introduction.txt

Introduction
============

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to 
eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the 
Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to 
cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial 
entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were 
a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural 
genocide.”

*Physical genocide* is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and 
*biological genocide* is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. 
*Cultural genocide* is the destruction of those structures and practices that 
allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide 
set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. 
Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is 
restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual 
practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and 
destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted 
to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation 
to the next.

In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.

Canada asserted control over Aboriginal land. In some locations, Canada 
negotiated Treaties with First Nations; in others, the land was simply occupied 
or seized. The negotiation of Treaties, while seemingly honourable and legal, 
was often marked by fraud and coercion, and Canada was, and remains, slow to 
implement their provisions and intent.^1

On occasion, Canada forced First Nations to relocate their reserves from 
agriculturally valuable or resource-rich land onto remote and economically 
marginal reserves.^2

Without legal authority or foundation, in the 1880s Canada instituted a “pass 
system” that was intended to confine First Nations people to their reserves.^3

Canada replaced existing forms of Aboriginal government with relatively 
powerless band councils whose decisions it could override and whose leaders it 
could depose.^4 In the process, it disempowered Aboriginal women, who had held 
significant influence and powerful roles in many First Nations, including the 
Mohawks, the Carrier, and Tlingit.^5 Canada denied the right to participate 
fully in Canadian political, economic, and social life to those Aboriginal 
people who refused to abandon their Aboriginal identity.^6

[IMAGE: Alert Bay, British Columbia, school, 1885. The federal government has 
estimated that over 150,000 students attended Canada’s residential schools. 
Library and Archives Canada, George Dawson, PA-037934.]

Canada outlawed Aboriginal spiritual practices, jailed Aboriginal spiritual 
leaders, and confiscated sacred objects.^7

And, Canada separated children from their parents, sending them to residential 
schools. This was done not to educate them, but primarily to break their link to 
their culture and identity. In justifying the government’s residential school 
policy, Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, told the House of 
Commons in 1883:

	When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who 
	are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to 
	read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. 
	He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly 
	pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children 
	should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and 
	the only way to do that would be to put them in central training 
	industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of 
	thought of white men.^8
	
These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as 
distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against 
their will. Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott outlined the 
goals of that policy in 1920, when he told a parliamentary committee that “our 
object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not 
been absorbed into the body politic.”^9 These goals were reiterated in 1969 in 
the federal government’s Statement on Indian Policy (more often referred to as 
the “White Paper”), which sought to end Indian status and terminate the Treaties 
that the federal government had negotiated with First Nations.^10

The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it 
wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal 
people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal 
person had been “absorbed into the body politic,” there would be no reserves, no 
Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights.

Residential schooling quickly became a central element in the federal 
government’s Aboriginal policy. When Canada was created as a country in 1867, 
Canadian churches were already operating a small number of boarding schools for 
Aboriginal people. As settlement moved westward in the 1870s, Roman Catholic and 
Protestant missionaries established missions and small boarding schools across 
the Prairies, in the North, and in British Columbia. Most of these schools 
received small, per-student grants from the federal government. In 1883, the 
federal government moved to establish three, large, residential schools for 
First Nation children in western Canada. In the following years, the system grew 
dramatically. According to the Indian Affairs annual report for 1930, there were 
eighty residential schools in operation across the country.^11 The Indian 
Residential Schools Settlement Agreement provided compensation to students who 
attended 139 residential schools and residences.^12 The federal government has 
estimated that at least 150,000 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students passed 
through the system.^13

Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches were the 
major denominations involved in the administration of the residential school 
system. The government’s partnership with the churches remained in place until 
1969, and, although most of the schools had closed by the 1980s, the last 
federally supported residential schools remained in operation until the late 
1990s.

For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Buildings were poorly 
located, poorly built, and poorly maintained. The staff was limited in numbers, 
often poorly trained, and not adequately supervised. Many schools were poorly 
heated and poorly ventilated, and the diet was meagre and of poor quality. 
Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages 
and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. The educational goals of the 
schools were limited and confused, and usually reflected a low regard for the 
intellectual capabilities of Aboriginal people. For the students, education and 
technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores 
necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was 
institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students 
were prey to sexual and physical abusers.

[IMAGE: The Mission, British Columbia, school opened in the early 1860s and 
remained in operation until 1984. Mission Community Archives.]

In establishing residential schools, the Canadian government essentially 
declared Aboriginal people to be unfit parents. Aboriginal parents were labelled 
as being indifferent to the future of their children—a judgment contradicted by 
the fact that parents often kept their children out of schools because they saw 
those schools, quite accurately, as dangerous and harsh institutions that sought 
to raise their children in alien ways. Once in the schools, brothers and sisters 
were kept apart, and the government and churches even arranged marriages for 
students after they finished their education.

The residential school system was based on an assumption that European 
civilization and Christian religions were superior to Aboriginal culture, which 
was seen as being savage and brutal. Government officials also were insistent 
that children be discouraged—and often prohibited—from speaking their own 
languages. The missionaries who ran the schools played prominent roles in the 
church-led campaigns to ban Aboriginal spiritual practices such as the Potlatch 
and the Sun Dance (more properly called the “Thirst Dance”), and to end 
traditional Aboriginal marriage practices. Although, in most of their official 
pronouncements, government and church officials took the position that 
Aboriginal people could be civilized, it is clear that many believed that 
Aboriginal culture was inherently inferior.

[IMAGE: The goal of residential schooling was to separate children from their 
families, culture, and identity. Saskatchewan Archives Board, R-A2690.]

This hostility to Aboriginal cultural and spiritual practice continued well into 
the twentieth century. In 1942, John House, the principal of the Anglican school 
in Gleichen, Alberta, became involved in a campaign to have two Blackfoot chiefs 
deposed, in part because of their support for traditional dance ceremonies.^14 
In 1947, Roman Catholic official J. O. Plourde told a federal parliamentary 
committee that since Canada was a Christian nation that was committed to having 
“all its citizens belonging to one or other of the Christian churches,” he could 
see no reason why the residential schools “should foster aboriginal beliefs.”^15 
United Church official George Dorey told the same committee that he questioned 
whether there was such a thing as “native religion.”^16

Into the 1950s and 1960s, the prime mission of residential schools was the 
cultural transformation of Aboriginal children. In 1953, J. E. Andrews, the 
principal of the Presbyterian school in Kenora, Ontario, wrote that “we must 
face realistically the fact that the only hope for the Canadian Indian is 
eventual assimilation into the white race.”^17 In 1957, the principal of the 
Gordon’s Reserve school in Saskatchewan, Albert Southard, wrote that he believed 
that the goal of residential schooling was to “change the philosophy of the 
Indian child. In other words since they must work and live with ‘whites’ then 
they must begin to think as ‘whites.’” Southard said that the Gordon’s school 
could never have a student council, since “in so far as the Indian understands 
the department’s policy, he is against it.”^18 In a 1958 article on residential 
schools, senior Oblate Andre Renaud echoed the words of John A. Macdonald, 
arguing that when students at day schools went back to their “homes at the end 
of the school day and for the weekend, the pupils are re-exposed to their native 
culture, however diluted, from which the school is trying to separate them.” A 
residential school, on the other hand, could “surround its pupils almost 
twenty-four hours a day with non-Indian Canadian culture through radio, 
television, public address system, movies, books, newspapers, group activities, 
etc.”^19

Despite the coercive measures that the government adopted, it failed to achieve 
its policy goals. Although Aboriginal peoples and cultures have been badly 
damaged, they continue to exist. Aboriginal people have refused to surrender 
their identity. It was the former students, the Survivors of Canada’s 
residential schools, who placed the residential school issue on the public 
agenda. Their efforts led to the negotiation of the Indian Residential Schools 
Settlement Agreement that mandated the establishment of a residential school 
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). The Survivors acted with 
courage and determination. We should do no less. It is time to commit to a 
process of reconciliation. By establishing a new and respectful relationship, we 
restore what must be restored, repair what must be repaired, and return what 
must be returned.

Reconciliation at the crossroads
--------------------------------

To some people, reconciliation is the re-establishment of a conciliatory state. 
However, this is a state that many Aboriginal people assert never has existed 
between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. To others, reconciliation, in the 
context of Indian residential schools, is similar to dealing with a situation of 
family violence. It’s about coming to terms with events of the past in a manner 
that overcomes conflict and establishes a respectful and healthy relationship 
among people, going forward. It is in the latter context that the Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission of Canada has approached the question of 
reconciliation.

To the Commission, reconciliation is about establishing and maintaining a 
mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples 
in this country. In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the 
past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the 
causes, and action to change behaviour.

[IMAGE: Survivors’ Sharing Circle at Truth and Reconciliation Commission 
Manitoba National Event, June 2010.]

We are not there yet. The relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal 
peoples is not a mutually respectful one. But, we believe we can get there, and 
we believe we can maintain it. Our ambition is to show how we can do that.

In 1996, the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples urged 
Canadians to begin a national process of reconciliation that would have set the 
country on a bold new path, fundamentally changing the very foundations of 
Canada’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples. Much of what the Royal Commission 
had to say has been ignored by government; a majority of its recommendations 
were never implemented. But the report and its findings opened people’s eyes and 
changed the conversation about the reality for Aboriginal people in this 
country.

In 2015, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada wraps up its work, 
the country has a rare second chance to seize a lost opportunity for 
reconciliation. We live in a twenty-first-century global world. At stake is 
Canada’s place as a prosperous, just, and inclusive democracy within that global 
world. At the TRC’s first National Event in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2010, 
residential school Survivor Alma Mann Scott said,

	The healing is happening—the reconciliation.… I feel that there’s some 
	hope for us not just as Canadians, but for the world, because I know I’m 
	not the only one. I know that Anishinaabe people across Canada, First 
	Nations, are not the only ones. My brothers and sisters in New Zealand, 
	Australia, Ireland—there’s different areas of the world where this type 
	of stuff happened.… I don’t see it happening in a year, but we can start 
	making changes to laws and to education systems … so that we can move 
	forward.^20

Reconciliation must support Aboriginal peoples as they heal from the destructive 
legacies of colonization that have wreaked such havoc in their lives. But it 
must do even more. Reconciliation must inspire Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal 
peoples to transform Canadian society so that our children and grandchildren can 
live together in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share.

The urgent need for reconciliation runs deep in Canada. Expanding public 
dialogue and action on reconciliation beyond residential schools will be 
critical in the coming years. Although some progress has been made, significant 
barriers to reconciliation remain. The relationship between the federal 
government and Aboriginal peoples is deteriorating. Instead of moving towards 
reconciliation, there have been divisive conflicts over Aboriginal education, 
child welfare, and justice.^21 The daily news has been filled with reports of 
controversial issues ranging from the call for a national inquiry on violence 
towards Aboriginal women and girls to the impact of the economic development of 
lands and resources on Treaties and Aboriginal title and rights.^22 The courts 
continue to hear Aboriginal rights cases, and new litigation has been filed by 
Survivors of day schools not covered under the Indian Residential Schools 
Settlement Agreement, as well as by victims of the “Sixties Scoop,” which was a 
child-welfare policy that removed Aboriginal children from their homes and 
placed them with non-Aboriginal families.^23 The promise of reconciliation, 
which seemed so imminent back in 2008 when the prime minister, on behalf of all 
Canadians, apologized to Survivors, has faded.

Too many Canadians know little or nothing about the deep historical roots of 
these conflicts. This lack of historical knowledge has serious consequences for 
First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, and for Canada as a whole. In 
government circles, it makes for poor public policy decisions. In the public 
realm, it reinforces racist attitudes and fuels civic distrust between 
Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians.^24 Too many Canadians still do not know 
the history of Aboriginal peoples’ contributions to Canada, or understand that 
by virtue of the historical and modern Treaties negotiated by our government, we 
are all Treaty people. History plays an important role in reconciliation; to 
build for the future, Canadians must look to, and learn from, the past.

As Commissioners, we understood from the start that although reconciliation 
could not be achieved during the TRC’s lifetime, the country could and must take 
ongoing positive and concrete steps forward. While the Commission has been a 
catalyst for deepening our national awareness of the meaning and potential of 
reconciliation, it will take many heads, hands, and hearts, working together, at 
all levels of society to maintain momentum in the years ahead. It will also take 
sustained political will at all levels of government and concerted material 
resources.

The thousands of Survivors who publicly shared their residential school 
experiences at TRC events in every region of this country have launched a 
much-needed dialogue about what is necessary to heal themselves, their families, 
communities, and the nation. Canadians have much to benefit from listening to 
the voices, experiences, and wisdom of Survivors, Elders, and Traditional 
Knowledge Keepers—and much more to learn about reconciliation. Aboriginal 
peoples have an important contribution to make to reconciliation. Their 
knowledge systems, oral histories, laws, and connections to the land have 
vitally informed the reconciliation process to date, and are essential to its 
ongoing progress.

At a Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum sponsored by the TRC, Anishinaabe Elder 
Mary Deleary spoke about the responsibility for reconciliation that both 
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people carry. She emphasized that the work of 
reconciliation must continue in ways that honour the ancestors, respect the 
land, and rebalance relationships. She said,

	I’m so filled with belief and hope because when I hear your voices at 
	the table, I hear and know that the responsibilities that our ancestors 
	carried ... are still being carried ... even through all of the 
	struggles, even through all of what has been disrupted ... we can still 
	hear the voice of the land. We can hear the care and love for the 
	children. We can hear about our law. We can hear about our stories, our 
	governance, our feasts, [and] our medicines.... We have work to do. That 
	work we are [already] doing as [Aboriginal] peoples. Our relatives who 
	have come from across the water [non-Aboriginal people], you still have 
	work to do on your road.... The land is made up of the dust of our 
	ancestors’ bones. And so to reconcile with this land and everything that 
	has happened, there is much work to be done ... in order to create 
	balance.^25
	
At the Victoria Regional Event in 2012, Survivor Archie Little said,

	[For] me reconciliation is righting a wrong. And how do we do that? All 
	these people in this room, a lot of non-Aboriginals, a lot of 
	Aboriginals that probably didn’t go to residential school; we need to 
	work together.... My mother had a high standing in our cultural ways. We 
	lost that. It was taken away.... And I think it’s time for you 
	non-Aboriginals … to go to your politicians and tell them that we have 
	to take responsibility for what happened. We have to work together.^26

The Reverend Stan McKay of the United Church, who is also a Survivor, believes 
that reconciliation can happen only when everyone accepts responsibility for 
healing in ways that foster respect. He said,

	[There must be] a change in perspective about the way in which 
	Aboriginal peoples would be engaged with Canadian society in the quest 
	for reconciliation.... [We cannot] perpetuate the paternalistic concept 
	that only Aboriginal peoples are in need of healing.... The perpetrators 
	are wounded and marked by history in ways that are different from the 
	victims, but both groups require healing.... How can a conversation 
	about reconciliation take place if all involved do not adopt an attitude 
	of humility and respect? ... We all have stories to tell and in order to 
	grow in tolerance and understanding we must listen to the stories of 
	others.^27

[IMAGE: Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal representatives from 4Rs Youth Movement 
present the 4Rs drum made by Nisga’a artist Mike Dangeli, as an expression of 
reconciliation at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Alberta National 
Event, March 2014.]

Over the past five years, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 
urged Canadians not to wait until our final report was issued before 
contributing to the reconciliation process. We have been encouraged to see that 
across the country, many people have been answering that call.

The youth of this country are taking up the challenge of reconciliation. 
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth who attended TRC National Events made 
powerful statements about why reconciliation matters to them. At the Alberta 
National Event in Edmonton in March 2014, an Indigenous youth spoke on behalf of 
a national Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaboration known as the “4Rs Youth 
Movement.” Jessica Bolduc said,

	We have re-examined our thoughts and beliefs around colonialism, and 
	have made a commitment to unpack our own baggage, and to enter into a 
	new relationship with each other, using this momentum, to move our 
	country forward, in light of the 150th anniversary of the Confederation 
	of Canada in 2017. At this point in time, we ask ourselves, “What does 
	that anniversary mean for us, as Indigenous youth and non-Indigenous 
	youth, and how do we arrive at that day with something we can celebrate 
	together?”… Our hope is that, one day, we will live together, as 
	recognized nations, within a country we can all be proud of.^28

[IMAGE: Truth and Reconciliation Commission Traditional Knowledge Keepers 
Forum, June 2014. University of Manitoba, Adam Dolman.]

In 2013, at the British Columbia National Event in Vancouver, where over 5,000 
elementary and secondary school students attended Education Day, several 
non-Aboriginal youth talked about what they had learned. Matthew Meneses said, 
“I’ll never forget this day. This is the first day they ever told us about 
residential schools. If I were to see someone who’s Aboriginal, I’d ask them if 
they can speak their language because I think speaking their language is a 
pretty cool thing.” Antonio Jordao said, “It makes me sad for those kids. They 
took them away from their homes—it was torture, it’s not fair. They took them 
away from their homes. I don’t agree with that. It’s really wrong. That’s one of 
the worst things that Canada did.” Cassidy Morris said, “It’s good that we’re 
finally learning about what happened.” Jacqulyn Byers told us, “I hope that 
events like this are able to bring closure to the horrible things that happened, 
and that a whole lot of people now recognize that the crime happened and that we 
need to make amends for it.”^29

At the same National Event, TRC Honorary Witness Patsy George paid tribute to 
the strength of Aboriginal women and their contributions to the reconciliation 
process despite the oppression and violence they have experienced. She said,

	Women have always been a beacon of hope for me. Mothers and grandmothers 
	in the lives of our children, and in the survival of our communities, 
	must be recognized and supported. The justified rage we all feel and 
	share today must be turned into instruments of transformation of our 
	hearts and our souls, clearing the ground for respect, love, honesty, 
	humility, wisdom and truth. We owe it to all those who suffered, and we 
	owe it to the children of today and tomorrow. May this day and the days 
	ahead bring us peace and justice.^30

Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians from all walks of life spoke to us about 
the importance of reaching out to one another in ways that create hope for a 
better future. Whether one is First Nations, Inuit, Métis, a descendant of 
European settlers, a member of a minority group that suffered historical 
discrimination in Canada, or a new Canadian, we all inherit both the benefits 
and obligations of Canada. We are all Treaty people who share responsibility for 
taking action on reconciliation.

Without truth, justice, and healing, there can be no genuine reconciliation. 
Reconciliation is not about “closing a sad chapter of Canada’s past,” but about 
opening new healing pathways of reconciliation that are forged in truth and 
justice. We are mindful that knowing the truth about what happened in 
residential schools in and of itself does not necessarily lead to 
reconciliation. Yet, the importance of truth telling in its own right should not 
be underestimated; it restores the human dignity of victims of violence and 
calls governments and citizens to account. Without truth, justice is not served, 
healing cannot happen, and there can be no genuine reconciliation between 
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Speaking to us at the 
Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum in June of 2014, Elder Dave Courchene posed 
a critical question: “When you talk about truth, whose truth are you talking 
about?”^31 The Commission’s answer to Elder Courchene’s question is that by 
truth, we mean not only the truth revealed in government and church residential 
school documents, but also the truth of lived experiences as told to us by 
Survivors and others in their statements to this Commission. Together, these 
public testimonies constitute a new oral history record, one based on Indigenous 
legal traditions and the practice of witnessing.^32 As people gathered at 
various TRC National Events and Community Hearings, they shared the experiences 
of truth telling and of offering expressions of reconciliation.

Over the course of its work, the Commission inducted a growing circle of TRC 
Honorary Witnesses. Their role has been to bear official witness to the 
testimonies of Survivors and their families, former school staff and their 
descendants, government and church officials, and any others whose lives have 
been affected by the residential schools. Beyond the work of the TRC, the 
Honorary Witnesses have pledged their commitment to the ongoing work of 
reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples. We also encouraged 
everyone who attended TRC National Events or Community Hearings to see 
themselves as witnesses also, with an obligation to find ways of making 
reconciliation a concrete reality in their own lives, communities, schools, and 
workplaces.

As Elder Jim Dumont explained at the Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum in June 
2014, “in Ojibwe thinking, to speak the truth is to actually speak from the 
heart.”^33 At the Community Hearing in Key First Nation, Saskatchewan, in 2012, 
Survivor Wilfred Whitehawk told us he was glad that he disclosed his abuse.

	I don’t regret it because it taught me something. It taught me to talk 
	about truth, about me, to be honest about who I am.... I am very proud 
	of who I am today. It took me a long time, but I’m there. And what I 
	have, my values and belief systems are mine and no one is going to 
	impose theirs on me. And no one today is going to take advantage of me, 
	man or woman, the government or the rcmp, because I have a voice today. 
	I can speak for me and no one can take that away.^34

Survivor and the child of Survivors Vitaline Elsie Jenner said, “I’m quite happy 
to be able to share my story.... I want the people of Canada to hear, to listen, 
for it is the truth.... I also want my grandchildren to learn, to learn from me 
that, yes, it did happen.”^35

Another descendant of Survivors, Daniel Elliot, told the Commission,

	I think all Canadians need to stop and take a look and not look away. 
	Yeah, it’s embarrassing, yeah, it’s an ugly part of our history. We 
	don’t want to know about it. What I want to see from the Commission is 
	to rewrite the history books so that other generations will understand 
	and not go through the same thing that we’re going through now, like it 
	never happened.^36

President of the Métis National Council Clement Chartier spoke to the Commission 
about the importance of truth to justice and reconciliation. At the Saskatchewan 
National Event, he said,

	The truth is important. So I’ll try to address the truth and a bit of 
	reconciliation as well. The truth is that the Métis Nation, represented 
	by the Métis National Council, is not a party to the Indian Residential 
	Schools Settlement Agreement.... And the truth is that the exclusion of 
	the Métis Nation or the Métis as a people is reflected throughout this 
	whole period not only in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement 
	Agreement but in the apology made by Canada as well.... We are, however, 
	the products ... of the same assimilationist policy that the federal 
	government foisted upon the Treaty Indian kids. So there ought to be 
	some solution.... The Métis boarding schools, residential schools, are 
	excluded. And we need to ensure that everyone was aware of that and 
	hopefully some point down the road, you will help advocate and get, you 
	know, the governments or whoever is responsible to accept responsibility 
	and to move forward on a path to reconciliation, because reconciliation 
	should be for all Aboriginal peoples and not only some Aboriginal 
	peoples.^37

At the British Columbia National Event, the former lieutenant-governor of 
British Columbia, the Honourable Steven Point, said,

	And so many of you have said today, so many of the witnesses that came 
	forward said, “I cannot forgive. I’m not ready to forgive.” And I 
	wondered why. Reconciliation is about hearing the truth, that’s for 
	sure. It’s also about acknowledging that truth. Acknowledging that what 
	you’ve said is true. Accepting responsibility for your pain and putting 
	those children back in the place they would have been, had they not been 
	taken from their homes.… What are the blockages to reconciliation? The 
	continuing poverty in our communities and the failure of our government 
	to recognize that “Yes, we own the land.” Stop the destruction of our 
	territories and for God’s sake, stop the deaths of so many of our women 
	on highways across this country.… I’m going to continue to talk about 
	reconciliation, but just as important, I’m going to foster healing in 
	our own people, so that our children can avoid this pain, can avoid this 
	destruction and finally, take our rightful place in this “Our 
	Canada.”^38

When former residential school staff attended public TRC events, some thought it 
was most important to hear directly from Survivors, even if their own 
perspectives and memories of the schools might differ from those of the 
Survivors. At a Community Hearing in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Merle Nisley, who 
worked at the Poplar Hill residential school in the early 1970s, said, 

	I think it would be valuable for people who have been involved in the 
	schools to hear stories personally. And I also think it would be 
	valuable, when it’s appropriate ... [for] former students who are on the 
	healing path to ... hear some of our stories, or to hear some of our 
	perspectives. But I know that’s a very difficult thing to do.... 
	Certainly this is not the time to try to ask all those former students 
	to sit and listen to the rationale of the former staff because there’s 
	just too much emotion there ... and there’s too little trust ... you 
	can’t do things like that when there’s low levels of trust. So I think 
	really a very important thing is for former staff to hear the stories 
	and to be courageous enough just to hear them.... Where wrongs were 
	done, where abuses happened, where punishment was over the top, and 
	wherever sexual abuse happened, somehow we need to courageously sit and 
	talk about that, and apologize. I don’t know how that will happen.^39

Nisley’s reflections highlight one of the difficulties the Commission faced in 
trying to create a space for respectful dialogue between former residential 
school students and staff. While, in most cases, this was possible, in other 
instances, Survivors and their family members found it very difficult to listen 
to former staff, particularly if they perceived the speaker to be an apologist 
for the schools.

At the TRC Victoria Regional Event, Brother Tom Cavanaugh, the district superior 
of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate for British Columbia and the Yukon, spoke 
about his time as a supervisor at the Christie residential school. 

	What I experienced over the six years I was at Christie residential 
	school was a staff, Native and non-Native alike, working together to 
	provide as much as possible, a safe loving environment for the children 
	attending Christie school. Was it a perfect situation? No, it wasn’t a 
	perfect situation ... but again, there didn’t seem to be, at that time, 
	any other viable alternative in providing a good education for so many 
	children who lived in relatively small and isolated communities.

Survivors and family members who were present in the audience spoke out, saying, 
“Truth, tell the truth.” Brother Cavanaugh replied, “If you give me a chance, I 
will tell you the truth.” When TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair intervened to 
ask the audience to allow Brother Cavanaugh to finish his statement, he was able 
to do so without further interruption. Visibly shaken, Cavanaugh then went on to 
acknowledge that children had also been abused in the schools, and he condemned 
such actions, expressing his sorrow and regret for this breach of trust.

	I can honestly say that our men are hurting too because of the abuse 
	scandal and the rift that this has created between First Nations and 
	church representatives. Many of our men who are still working with First 
	Nations have attended various truth and reconciliation sessions as well 
	as Returning to Spirit sessions, hoping to bring about healing for all 
	concerned. The Oblates desire healing for the abused and for all touched 
	by the past breach of trust. It is our hope that together we can 
	continue to build a better society.^40

Later that same day, Ina Seitcher, who attended the Christie residential school, 
painted a very different picture of the school from what Brother Cavanaugh had 
described.

	I went to Christie residential school. This morning I heard a priest 
	talking about his Christie residential school. I want to tell him 
	[about] my Christie residential school. I went there for ten months. Ten 
	months that impacted my life for fifty years. I am just now on my 
	healing journey.... I need to do this, I need to speak out. I need to 
	speak for my mom and dad who went to residential school, for my aunts, 
	my uncles, all that are beyond now.... All the pain of our people, the 
	hurt, the anger.… That priest that talked about how loving that Christie 
	residential school was—it was not. That priest was most likely in his 
	office not knowing what was going on down in the dorms or in the 
	lunchroom.... There were things that happened at Christie residential 
	school, and like I said, I’m just starting my healing journey. There are 
	doors that I don’t even want to open. I don’t even want to open those 
	doors because I don’t know what it would do to me.^41

These two, seemingly irreconcilable, truths are a stark reminder that there are 
no easy shortcuts to reconciliation. The fact that there were few direct 
exchanges at TRC events between Survivors and former school staff indicates that 
for many, the time for reconciliation had not yet arrived. Indeed, for some, it 
may never arrive. At the Manitoba National Event in 2010, Survivor Evelyn 
Brockwood talked about why it is important to ensure that there is adequate time 
for healing to occur in the truth and reconciliation process. She said,

	When this came out at the beginning, I believe it was 1990, about 
	residential schools, people coming out with their stories, and ... I 
	thought the term, the words they were using, were truth, healing and 
	reconciliation. But somehow it seems like we are going from truth 
	telling to reconciliation, to reconcile with our white brothers and 
	sisters. My brothers and sisters, we have a lot of work to do in the 
	middle. We should really lift up the word healing.... Go slow, we are 
	going too fast, too fast.... We have many tears to shed before we even 
	get to the word reconciliation.^42

To determine the truth and to tell the full and complete story of residential 
schools in this country, the TRC needed to hear from Survivors and their 
families, former staff, government and church officials, and all those affected 
by residential schools. Canada’s national history in the future must be based on 
the truth about what happened in the residential schools. One hundred years from 
now, our children’s children and their children must know and still remember 
this history, because they will inherit from us the responsibility of ensuring 
that it never happens again.

What is reconciliation?
-----------------------

During the course of the Commission’s work, it has become clear that the concept 
of reconciliation means different things to different people, communities, 
institutions, and organizations. The TRC mandate describes reconciliation as “an 
ongoing individual and collective process, and will require commitment from all 
those affected including First Nations, Inuit and Métis former Indian 
Residential School (irs) students, their families, communities, religious 
entities, former school employees, government and the people of Canada. 
Reconciliation may occur between any of the above groups.”^43

The Commission defines reconciliation as an ongoing process of establishing and 
maintaining respectful relationships. A critical part of this process involves 
repairing damaged trust by making apologies, providing individual and collective 
reparations, and following through with concrete actions that demonstrate real 
societal change. Establishing respectful relationships also requires the 
revitalization of Indigenous law and legal traditions. It is important that all 
Canadians understand how traditional First Nations, Inuit, and Métis approaches 
to resolving conflict, repairing harm, and restoring relationships can inform 
the reconciliation process.

Traditional Knowledge Keepers and Elders have long dealt with conflicts and 
harms using spiritual ceremonies and peacemaking practices, and by retelling 
oral history stories that reveal how their ancestors restored harmony to 
families and communities. These traditions and practices are the foundation of 
Indigenous law; they contain wisdom and practical guidance for moving towards 
reconciliation across this land.^44 As First Nations, Inuit, and Métis 
communities access and revitalize their spirituality, cultures, languages, laws, 
and governance systems, and as non-Aboriginal Canadians increasingly come to 
understand Indigenous history within Canada, and to recognize and respect 
Indigenous approaches to establishing and maintaining respectful relationships, 
Canadians can work together to forge a new covenant of reconciliation.

Despite the ravages of colonialism, every Indigenous nation across the country, 
each with its own distinctive culture and language, has kept its legal 
traditions and peacemaking practices alive in its communities. While Elders and 
Knowledge Keepers across the land have told us that there is no specific word 
for “reconciliation” in their own languages, there are many words, stories, and 
songs, as well as sacred objects such as wampum belts, peace pipes, eagle down, 
cedar boughs, drums, and regalia, that are used to establish relationships, 
repair conflicts, restore harmony, and make peace. The ceremonies and protocols 
of Indigenous law are still remembered and practised in many Aboriginal 
communities.

At the TRC Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum in June 2014, TRC Survivor 
Committee member and Elder Barney Williams told us that

	from sea to sea, we hear words that allude to … what is reconciliation? 
	What does healing or forgiveness mean? And how there’s parallels to all 
	those words that the Creator gave to all the nations.… When I listen and 
	reflect on the voices of the ancestors, your ancestors, I hear my 
	ancestor alluding to the same thing with a different dialect.… My 
	understanding [of reconciliation] comes from a place and time when there 
	was no English spoken … from my grandmother who was born in the 1800s.… 
	I really feel privileged to have been chosen by my grandmother to be the 
	keeper of our knowledge.… What do we need to do? ... We need to go back 
	to ceremony and embrace ceremony as part of moving forward. We need to 
	understand the laws of our people.^45

At the same Forum, Elder Stephen Augustine explained the roles of silence and 
negotiation in Mi’kmaq law. He said silence is a concept, and can be used as a 
consequence for a wrong action or to teach a lesson. Silence is employed 
according to proper procedures, and ends at a particular time too. Elder 
Augustine suggested that there is both a place for talking about reconciliation 
and a need for quiet reflection.

Reconciliation cannot occur without listening, contemplation, meditation, and 
deeper internal deliberation. Silence in the face of residential school harms is 
an appropriate response for many Indigenous peoples. We must enlarge the space 
for respectful silence in journeying towards reconciliation, particularly for 
Survivors who regard this as key to healing. There is a place for discussion and 
negotiation for those who want to move beyond silence. Dialogue and mutual 
adjustment are significant components of Mi’kmaq law. Elder Augustine suggested 
that other dimensions of human experience—our relationships with the earth and 
all living beings—are also relevant in working towards reconciliation. This 
profound insight is an Indigenous law, which could be applied more generally.^46

Elder Reg Crowshoe told the Commission that Indigenous peoples’ world views, 
oral history traditions, and practices have much to teach us about how to 
establish respectful relationships among peoples and with the land and all 
living things. Learning how to live together in a good way happens through 
sharing stories and practising reconciliation in our everyday lives.

	When we talk about the concept of reconciliation, I think about some of 
	the stories that I’ve heard in our culture and stories are important.... 
	These stories are so important as theories but at the same time stories 
	are important to oral cultures. So when we talk about stories, we talk 
	about defining our environment and how we look at authorities that come 
	from the land and how that land, when we talk about our relationship 
	with the land, how we look at forgiveness and reconciliation is so 
	important when we look at it historically.

	We have stories in our culture about our superheroes, how we treat each 
	other, stories about how animals and plants give us authorities and 
	privileges to use plants as healing, but we also have stories about 
	practices. How would we practise reconciliation? How would we practise 
	getting together to talk about reconciliation in an oral perspective? 
	And those practices are so important.^47

As Elder Crowshoe explained further, reconciliation requires talking, but our 
conversations must be broader than Canada’s conventional approaches. 
Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, from an 
Aboriginal perspective, also requires reconciliation with the natural world. If 
human beings resolve problems between themselves but continue to destroy the 
natural world, then reconciliation remains incomplete. This is a perspective 
that we as Commissioners have repeatedly heard: that reconciliation will never 
occur unless we are also reconciled with the earth. Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous 
laws stress that humans must journey through life in conversation and 
negotiation with all creation. Reciprocity and mutual respect help sustain our 
survival. It is this kind of healing and survival that is needed in moving 
forward from the residential school experience.

[IMAGE: Truth and Reconciliation Commission Northern National Event, Inuvik, 
Northwest Territories, June 2011.]

Over the course of its work, the Commission created space for exploring the 
meanings and concepts of reconciliation. In public Sharing Circles at National 
Events and Community Hearings, we bore witness to powerful moments of truth 
sharing and humbling acts of reconciliation. Many Survivors had never been able 
to tell their own families the whole truth of what happened to them in the 
schools. At hearings in Regina, Saskatchewan, Elder Kirby Littletent said, “I 
never told, I just told my children, my grandchildren I went to boarding school, 
that’s all. I never shared my experiences.”^48

Many spoke to honour the memory of relatives who have passed on. Simone, an Inuk 
Survivor from Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut, said,

	I’m here for my parents—‘Did you miss me when I went away?’ ‘Did you cry 
	for me?’—and I’m here for my brother, who was a victim, and my niece at 
	the age of five who suffered a head injury and never came home, and her 
	parents never had closure. To this day, they have not found the grave in 
	Winnipeg. And I’m here for them first, and that’s why I’m making a 
	public statement.^49

Others talked about the importance of reconciling with family members, and 
cautioned that this process is just beginning. Patrick Etherington, a Survivor 
from St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany, Ontario, walked with his son 
and others from Cochrane, Ontario, to the National Event in Winnipeg. He said 
that the walk helped him to reconnect with his son, and that he “just wanted to 
be here because I feel this process that we are starting, we got a long ways to 
go.”^50

We saw the children and grandchildren of Survivors who, in searching for their 
own identity and place in the world, found compassion and gained new respect for 
their relatives who went to the schools, once they heard about and began to 
understand their experiences. At the Northern National Event in Inuvik, 
Northwest Territories, Maxine Lacorne said,

	As a youth, a young lady, I talk with people my age because I have a 
	good understanding. I talk to people who are residential school 
	Survivors because I like to hear their stories, you know, and it gives 
	me more understanding of my parents.… It is an honour to be here, to sit 
	here among you guys, Survivors. Wow. You guys are strong people, you 
	guys survived everything. And we’re still going to be here. They tried 
	to take us away. They tried to take our language away. You guys are 
	still here, we’re still here. I’m still here.^51

We heard about children whose small acts of everyday resistance in the face of 
rampant abuse, neglect, and bullying in the schools were quite simply heroic. At 
the TRC British Columbia National Event, Elder Barney Williams said that “many 
of us, through our pain and suffering, managed to hold our heads up … we were 
brave children.”^52 We saw old bonds of childhood friendship renewed as people 
gathered and found each other at TRC-sponsored events. Together, they remembered 
the horrors they had endured even as they recalled with pride long-forgotten 
accomplishments in various school sports teams, music, or art activities. We 
heard from resilient, courageous Survivors who, despite their traumatic 
childhood experiences, went on to become influential leaders in their 
communities and in all walks of Canadian life, including politics, government, 
law, education, medicine, the corporate world, and the arts.

We heard from officials representing the federal government that administered 
the schools. In a Sharing Circle at the Manitoba National Event, the Honourable 
Chuck Strahl (then minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada) 
said,

	Governments like to write ... policy, and they like to write 
	legislation, and they like to codify things and so on. And Aboriginal 
	people want to talk about restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, 
	about healing ... about truth. And those things are all things of the 
	heart and of relationship, and not of government policy. Governments do 
	a bad job of that.^53

Church representatives spoke about their struggles to right the relationship 
with Aboriginal peoples. In Inuvik, Anglican Archbishop Fred Hiltz told us that

	as a Church, we are renewing our commitment to work with the Assembly of 
	First Nations in addressing long-standing, Indigenous justice issues. As 
	a Church, we are requiring anyone who serves the Church at a national 
	level to go through anti-racism training.... We have a lot to do in our 
	Church to make sure that racism is eliminated.^54

Educators told us about their growing awareness of the inadequate role that 
post-secondary institutions played in training the teachers who taught in the 
schools. They have pledged to change educational practices and curriculum to be 
more inclusive of Aboriginal knowledge and history. Artists shared their ideas 
and feelings about truth and reconciliation through songs, paintings, dance, 
film, and other media. Corporations provided resources to bring Survivors to 
events, and, in some cases, some of their own staff and managers.

For non-Aboriginal Canadians who came to bear witness to Survivors’ life 
stories, the experience was powerful. One woman said simply, “By listening to 
your story, my story can change. By listening to your story, I can change.”^55

Reconciliation as relationship
------------------------------

In its 2012 Interim Report, the TRC recommended that federal, provincial, and 
territorial governments, and all parties to the Settlement Agreement, undertake 
to meet and explore the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous 
Peoples, as a framework for reconciliation in Canada. We remain convinced that 
the United Nations Declaration provides the necessary principles, norms, and 
standards for reconciliation to flourish in twenty-first-century Canada.

A reconciliation framework is one in which Canada’s political and legal systems, 
educational and religious institutions, the corporate sector and civic society 
function in ways that are consistent with the principles set out in the United 
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Canada has 
endorsed. Together, Canadians must do more than just talk about reconciliation; 
we must learn how to practise reconciliation in our everyday lives—within 
ourselves and our families, and in our communities, governments, places of 
worship, schools, and workplaces. To do so constructively, Canadians must remain 
committed to the ongoing work of establishing and maintaining respectful 
relationships.

For many Survivors and their families, this commitment is foremost about healing 
themselves, their communities, and nations, in ways that revitalize individuals 
as well as Indigenous cultures, languages, spirituality, laws, and governance 
systems. For governments, building a respectful relationship involves 
dismantling a centuries-old political and bureaucratic culture in which, all too 
often, policies and programs are still based on failed notions of assimilation. 
For churches, demonstrating long-term commitment requires atoning for actions 
within the residential schools, respecting Indigenous spirituality, and 
supporting Indigenous peoples’ struggles for justice and equity. Schools must 
teach history in ways that foster mutual respect, empathy, and engagement. All 
Canadian children and youth deserve to know Canada’s honest history, including 
what happened in the residential schools, and to appreciate the rich history and 
knowledge of Indigenous nations who continue to make such a strong contribution 
to Canada, including our very name and collective identity as a country. For 
Canadians from all walks of life, reconciliation offers a new way of living 
together.