyers to challenge the validity of the legislation. These two incompetent and ignorant lawyers used both the wrong method of legislation nullification and the wrong legal premise.

After a two-day hearing, as most Canadian legal experts expected, a judge of the Superior Court of Justice rejected the challenge of the Sinhala Canadians on constitutional grounds. The substantive evidentiary issue was never dealt with. I personally agree with the judge’s constitutional and legal basis for rejecting the Sinhala Canadian challenge, though I vehemently disagree with the false premise of Bill 104. This is a stark example that bad cases lead to bad law.

The small group of Sinhala Canadians Applicants who did not know any better, asked their two incompetent and ignorant lawyers to launch an appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. After an approximately five-hour hearing, the Court of Appeal clearly open to overturning the legislation, posed a final question. The two incompetent lawyers, who represented the Sinhala Canadians, did not understand the critical meaning of the Court of Appeal justice’s question and therefore did not respond. That was a monumental legal error.

The three-member panel of very senior justices were clearly puzzled by the lack of response from the lawyers for the Sinhala Canadians. The Court of Appeal was not given the legal grounds or the factual basis to overturn the lower court verdict. Therefore, the Court of Appeal for Ontario did the only thing they could do which was to dismiss the appeal. A lone Sinhala Canadian sought leave (permission) from the Supreme Court of Canada to appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to grant leave.

Contrary to the news article in The Island newspaper, the Supreme Court of Canada did not make a finding that there was no “Tamil genocide”. This is an absolutely wrong assertion by this particular newspaper.”

The Island: The story was entirely based on Dr. Neville Hewage’s response to the queries posed to him. We sought Dr. Hewage’s response as he moved the Canadian court in this regard.