Survivors of survivors will be responsible for reconciliation

Reconciliation is a major concern for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, according to chair Murray Sinclair.

“So long as this settlement agreement is being implemented in the way that it’s being implemented, reconciliation is going to be very difficult for us,” Sinclair told a group of chiefs, day scholars and residential school survivors on Dec. 13, 2010.

Focus, he said, is being directed in other areas when it comes to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement to the exclusion of discussion about what reconciliation means to the parties who negotiated the settlement and how that reconciliation can be reached.
The issues that are taking precedent include how the agreement is being implemented, conflicts over the way the compensation is being paid, lack of information regarding how claims are being processed, and the exclusion of day scholars, numerous Indian residential schools and Métis residential schools.

“As a result, whenever we engage in a process of discussion about reconciliation, it is generally at a pretty superficial level,” said Sinclair.

The TRC is hoping to address that issue with a series of forums to be held across the country with survivors, their children and grandchildren and the general Canadian population.

Focusing on descendants of residential school survivors is critical, said Sinclair.

“We know that issue of reconciliation is very important for young people, because they are the ones who have spoken to us that they are constantly living with the impacts of residential schools in their lives,” said Sinclair.
Sinclair also said that youth do not fully understand the residential school experience and, because they don’t, youth have a hard time understanding that the experience is a contributing factor to the dysfunction that permeates Aboriginal society.

Residential schools are also a contributing factor to the loss of culture, language and Aboriginal identity. The impact can be seen in the high school drop-out rate for Aboriginals, and the high rate of incarceration and child welfare apprehension.

“I have said on many occasions we will not achieve reconciliation within the lifetime of this commission. What we hope to achieve as a commission is a framework for discussion for going into the future. And at the very least by the end of the term of this commission’s mandate, we will agree on what the end object of what reconciliation should be so that everything that we do to, and with, each other in the future keeps in mind what the entire objective of the whole process has got to be about,” said Sinclair.

If the objective of reconciliation is to move toward mutual respect between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, that is the discussion that needs to take place, he said. That discussion needs to include how to enable Aboriginal people, in particular young Aboriginal people, to gain self-respect.

“We are going to be challenging each of the parties of the settlement agreement what reconciliation means to them, and ask them if they are prepared to talk publically about their objective insofar as to what reconciliation is about so reconciliation at an institutional level can proceed forward as well,” said Sinclair.

As important as it is to come to an agreement about reconciliation at an institutional level, it’s just as important to keep the discussion focused at the personal level.

“Survivors of survivors have to be a major focus of our efforts when it comes to reconciliation because they are the ones to whom we are going to give the responsibility to bring about reconciliation in the future,” said Sinclair.