scholarly journals The Inuit presence at the first Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission national event

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Gadoua
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
School System ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Residential Schooling

This paper addresses various forms of healing and reconciliation among Canadian Inuit and First Nations, in regards to the Indian residential school system and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Stemming from fieldwork at the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg (June 2010), I present observations that are supplemented by previous studies on Aboriginal healing methods in Canada. Although Inuit and First Nations healing and reconciliation strategies are based on common themes—tradition and community—in practice they diverge notably, both in their principles and in their applications. First Nations seek healing by activating a sense of community that often transcends their specific cultural group or nation, using pan-Indian spiritual traditions and ceremonies. In contrast, the Inuit most commonly seek to preserve and promote specific Inuit traditions and identity as tools in their healing practices. This divergence could be seen in Inuit and First Nations’ participation in the TRC. The creation of the Inuit sub-commission within the TRC in March 2010, resulting from intense lobbying by Inuit leaders, was a first sign of the group’s distinctive approach to healing. But the unfolding of the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg showed again how these differences materialise in practice and contribute to a better understanding of Inuit responses to the repercussions of their colonial past and strategies for healing from the legacy of residential schooling.

scholarly journals Off to School: Filmic False Equivalence and Indian Residential School Scholarship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Comme Point ◽  
National Film Board ◽  
Residential Schooling

This article uses two short, mid-twentieth century documentaries produced by the National Film Board of Canada as an entry point into charting popular and scholarly representations of Indian residential schools. The article begins with a close reading of one 1958 film followed by an overview of how scholarship has changed over the last fifty years, particularly alongside and sometimes because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The article advocates centring survivor testimony and provides major turns in considering as well as teaching about residential schooling and settler colonialism in Canada as well as ways of how to teach about and learn from it. The article concludes with a close reading of a second film, produced in 1971 by Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, which offers a decidedly different perspective from the film discussed at the beginning of the article.RésuméCet article utilise deux courts documentaires produits par l’Office national du film à l’époque du centenaire de la Confédération comme point de départ permettant d’étudier les représentations populaires et universitaires des pensionnats indiens. L’article s’amorce sur une lecture attentive d’un film de 1958, puis propose un aperçu des changements survenus dans la littérature académique au cours des cinquante dernières années, en particulier grâce à la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada. Il met l’accent sur le témoignage des survivants et propose des changements importants, à la fois dans la façon de comprendre le système des pensionnats et le colonialisme canadien, de même que sur les façons de l’enseigner et les leçons à en tirer. L’article se termine par l’analyse d’un second film produit en 1971par la cinéaste Abénaquis Alanis Obomsawin, qui offre une perspective très différente de celui tourné en 1958.

scholarly journals Reconciliation and Conflict: A Review of Practice

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 831
Author(s):  
Emily Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indian Residential Schools ◽  
Ongoing Dialogue ◽  
Concurrent Events

In this article I provide a review of two connected events.  The first is the conference "Prairie Perspectives on Indian Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation," which was held in June 2010 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  This conference was just one of many concurrent events taking place at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's first national event.  Specific themes and aspects of the conference are covered here.  Secondly, I parallel my discussion of the conference to my experiences with the national event - experiences can be complex and do not happen in isolation from the broader context around them. Overall, I argue that while the conference and the national event made some meaningful contributions to ongoing dialogue about reconciliation in Canada, it is clear that understanding how to deal with and discuss the conflict that arises from discussions of residential school, "race relations," and reconciliation more broadly is an ongoing learning experience.  I offer some recommendations concerning how conflict could be better dealt with at future conferences and national events.  Reconciliation processes can be more effective if there is not only space for dissent but, most importantly, that mechanisms are in place for encouraging productive discussions about the conflict that arises and that will continue to arise.

scholarly journals Jordan’s Principle: Reconciliation and the First Nations Child

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Colleen Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Nations Child ◽  
The Individual

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was mandated to “document the individual and collective harms” of residential schools and to “guide and inspire a process of truth and healing, leading toward reconciliation.”  The stories of survivors revealed the intergenerational and egregious harms of taking children from their families and communities. In seeking to redress the legacy of the residential schools era, the TRC Calls to Action include greater recognition of self-governance of Indigenous Peoples, as well as numerous recommendations for equitable funding of health, educational, and child welfare services.

scholarly journals Land and storytelling: Indigenous pathways towards healing, spiritual regeneration and resurgence

2021 ◽  
pp. 002198942110317
Author(s):  
Francesca Mussi
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Land Dispossession ◽  
History Of ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Indigenous Perspective ◽  
Deep Sense

This article aims to contribute to discourses of healing, Indigenous resurgence and spiritual regeneration within the context of the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission that took place in Canada between 2008 and 2015. First, it considers to what extent the TRC’s restorative justice process can relate to Indigenous ways of conceptualising healing. Secondly, it reflects on the Commission’s exclusive focus on the Indian Residential School system and its legacies, which, according to many Indigenous scholars, overlooks a much broader and more complex history of colonisation, political domination, and land dispossession still ongoing. I underline that, from an Indigenous perspective, land plays a fundamental role to achieve healing, spiritual regeneration, and resurgence. In the last section, I move the discussion to the literary dimension as I explore Richard Wagamese’s 2012 novel Indian Horse. In particular, I argue that fiction, especially that fiction produced during the years of the Commission’s work, can be a crucial site for challenging the TRC’s restorative process and for bringing out the significance of storytelling and of an Indigenous deep sense of connection to the land as a source of learning, spiritual reclaiming, and healing.

scholarly journals Recognizing Settler Ignorance in the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Cook
Keyword(s):  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Politics Of Recognition ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
White Ignorance

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been mandated to collect testimonies from survivors of the Indian Residential Schools system. The TRC demands survivors of the residential school system to share their personal narratives under the assumption that the sharing of narratives will inform the Canadian public of the residential school legacy and will motivate a transformation of settler identity. I contend, however, that the TRC provides a concrete example of how a politics of recognition fails to transform relationships between Native and settler Canadians not only because it enacts an internalization of colonial recognition, but because it fails to account for what I call “settler ignorance.” Work in epistemologies of ignorance and epistemic oppression gives language to explain sustained denial and provide tools to further understand how settler denial is sustained, and how it can be made visible, and so challenged. For this task, Mills’s articulation of white ignorance should be expanded to a consideration of white settler ignorance. Over and above an account of white ignorance, such an account will have to consider the underlying logics of settler colonialism. This characterization of settler ignorance will show that the denial of past and ongoing violence against Indigenous peoples, through the reconstruction of the past to assert the primacy of settlers, is not explainable in terms of a lack of recognition but is rather structural ignorance.

Media Practices and Painful Pasts: The Public Testimonial in Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2013 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda J. Brady
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Aboriginal Children ◽  
Media Practices

From the 1870s through the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were enrolled in government-funded, church-run Indian Residential Schools (IRS) in Canada. The schools reflected policies aimed at assimilating Aboriginal peoples into majority culture. Many Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuses. As part of its Mandate, Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collects testimonials from residential school survivors in various mediated forms to create a historical record. This article explores the TRC's public statement-gathering process and the ways in which media practices shape and guide testimonials. It argues that the TRC encourages particular survivor narratives as it signals to speakers that they should anticipate the norms and uses of media and narrative guidelines. However, there is a layer of meta-narrative common in TRC statements, suggesting resistance to and subversion of the process. This article considers the nuances of First Nations testimonials against the backdrop of storytelling traditions.

scholarly journals The Creation of the CFLA/FCAB Truth and Reconciliation Committee: The First Report

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Smith
Keyword(s):  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
First Report ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Le Canada ◽  
Indigenous Elders

One of the top priorities of the newly formed Canadian Federation of Libraries Associations/Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques (CFLA/FCAB) was to create a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to promote initiatives in all types of libraries to advance reconciliation by supporting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, and to support collaboration in these issues across the Canadian library communities. Thus, this first committee was formed with representatives of the CFLA/FCAB Board and library association’s nominees from all across Canada. From the beginning, the Committee worked with Indigenous leaders and sought the guidance of Indigenous Elders. This paper presents a summary of this Committee creation, organization, and work, as well as the recommendations to the CFLA/FCAB Board. L’une des principales priorités de la Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques (FCAB), qui a été récemment mise sur pied, est la création d’une comité de vérité et de réconciliation afin de promouvoir des initiatives dans tous les milieux de bibliothèque pour faire avancer la réconciliation en appuyant les appels à l’action de la Commission de vérité et de réconciliation du Canada et en appuyant la collaboration concernant ces enjeux parmi la communauté des bibliothèques au Canada. Alors, le premier comité a été formé avec des représentants du conseil d’administration de la FCAB et des associations des bibliothèques à travers le Canada. Dès le début, le comité travaille avec des leaders autochtones et recherche les conseils des ainés autochtones. Cet article présente un sommaire de la création, de l’organisation et du travail du comité ainsi que des recommandations au conseil de la FCAB.

scholarly journals Where are you From? Reframing Facilitated Admissions Policies in the Faculty of Health Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle N. Soucy ◽  
Cornelia Wieman
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Medical School Admissions ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Blood Quantum ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Specific Barriers ◽  
Indigenous Learners

Understanding that Indigenous learners can face specific barriers or challenges when pursuing higher education, schools and programs within McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences have facilitated admissions streams for Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) applicants. The intent of reframing admissions policies is to provide equitable access while aligning with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, specifically Number 23. This work explores the development of an Indigenous-determined Facilitated Indigenous Admissions Program (FIAP), a self-identification policy that moves away from the politics of mathematical blood quantum to nationhood, community, and seeing the applicant as whole being. Further, it critiques (for example) medical school admissions as biased, in that they often replicate an elite and narrow segment of society. It also addresses how interpretations of decisions like Daniels v Canada, which speaks to the rights of Métis and non-status Indigenous peoples, are communicated or miscommunicated within emerging population groups in terms of rights and their potential relationship to admissions.

scholarly journals Re-Thinking Housing: From Physical Manifestation of Colonial Planning Policy to Community-Focused Networks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelagh McCartney
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Housing System ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Housing Systems ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Existing Housing ◽  
Physical Manifestation

Current housing systems and policies for First Nations communities in Canada produce a physical manifestation of ongoing colonialism: the house. Examinations of the physical community and house yield an understanding of deeply systematized imperial struggles between Indigenous communities and planning as a discipline. Indigenous families are in crisis as the housing system and Federal planning policies have not allowed for the provision of adequate nor appropriate homes. The recent independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission has begun a civic discussion, accompanied by a new federal government looking to begin a new relationship with Indigenous peoples—here we explore how planning can be a leader in this shift. The ‘contact zone’ is used as an operational lens to examine the ways discourse is used to shape the existing housing system. An interdisciplinary and global approach informs interventions in the existing housing system and policies, creating a community-driven model, and uncovering a reimagined role for the planner.

scholarly journals Re-Thinking Housing: From Physical Manifestation of Colonial Planning Policy to Community-Focused Networks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelagh McCartney
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Housing System ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Housing Systems ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Existing Housing ◽  
Physical Manifestation

Current housing systems and policies for First Nations communities in Canada produce a physical manifestation of ongoing colonialism: the house. Examinations of the physical community and house yield an understanding of deeply systematized imperial struggles between Indigenous communities and planning as a discipline. Indigenous families are in crisis as the housing system and Federal planning policies have not allowed for the provision of adequate nor appropriate homes. The recent independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission has begun a civic discussion, accompanied by a new federal government looking to begin a new relationship with Indigenous peoples—here we explore how planning can be a leader in this shift. The ‘contact zone’ is used as an operational lens to examine the ways discourse is used to shape the existing housing system. An interdisciplinary and global approach informs interventions in the existing housing system and policies, creating a community-driven model, and uncovering a reimagined role for the planner.

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