Whose Work is Reconciliation?

Hello readers! Welcome back. In the last post, we discussed land acknowledgements. Many non-Indigenous peoples see land acknowledgements as one small step towards reconciliation. But what is reconciliation? What does it actually mean? These are the issues I want to talk about today, with a particular focus on residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Given Canada’s real history , it’s not Indigenous peoples who are responsible for reconciliation. 

As I was doing research for this post, reading articles and accounts and looking through pictures, I had a hard time. Residential schools are hard for me to research and talk about. It’s something I wish simply hadn’t happened. But it did. And even though it’s hard, we have to understand the pain and harm residential schools caused in order to make sure it never happens again. I’ve decided that even if it’s hard to learn about, I can’t stop learning. I hope you decide the same thing. Take a break if you need to but don’t pretend these events didn’t happen. That only continues to erase and ignore Indigenous history, which is the opposite of reconciliation.

Before we begin learning about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we first need to learn about residential schools.

Residential schools were instituted by the government of Canada in 1876, although the Mohawk Institute was the first to operate in 1831. In 1879 Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin’s  Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds  in which Davin stated, “If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions.”  

Residential schools were the government’s response to the continued expansion of European settlers across Canada and the increasing demand to clear the way for new settlers. The aim of residential schools was to erase Indigenous cultures, which would make taking Indigenous lands easier, through the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into the dominate white, British and French cultures.

Assimilation, the government decided, began with stealing Indigenous children from their communities and their families. Residential schools were based on Victorian poor houses combined with religious schools and prisons. Most schools were run by Catholic and other Christian churches. Converting the children to Christianity was a core component of assimilation.  

In 1920 the Indian Act was amended to make school attendance mandatory for all Indigenous children under 15. Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs and a known assimilation extremist who advocated heavily for the residential school system, stated “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone . . . Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” 

Because of the horrifying conditions of these schools the kids often rebelled. Kids would run away, if they were caught they would be punished. Kids would fight back and be punished. Kids even got together and planned to burn the school buildings down but even then new ones would be built and they would still be forced to attend.  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that between 4000 and 6000 children died in residential schools from malnutrition, lack of medical care, and disease. This number is considered conservative by many since records were often destroyed, went missing, or were simply not kept. It also ignores the children forced into Federal Indian Day Schools, who faced the same abuses. The last residential school in Canada closed in Saskatchewan in 1996. That was only 25 years ago.  

Most came back from residential school feeling broken. They didn’t know who they were anymore with their traditions forcibly taken away. At the same time, they still didn’t fit into white Canadian society. They suffered all of that hurt for so many years that they didn’t know how to process. They didn’t understand why. What did they do to have been put through that?  

As time went by one of the hardest things has to be that the rest of Canada had no idea about this state-sanctioned abuse, no concept of this attempted genocide, and have continued on like things were normal. How could the abuse of 150,000 children be considered normal? A lot of the general public still doesn’t understand what a residential school was, the atrocities committed in these schools, and the impact this system has today. This is not right. 

Again I want to emphasize that a mere 25 years ago, in 1996, the last residential school closed in  Marieval, Saskatchewan.

After years of activism and organizing, in 1991 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was created and became one of the earliest Canadian government documents that sought to make reparations for the wrongs done to Indigenous peoples. In 2006 the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was passed so that the Canadian government would financially compensate all residential school survivors. Money is not enough though, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was also formed in 2008 as part of the settlement.  

In 2009 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began its plan to listen to and document survivors’ testimonies. The Commission also gathered testimonies from victims’ families, knowledge keepers, and Indigenous communities. They wanted all those affected to have a say in how the trauma of residential schooling should be handled in the present and future.  

Survivors want this history to be remembered and acknowledged. Among the many reports and materials produced by the TRC, the 92 Calls to Action  are something I believe all Canadians should read. It lists 92 ways to bring change to Canada and work towards a reconciliation between Indigenous people and settlers.

Reconciliation is no easy task. Indigenous people want everyone in Canada to understand the pain and damage of residential schools, how our futures were ruined and how the pain is still hard to talk or even think about today. The government needs to keep and fulfill its promises made to Indigenous peoples and listen to their voice. I want you to learn more, I want you to read the calls to action and I want you to take action. Now. 

Next, we’ll look at land sovereignty. Though it may seem distant, it too is related to reconciliation, treaties, and other previous blog subjects. Land sovereignty is actually one way to reconcile problems with the colonial government. We will get more into what land sovereignty means and what it could look like.  

Built on Genocide is a large-scale installation by multidisciplinary artist Jay Soule | CHIPPEWAR, reflecting the events and policies throughout Canada’s history that have deliberately undermined and destroyed Indigenous livelihoods.

The work is influenced by the mass genocide of the buffalo as a result of the colonial railway expansion. The buffalo decimation is an underacknowledged but foundational aspect of “Canadian” history, with consequences that persist today. Built on Genocide will address the direct correlation between the genocide of the buffalo and the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada.