The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) in 2008. Nine provincial and territorial superior courts approved the Agreement. The parties to the Settlement agreement appointed three Commissioners: the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair as Chair, Chief Wilton Littlechild and Dr. Marie Wilson. The IRSSA also created the Indian Residential School Survivor Committee (IRSSC) to provide an Indigenous perspective, voice, and support for the Commission. All the parties to the IRSSA supported the TRC through its mandate.
Statement gathering was a core component of the TRC mission. TRC gathered statements in social events highlighting community engagement and historical remembrance. The largest and highest profile of these were the seven National Events held in Winnipeg, Inuvik, Halifax, Saskatoon, Montréal, Vancouver, and Edmonton between June 2010 and March 2014. The Commission estimates 155,000 people visited the seven National Events; over 9,000 residential school Survivors registered to attend them (while many others attended but did not register). To maximize its engagement with Indigenous communities the Commission also held 238 days of local hearings in seventy-seven communities across the country. The Commission also sponsored “town halls” on reconciliation as a means to draw a greater number of visitors into conversation with the TRC. Residential school Survivors, relatives, and concerned individuals contributed over 6,750 statements describing the legacy and experience of residential schools. This included Sharing Circles and Sharing Panels, held at national, regional and community events as well as Commission hearings. The Commission also made a concerted effort to gather statements from former staff of residential schools. With the assistance of the church parties to the Settlement Agreement, the Commission conducted ninety-six separate interviews with former staff and the children of former staff. In recognition of the negative developmental effects of residential schooling, and the corresponding high rates of Indigenous incarceration, the Commission visited correctional institutions in Kenora, Ontario, and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories to collect witness testimonies. To account for the personal difficulties of providing testimony, the Commission ensured Health-support workers, were present everywhere the Commission gathered statements. The Commission highlighted the profound spiritual significance of statement gathering as a personal gift by also accepting gifts of personal items from Survivors, relatives, and allies. Often these gifts were donated in ceremony; the gifts placed in the Commission’s Bentwood Box in recognition of their enduring spiritual values for Indigenous peoples. The Commission accepted over 800 items donated to the Bentwood Box, supplementing the spiritual gifts of witnessing.
Historical document collection was another vital element of the TRC mission. The TRC acquired records from both church archives and government records repositories to create “as complete an historical record as possible of the IRS system and legacy.” Church and government recalcitrance made the challenge to acquire this diversity of records difficult. Under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the federal government and the churches were obliged to turn over relevant documents in their possession to the Commission. On three occasions, the TRC was obliged to seek court direction to resolve disputes concerning church and government records repositories’ obligation to deliver relevant documents. In January 2013 the Supreme Court of Ontario ruled Library and Archives Canada (LAC) was required to organize and produce to the Commission several million documents in its possession. Less than a year later the TRC sought court direction to acquire federal government and Ontario Provincial Police records concerning student abuse at the Fort Albany Residential School. Finally, the TRC unsuccessfully consulted court direction to acquire the records of the Independent Assessment Process (IAP). This was an adjudicative process for financial compensation to residential school Survivors who suffered serious abuse at residential schools. After several court hearings, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in October 2017, the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat (IRSAS), the office responsible for administering the IAP process and managing the records, would hold the records for a 15-year period. In this time, the IRSAS would initiate a notice program to give the opportunity for the 38,000 witnesses to express their intention to have their testimony preserved for future generations at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). After this period, if witnesses had not expressed a decision on the disposition of their evidence, the records would be destroyed.
The IRSSA assigned the TRC responsibility to educate Canadian society on the history and legacy of the residential school program. The Commission took a student centred approach to its education mandate. Starting with the third National Event in Halifax, and at all subsequent National Events, the Commission invited local schools to send students to take part in a day of learning. The Commission set up Learning Places at most national and regional events. These included presentations and cultural performances, panel discussions and workshops, and student displays. In all, more than 15,000 students participated the Learning Places. The NCTR has preserved most of this material. The Commission also engaged with international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Centre for Transitional Justice, and a number of university law faculties. In the final year of its mandate, the Commission organized two events to gather additional information for its report. It held a Traditional Knowledge Keepers Forum to learn how traditional Aboriginal knowledge can contribute to reconciliation. It also organized, with the support of Égale Canada Human Rights Trust, a forum with members of the Two Spirit community to discuss the unique experiences of residential schools. The Commission also released an Interim Report in 2012. The Report provided preliminary findings and recommendations. It also released a short history of residential schools, entitled They Came for the Children. The Interim Report highlighted the significant absence of residential school history in school curricula. Following the Report, the Commission made it a priority to meet with provincial and territorial education ministers to advocate for the development of curriculum on the legacy of residential schools and the mandatory adoption of that curriculum in all jurisdictions.
Communication initiatives were another important focus of the Commission. The Settlement Agreement allocated $20 million for commemoration initiatives. The Commission recommended 152 projects to the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development for funding, and 143 projects were approved. The Commission issued a separate call for proposals for community events and allocated funding to approved projects up to a maximum of $15,000 per event. The TRC supported seventy-five community events, which were designed to promote healing and reconciliation.
Schedule N of the IRSSA assigned the Commission responsibility to create a national research centre to preserve and make accessible all the material created and accumulated as part of its work. The centre is intended to be accessible to Survivors, their families, and communities, as well as to the general public. The Commission reviewed a number of proposals for housing the research centre and, in June 2013, announced that the University of Manitoba had been selected to become the permanent host of the NCTR. The NCTR would be a living archive, a place of engagement and recognition. It would provide a house of social memory that supports the authority of Elders and traditional knowledge keepers responsible for safeguarding and using traditional knowledge with the appropriate protocols of language, environment, and spirituality. The NCTR’s decolonizing archive would offer a safe and accessible locale for Indigenous peoples to learn of and freely express their views of the legacy of the residential school experience, and for a settler society to listen, acknowledge and reconcile.
Finally, in June 2015, the TRC concluded its assignment with a closing ceremony in Ottawa where it announced the release of its multi-volume final report.
2009-2015
2008-2015
Between 2010 - 2015
2010-2015
2010-2015
2010-01-01 - 2015-12-31
2015-12-15