By the 1990s, Indigenous resistance to settler programs of assimilation had gained significant legal and political results. Indigenous peoples had moved beyond struggles for simple recognition of culture and identity to issues of political status and unique collective rights. The federal government responded with general policies designed to address Indigenous status and sovereignty. To guide this dialogue, Indigenous leadership called for institutions to support a national process of reconciliation and propose a new federal model to engage Indigenous societies in an era of self-determination.
A key component of Indigenous self-determination is a full acknowledgment of the legacy and history of colonial harms. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) supported this approach, recommending an Indigenous research centre of national status to investigate the Indigenous residential school experience. In this context, the 2008 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) created the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) to preserve and make available the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) six years of research into the history and legacy of residential schools.
The TRC did extensive research to plan the NCTR. In March 2011, the Commission held an international conference in Vancouver to discuss the needs, principles, and plans for an Indigenous guided national research centre. Following the Vancouver conference the TRC announced a call for submissions from institutions to host the NCTR [link to application form]. The TRC also held two national conference calls to address any questions and provide additional information for prospective hosts. In June 2013, the Commission chose the University of Manitoba to host the NCTR in partnership with several universities across the country including the University of British Columbia, Lakehead University, and Dalhousie University. The University of Manitoba met several important criteria: it is a public body subject to provincial privacy legislation; it has a long experience of Indigenous engagement; Indigenous research is core pillar of the University’s long-term strategy; and it had funding and resources to support the maintenance and development of the Centre. With a location selected, the TRC created the directives to administer the Centre. The Commission created a Trust Deed with the University of Manitoba to transfer the records to the NCTR and confirm the NCTRs archival responsibilities. Since the role of the TRC would end, this agreement ensured the parties to the IRSSA would be capable of enforcing the University’s responsibilities for the NCTR and the records it held. The Trust Deed was signed on June 21, 2013. The Commission and University addressed the administrative functions of the NCTR in the Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Administrative Agreement, also signed on June 21st. The Administrative Agreement ensured Indigenous worldviews and perspectives would guide the Centre. Article 8 of this agreement observes a Governing Circle of seven members would inform the NCTR. At all times, the Governing Circle would be comprised predominantly of Indigenous representatives. In article 13, the Administrative Agreement provides for a Survivors’ Circle. This is a group of seven Residential School (RS) Survivors, their families or ancestors. The Survivors’ Circle would provide advice to the Governing Circle, the University, and the Partners to the IRSSA, on any matters concerning the Centre. Finally, the NCTR Act enacted in July 2015, set out the access and privacy laws that apply to Centre records and the authority of the Director to make records available. To fulfill its education mandate the NCTR works closely with educators from a variety of sectors including the K-12 system, the public service, private industry, and post-secondary institutions to provide access to materials and resources that aid all Canadians in moving toward reconciliation. The NCTR works with many groups, classes, and other visitors at the Centre to provide educational and learning opportunities. Educational presentations, workshops and tours of the Centre and gallery are made freely available to visitors and the education team regularly delivers sessions in communities across the country.
The NCTR is responsible to preserve for generations the material evidence of the history and legacy of the RS system. The Centre must preserve these records, both analogue and digital, in a manner that is meaningful to its principal community of concern: RS Survivors and their relations. By the fall of 2015, the NCTR had received all the materials from the TRC in all formats. Over 90% of the TRCs records were digital. The NCTR accessioned over 1397 hours of digital AV testimony, over 30,000 photos, and over five million textual items. The records totaled over 190 terabytes. The TRC acquired digital copies of records from over 120 church and government records repositories. These institutions used diverse arrangement, description and preservation policies and procedures. The NCTR arranged and created preservation master copies for all its digital material and migrated all records onto an open source digital preservation platform to guarantee the records remain trustworthy for generations.
The NCTR’s preservation program coordinates with a detailed access program, another IRSSA assignment. Several factors inform the NCTR’s access program. These include the ethical concerns to respect the cultural and traditional rights of the RS Survivors; the privacy rights of everyone depicted in the NCTR records; and the need to promote education, commemoration, acknowledgement, and reconciliation.
The NCTR designed its most important access protocol for RS Survivors and intergenerational Survivors. This access is exhaustive and comprehensive. Survivors can contact the NCTR and expect a report identifying all the residential school records documenting an individual student. Since 2015, the Centre has received approximately 938 Survivor Inquiries. These are formal requests for student histories by Survivors or related third parties. They represent the most personal and meaningful interaction with the NCTRs holdings.
For the academic research community, access to the records of the NCTR Archives must be of benefit of Indigenous communities. The Centre expects Indigenous research methodologies and frameworks to inform academic research projects. Indigenous research methodology must be premised on Indigenous knowledge models: the social relationships that produce, share, and care for Indigenous knowledge. For example, a study concerning Plains Cree peoples would benefit from a relationship with local community; it would be insightful and meaningful to consider Nehiyaw Kiskeyihtamowin (Plains Cree tribal knowledge); it would acknowledge the teachings of local Elders; recognize and consider the social relationships that create, exchange, and perpetuate local tribal knowledge. An Academic Access Committee considers and invigilates all academic applications to consult the records of the NCTR Archives. Composed of Indigenous representatives, this Committee ensures the NCTRs archival records are used in a manner respectful and useful for Indigenous communities. The Committee ensures the academic research access to the NCTR records continues the mission of national education and reconciliation.
Under IRSSA direction, access to NCTR records must follow access and privacy legislation. The TRC operated under federal privacy legislation. The NCTR Act ensures the Manitoba Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act applies to the NCTR. The NCTR Act sets out the access and privacy laws that apply to Centre’s records. The four founding documents of the NCTR - the Trust Deed, the Administrative Agreement, the NCTR Act, and the IRSSA - all direct the Centre to observe this provincial privacy legislation. All NCTR records related policies respect the guidelines of Manitoba FIPPA.
Research is another vital NCTR assignment. The TRC’s 94 Calls to Action, the recommended activities for a future decolonized Canada, frame the principles of the NCTRs research program. Following this framework, the NCTR’s most significant research project to date is the investigation of children lost while under the responsibility of residential school authorities. This addresses the TRC’s Calls to Action 71 to 76. This investigation began with the TRC under the Working Group on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. The NCTR staff has continued this research with the financial support of the federal government. In September 2019, the NCTR released a commemorative web site to honour the children lost at residential school and the relations they left behind. The Centre has also developed a register of information to profile each lost child. Research into lost Indigenous schoolchildren, and their commemoration, will continue. This work will be a foundation for future research into the unmarked gravesites of residential schoolchildren.
The NCTR is assuming a role as an international Indigenous institution of research and an advocate for Indigenous rights. There is an immanent international environment where the NCTR can take a global leadership role on questions of preserving, curating and studying the public memory of colonization, Indigenous self-determination, and restorative justice. This observation is underscored by numerous international visits to the NCTR from delegations from across the globe wishing to learn more about the NCTR’s work. Since May 2014, the NCTR has received over 30 international inquiries on the work of the NCTR from government offices, graduate students, NGOs and a large number of academic researchers from around the world. Countries include Germany, New Zealand, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, England, Lebanon, and Colombia. In June 2019, the Canadian Committee for the UNESCO Memory of the World programme unanimously endorsed the NCTR’s application to include the NCTR archives in the CCUNESCO Memory of the World Register. The NCTR has also participated in the drafting of Tadanya, the Adelaide Declaration, the International Council of Archives first declaration on Indigenous matters.
The NCTR is a cultural and research institution of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. It works to reinvigorate Indigenous traditions, languages, and philosophies. The NTRC continues to provide opportunity to repossess lost identities in a respectful public forum, to find their voices in these records and engage in the multigenerational project to reconcile the relationship between Indigenous and settler societies.