The Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Addressing the question of whether the TRC Report is a reliable history

 

Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

                                 

This is a guest post By D. Barry Kirkham QC     

From Truth Comes Reconciliation:  Assessing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, Rodney Clifton and Mark DeWolf, editors (z-lib.org), published online in 2021 by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 343 pages.  Available on Amazon.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) published its Report in 2015.  The Report purports to be the definitive history of indigenous residential schools in Canada (IRS). (1)  Certainly, it has been treated as if it were.  Virtually all commentary from the media, government and universities has accepted it as gospel. 

The Report was denunciatory in the extreme in respect to IRS. It has been profoundly influential. For example, the tearing down of statues of John A Macdonald can be traced to the fact that IRS were initiated under his government. (The people who seek to cancel John A ignore the fact that Canada was committed in various treaties to provide aboriginals with an education, and IRS were the only means to fulfill that obligation in respect to small reserves without the population to justify a day school.  They also ignore the fact that John A did not make attendance at IRS mandatory). Egerton Ryerson, a famous educator, has been cancelled due to his support in the middle of the 19th century for government sponsored education facilities to teach agrarian techniques to aboriginals, despite the fact he had nothing to do with the IRS system commenced in Canada in 1883. (2)  Senator Lynn Beyak, who stated that while IRS did considerable harm, they also did some good, was removed from the Senate’s Aboriginal Peoples Committee and from the Conservative caucus, for the mere suggestion that IRS were anything but an unmitigated evil.

Internationally, Canada’s reputation has been stained.  The United Nations has called Canada onto the carpet and dictatorships such as Russia and China have been delighted to deflect criticisms of their own human rights violations by pointing to the TRC’s denunciations of IRS.    The absurd accusation of “mass graves” could never have gained traction but for the TRC’s having created a climate where such an outrageous claim could seem plausible.

The TRC performed a valuable public service in taking extensive testimony concerning the history of residential schools.  It provided the opportunity for Aboriginals who had suffered greatly from abuses perpetrated at the schools to tell their story.  The Report is comprehensive, to say the least, in summarizing all things that went wrong.    It is not the purpose of this essay to address the 94 recommendations made by the Report, nor to advocate a favourable view of IRS.  Rather the purpose is to address the question of whether the TRC Report is a reliable history.

In From Truth Comes Reconciliation: Assessing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (“the Assessment”), Clifton and DeWolf and eight others (3), who worked on the project over several years, demonstrate that the TRC Report is not a fair and balanced history of IRS.  The Assessment acknowledges that there is much truth in the Report but points out that its bias and incendiary claims “display a contempt for truth that helps to make a reader suspicious of anything else the Commission asserts.” (p. 132).  They make it clear that their objective is not to denounce the TRC but to provide a good faith critique and restore balance to the legacy of IRS.  There is much of importance in this contribution to Canadian history.

The Genesis of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Professor J. R. Miller has written a comprehensive review of how Canada came to confront the unhappy legacy of residential schools:  Residential Schools and Reconciliation. (4)  The federal government announced in 1969 that it intended to phase out residential schools.  By the 1980s the various churches that had run the schools commenced a reassessment of their work, recognizing they had failed in many respects.  Apologies were issued.  The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) sat between 1992 and 1996.  Its lengthy report dealt with most aspects of Canadian treatment of Aboriginals.  It heard much testimony concerning terrible experiences some native children had experienced at residential schools.  In its report it recommended a further inquiry.  One consequence of the RCAP was the creation of the Aboriginal Healing Centre.  Funded with $600,000,000 of public money, the AHC worked on the process of healing “survivors” of the schools. In the period 2003-2012 it published several books on the history of IRS, which were made available throughout Canada free of charge.  

In the 1990s revelations of abuse at residential schools began to surface.  Some criminal convictions were obtained against the worst perpetrators of sexual and nonsexual assaults. A torrent of civil litigation followed. By 1999 thousands of legal actions had been commenced (Miller at p. 99 states there were over 5,500, whereas the Assessment reports 11,000, p. 98).  Class action lawyers became very active importuning natives to sign on to various lawsuits.  Eventually all parties managed to negotiate the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, 2005 (“IRSSA”).  

 Every Indigenous student who attended a residential school was entitled to a payment of $10,000 plus $3,000 for each year of attendance, for merely being an IRS student (the “common experience” payment).  If a student alleged abuse the student would receive substantial additional compensation (the” Independent Assessment Process”).  This process invited former students to file a claim listing all complaints of abuse.    Compensation was awarded on a points system.  The more complaints, the higher the compensation. The claims were not investigated with much scrutiny (Assessment p. 46).   Many former students received awards of over $100,000 and some awards were as high as $450,000.  (Assessment p. 37 and 102, Miller, chapter 6).

One of the terms of the IRSSA was that Canada would establish a commission to conduct a full investigation into IRS.  The primary mandate of such commission was to provide a complete historical record. The establishment of the TRC was the fulfilment of that commitment. 

The South African Precedent

There have been several Truth and Reconciliation Commissions established throughout the world in the 21st century.  They have drawn their inspiration from South Africa. Both the Canadian and South African commissions were charged with the momentous task of determining the true history of events where there would inevitably be much disagreement and varying interpretations.   However, there are profound differences in the approaches of the two commissions. 

The story of the South African TRC is told by its vice-chair, Alex Boraine, A Country Unmasked (Oxford University Press, 2000).

The first major difference was in the selection of the members of the Commission.   President Nelson Mandela refused to appoint the commissioners until a rigorous process was followed.  An independent committee was formed which sought out potential commissioners. It held public hearings.   After vetting 299 potential commissioners, it submitted 25 names to Mandela.  Mandela appointed 17 commissioners, choosing from a broad range of experiences, so as to ensure the Commission represented a full range of society.  In South Africa, the commission was not packed with adherents of the African National Congress (ANC).   

The IRSSA stipulated that “consideration shall be given to at least one of the three commissioners being an Aboriginal.”  Appointments were made by Order-in-Council.   The chief commissioner, Justice Murray Sinclair, was an aboriginal. The other two commissioners were Chief Wilton Littlechild and Dr. Marie Wilson, who is married to an aboriginal.   All three are distinguished Canadians but there was no attempt to appoint anyone who might have a view that IRS were anything other than an unmitigated evil.  The TRC report commences with a mission statement from each of the three commissioners.   Chairman Sinclair leaves no doubt where he stands.   He denounces IRS in the harshest possible terms and attributes virtually every single problem experienced by Canadian aboriginals to IRS. 

The second major difference between the two TRCs is that the South African commission was mandated to discover the full truth as to violations of human rights no matter who committed them.  While this was a contentious point at the commencement of the process, Mandela wanted a truthful history from the Commission.  The Commission insisted that it hear evidence about human rights violations committed by members of the ANC.  For example, the Commission spent 9 days of hearings investigating the reign of terror perpetrated by Mandela’s wife, Winnie, and her United Football Club, during the time Mandela was incarcerated. The commission also insisted on investigating the covert operations of the Kwa Zula-Natal.  There was a clear commitment to producing a reliable history in the belief that only such a history could produce a basis for reconciliation.  

Of course, South Africa had the gift of leadership from the man who was and is the very embodiment of truth and reconciliation.  Nelson Mandela inspired not just South Africa but the entire world.

Boraine summarizes the purpose of the Commission this way (p. 295);

     “What a truth commission can do, and what the South African Commission certainly attempted to do, is to seek not only knowledge, acknowledgement, and accountability, but also restoration.  One of the primary motivations for and objectives of the Commission was to bring about a measure of healing to a very deeply divided society in which many citizens have been severely hurt. The search for reconciliation and restoration is in my view an integral part of coming to terms with the present…We come to terms with the past not to point a finger or to engage in a witch hunt but to bring about accountability and to try and restore a community which for scores of years has been broken.”

The South Africa Commission sought testimony from the violated and the violators.  It was uniquely bestowed with the power to grant amnesty to violators who agreed to confess to the full truth of their sins. 

There has been almost no criticism of the South African TRC’s factual findings as to what occurred during apartheid.  Consistent with its mandate and balanced group of commissioners, it produced a fair and balanced history of a despicable regime which practiced not only apartheid, but tyranny, torture and even murder in pursuit of its goals.   

In contrast, the Canadian TRC’s was given a biased mandate--- “to reveal to Canadians the complex truth and the ongoing legacy of the church-run residential schools, in a manner that fully documents the individual and collective harms perpetuated against Aboriginal peoples.”   (Assessment p. 160) There is no doubt it pursued that mandate to the letter.

The Process Followed by the TRC

The TRC held hearings throughout Canada over three years.   The purpose was to hear the stories of anyone who wanted to appear.  Aboriginals with favourable and unfavourable experiences told their stories, as did former employees at the schools.  There was no power of subpoena.  Nor was there cross-examination.  Witnesses could tell their stories either in public or private. Over 6,000 witnesses appeared.  In many cases a hostile environment existed which deterred any person with a favourable story from appearing.  The environment encouraged former students to provide the most lurid accounts, and in some case to change their story from a previously favourable version (Assessment p. 108).

Brian Giesbrecht, a former Manitoba superior court judge, and one of the contributors to the Assessment, concludes that some of the testimony would not withstand cross-examination.  He comments that the TRC “showed a lack of concern with the truthfulness of the evidence.” (p. 173) 

Volumes 1-4 of the TRC report record the testimonies, some of which came from witnesses who had good things to say about their experiences.  A serious problem arises with the Report’s summary, contained in volumes 5 and 6, entitled Legacy and Reconciliation, as well as with the introduction to Vol 1. 

Chairman Sinclair provided this assessment of his Commission’s report:

“(The TRC) will provide Canadians with a permanent record that weaves all experiences, all perspectives into the fabric of truth.”

The Assessment rigorously challenges the validity of Sinclair’s self-congratulatory claim to have woven the “fabric of truth.”   

Certainly, the TRC had sufficient resources available to perform its task well.   It spent $60,000,000 of public money over six years.  The report is 3,500 pages. 

Yet the Assessment concludes at p xviii:

“…Surprisingly—and more than a little disheartening—the Commission’s Summary and Legacy volumes do not adequately or even-handedly summarize the material that is found in the other four volumes.  Given the amount of media coverage these two volumes seem to have received, this is a grave concern.

Another issue is that the number of negative generalizations stated in the Summary and Legacy volumes are not supported by evidence presented in the other volumes.  Testimony that is favourable to the IRS system, collected from school administrators, employees, and non-Indigenous IRS students, is provided in many volumes, but these testimonies and their significance are absent from the crucial Summary and Legacy volumes.  Consequently, those two highly publicized volumes appear to be not much more than biased interpretations of the Commission’s findings.

The TRC Report also makes a number of incendiary claims that go well beyond the actual evidence the Commission collected.  Many of these claims appear designed to inflame readers’ emotions rather than present well-reasoned and balanced information and arguments.”

The Assessment proceeds to fully document these criticisms. Professor J. R. Miller, the foremost expert on residential schools, and generally a supporter of the TRC, also commented on the harshness of Vols 5 and 6, compared to the testimony actually taken. Miller added, “The Final Report contained far too many errors, some of them serious.”  (5)

Genocide

The TRC Report commences with an interpretation of Canadian policy towards Aboriginals.  The Report stakes its ground at the very outset of Volume 1, with the conclusion that, “The central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal people to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada.”  

Not content to make this accusation, the TRC goes on to show its true animus:

“Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity…. In its dealings with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.”  (Emphasis added)

The TRC claims that the IRS system was based on the assumption that Aboriginal peoples were “subhuman.”

The allegation of “physical genocide”, defined as the intentional extermination of an identifiable group, likens Canadian Aboriginal policy to the “final solution” of the Nazis.  One could not imagine a more serious charge.  The charge is utterly devoid of factual foundation. As Richard Gwyn states in Nation Maker, which was the second volume of his biography of John A. Macdonald (2011), at p. 426:

“The defining difference (between Canadian and American policies on Aboriginals) is that Canada did not kill Indians; in the course of the 19th century some 400,000 American Indians were killed, principally by the U.S. Army in the West.   (In Canada) the only deaths were the small number killed during the N.W. Rebellion.” 

One would have expected the horrific allegation of “physical genocide” to be supported by some data, or facts, or something.  But there is no attempt anywhere in the TRC Report to provide any support for this blood libel.

Then there is the charge of “biological genocide”, the charge that Canada destroyed the Aboriginals’ reproductive capacity.  Another blood libel devoid of factual foundation.   Indeed, the population of the Indigenous people in Canada at the commencement of IRS was fewer than 100,000.   Today it is in the range of 1,600,000.  (Assessment, p. 129)

The Assessment concludes the allegations of genocide are “simply untrue and historically indefensible”, and are “fabrications”, noting that the TRC cites no evidence to support the charges. (p.130).  The genocide charge “displays a contempt for truth that helps to make a reader suspicious of anything else the Commission claims.” (p. 132).

Much stronger language is justifiable. These two charges of genocide are reprehensible, and utterly incompatible with the search for “truth”.   It is quite astonishing that the TRC has not been broadly denounced for these false charges. 

Cultural Genocide

The TRC also charges Canada with the offence of “cultural genocide” which it defines as follows:

“Cultural Genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group.  States that engage in cultural genocide seek to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group.  Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted.  Languages are banned.  Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed.  And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.”

 The charge of “cultural genocide” received some traction when it was repeated by the Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, relying on the TRC Report as her source of information. (In doing so the Chief Justice breached a fundamental rule that sitting judges must not comment publicly on issues.  Justice Tom Berger of the BC Supreme Court was previously strongly criticized by the Canadian Judicial Council for doing just that, and felt he had no choice but to resign.  McLachlin, as ex officio chair of the Council, apparently felt herself immune from its strictures).   The fact that such a charge could be believed and repeated by such an eminent person underscores how influential the TRC has been.

The Assessment refutes the cultural genocide claim as reaching “the territory of just plain fiction” (p.131) and comments:

“Finding a reference to “cultural genocide” at the very beginning of this important Report probably forces readers to wonder why the government of Canada signed treaties, established reserves, published dictionaries in Indigenous languages, banned relatively few indigenous traditions—such as the potlach—that actually hindered their economic progress, and never forbade Indigenous people from speaking their languages in residential schools or anywhere else.”

The Assessment adds: (p. 78)

   “…the use of the word “genocide” in connection with culture is a rhetorical strategy designed to impede rational discussion of the residential schools. The term “genocide” has historically been used to refer to the intentional extermination of an identifiable group of people.  Adding the adjective “cultural” completely changes the meaning of the word by turning the inevitable and unstoppable processes associated with integration into a crime against humanity.

And also:

“From a Commission charged with discerning and communicating the truth, this false statement is worrying and, even, incendiary.   Not only is there little evidence supporting this claim, but the policies and actions of both missionaries and government officials clearly contradict it.”

The Assessment quotes actual testimony. It also cites the obvious goal of Canada, partly through IRS, to provide Indigenous children with the knowledge, skills and values needed to participate in Canadian society, which certainly was laudable in the face of the collapse of their way of life---the disappearance of the buffalo and the much-reduced fur trade. (p 79)

Having made these wrongful allegations concerning Canadian Aboriginal policy, the TRC turns to its mandate of reviewing IRS.  The pattern of serious denunciations, often with little evidence in support, is continued.

Medical Experimentation

The TRC claims that IRS students were repeatedly made the subject of medical experiments and even compares those experiments with the ones carried on by Nazi doctors in the concentration camps.  The Assessment notes, “This claim is so serious that we have spent a considerable amount of time and effort examining it for relevant information that the TRC has not identified.” (p. 49).   The Assessment reviews the details of each of these so called “experiments”.  One was a medically supervised change in diet to increase the intake of Vitamin D.  Another was an attempt to deal with an outbreak of dysentery, where doctors attempted to determine whether five day or ten-day treatments were most effective.   The Assessment mildly suggests that the TRC’s comparison to Nazi death camps “weakens the credibility of the TRC Report”.  (p. 52) Much stronger language would appear to be in order.

Forced attendance?

Central to the TRC report is the contention that Canada forced attendance at IRS despite reluctance on the part of most aboriginals.  In the words of Commissioner Wilson—"Aboriginal children were torn from their mothers’ arms.” On April 10, 2010, that is, at the beginning of the TRC’s work, Sinclair took it upon himself to address the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.  He asserted:

“For roughly seven generations nearly every Indigenous child in Canada was sent to a residential school.  They were taken from their families, tribes and communities, and forced to live in those institutions of assimilation.”  (Emphasis added)

As to this foundational claim that Canada imposed IRS on reluctant Aboriginals and enforced attendance, three points are of critical importance.  First, the Aboriginals themselves required, in the treaties signed with Canada, a commitment from Canada that it would provide their children with an education.  For instance, Treaty 6 with the Plains and Wood Cree states:

“Her Majesty agrees to maintain schools for instruction in such reserves hereby made as to Her Government of the Dominion of Canada may seem advisable, whenever the Indians of the reserves shall desire it.”

Thus, by the 1870s Canada was legally required to provided schooling for Aboriginals.  Day schools were built and staffed on reserves where the population was sufficient, but many reserves were not large enough to justify a day school.  Residential schools were the only means by which Canada could fulfill its treaty obligation. 

Second, when Canada commenced IRS in 1883 attendance was not compulsory.  It was only in 1920 that legislation was enacted which granted the government the power to make attendance compulsory, but that power was never exercised.   The Assessment notes at p. 55:

“As respected academic J. R. Miller correctly points out, ‘At no time in the history of residential schooling in Canada were parents compelled to send their children to residential schools.” (6)

They Were Not Forced, by Nina Green, Brian Giesbrecht and Tom Flanagan (7) also demonstrates that it was only day schools where attendance was compulsory.  The authors state, “If there was no day school on the reserve, the Department (of Indian Affairs) refused to commit children to (a residential school) located off the reserve because it was not the Department’s policy to separate children from their parents.”  (Emphasis added).

The same authors point out that IRS were mostly “filled to capacity, and some had waiting lists.”  They note that “this is a far cry from Commissioner Marie Wilson’s claim that status Indian children were ripped from their parents’ arms.” 

The Assessment points out that several bands were anxious to have the schools and contributed to the costs of construction.  Further, “As late as the 1940s and 1950s, when the federal government began to close residential schools, many tribes, bands and parents requested that they remain open.” (p. 154) 

Third, directly at odds with Sinclair’s claim that “nearly every Indigenous child was sent to a residential school”, a majority of the children who attended school went to day schools. Also, about 30% of Aboriginal children did not attend any school. This is noted in the Assessment and also in another article by Nina Green entitled, Two-Thirds Did Not Attend Residential Schools. (8)   Most students attending residential schools were able to return home regularly.  

Furthermore, the average attendance of the one-third of Indigenous children who attended IRS was 4.5 years. (9)

The statement made by Chairman Sinclair to the United Nations, as quoted above, is demonstrably an untruth. He could not have been unaware of it.

Positive Experiences

While the TRC announced it wanted to hear from school staff and other non-Native peoples, the oral record that the Commission collected was composed overwhelmingly of people self-identified as Survivors.  A professional historian on the TRC staff said that the commissioners’ actions “were not consistent with its claims to wish to include non-Aboriginal voices on the record.”  Indeed, her budget for the project on school staff was cut from $100,000 to $10,000 and she was told that the Commission would not transcribe the interviews she had conducted.   Thus, very few former staff came forward to speak publicly.  (Assessment p. 257) 

The TRC refers to positive testimony from staff, but in these terms, “Many staff members spent much of their time and energy attempting to humanize a harsh and destructive system.”.   The Assessment observes that readers “can see how the TRC attempted to make positive evidence into something negative”, lamenting that, “It is not surprising that the legacy of the IRS system has generally been regarded as wholly negative by the Canadian public.” (p 57)

The two editors of the Assessment, Rodney Clifton and Mark DeWolf actually attended an IRS as students.  They speak with knowledge of positive experiences.  The Assessment contains lengthy accounts of such experiences.  

Tomson Highway is a Cree playwright, classical pianist and Order of Canada recipient. He said this about his experience at an IRS:

“All we hear is the negative stuff, nobody’s interested in the positive, the joy in that (Indian Residential) school.  Nine of the happiest years of my life I spent at that school.  I learned your language, for God’s sake.  Have you learned my language? No, so who’s the privileged one and who is underprivileged?

You may have heard stories from 7,000 witnesses in the process that were negative.  But what you haven’t heard are the 7,000 reports that were positive stories.  There are many very successful people today that went to those schools and have brilliant careers and are very functional people, very happy people like myself.  I have a thriving international career, and it wouldn’t have happened without that school.”   (Assessment p. 162)

One can only wonder at the Orwellian process that led to the cancellation of Senator Lynn Beyak for stating that some Aboriginals had positive experiences.       

Condemnation of IRS as the Root of All Aboriginal Problems

Canada started to unwind IRS in the 1950s.  Very few remained in the 1980s.  Yet in 2015 the TRC Report asserts, “The closing of residential schools did not bring their story to an end.  The legacy of the schools continues to this day.  It is reflected in the significant educational, income, and health disparities that condemn many Aboriginal people to shorter, poorer, and more troubled lives…. The disproportionate apprehension of Aboriginal children by child welfare agencies and the disproportionate imprisonment and victimization of Aboriginal people are all part of the legacy of the way Aboriginal children were treated in residential schools.  Many students were permanently damaged by residential schools.  Separated from their parents, they grew up knowing neither respect nor affection.” (Assessment, p. 57)

The TRC Report goes on to allege the damage to the “survivors” “profoundly affected their partners, their children, and their grandchildren, their extended family and their communities”.  “Students”, proclaims the Report, “who were treated as prisoners in the schools sometimes graduated to real prison.”   

Thus, everything negative in the lives of Canadian Aboriginals since 1883 and continuing as of 2015 is attributed to IRS.  The TRC does not attempt to justify this conclusion in light of the facts that only one-third ever attended, and then only for an average of 4.5 years.  Taking twelve years as the limit for attendance at primary school, the average attendance of Aboriginal children who actually attended an IRS was therefore 37.5% of their potential school years.    Of the total school years of all Aboriginal children, one-third of 37.5%, that is, 12.4% were spent at an IRS.

The Assessment also points out: (p. 58)

“Many Canadians would doubtless agree that they have seen poverty, marginalization, alcohol and drug abuse, and family breakdown in non-Indigenous communities where no one ever attended a residential school.”

The Assessment properly notes that the TRC’s claims that all of the serious problems Indigenous people face today can be traced to the residential school experiences of their ancestors “looks tenuous at best.”  J.R.Miller makes a similar observation in his book at p. 230-33. Again, this is a mildly phrased rebuke.

Responsibility for Abuses

Canada has accepted, both morally and legally, that it bears responsibility for the horrendous sexual abuses perpetrated on students at residential schools by pedophiles on staff.   Canada funded virtually the entirety of the billions of dollars paid out under the IRSSA: it paid $1.9 Billion to fund the common experience payments and another $3 Billion towards the Independent Assessment Process. It funded the work of the Aboriginal Healing Centre and the two commissions (RCAP and TRC), the collective cost of which was probably $2 Billion.  Canada tendered sincere apologies, starting with Prime Minister Harper on June 11, 2008.

Clearly it was the churches who operated the schools which were more at fault than Canada for the abuses.  In early settlements, prior to the IRSSA, the churches acknowledged responsibility for 60-70% of the blame.  

The United Church and Anglican Church each paid $25,000,000 towards the IRSSA.  The Catholic Church entities agreed to pay $29,000,000 in cash and over seven years to use best efforts to raise another $25,000,000.  However, the Catholic entities paid only $10,200,000 in total and were released from any further obligation.  (Miller p. 152-4)

IRS as an Example of the Treatment Meted Out to Children Generally 

The TRC Report provides no comparative treatment of what was happening to children elsewhere at the time.  

For example, the Report, in citing the harsh discipline meted out, does not acknowledge that corporal punishment was common in those days.  English boarding schools, for example, routinely caned students in the belief it was building character. As the Assessment summarizes: (p. 160)

“…The TRC Report fails to place the history of IRS into the broader context of how Canadian children were treated at the time.  During the IRS period, thousands of children in Great Britain resided in harsh boarding schools, thousands more were forced to live in horrific workhouses, and thousands more—the “Home Children”—were sent to Canada in what was essentially a forced migration process…”

Up until the 1960s, thousands of Canadian children and teens languished in hospitals, sanatoria, orphanages, reform schools, homes for unwed mothers, and mental institutions. Virtually all of these children were treated in ways that would be considered inhumane, perhaps even criminal, by today’s standards.  Saying this is not to justify treating Indigenous children in an inhumane way, but simply to note that in the not-so-distant past, life was very difficult for many Canadian children…”

Reconciliation

In respect to the widely accepted narrative of IRS perpetrated by the TRC the Assessment concludes:

“This narrative is not only a distortion of what most of us would regard as truth: it is also a wrong-headed and quite possibly harmful attempt to explain the current state of Indigenous people in Canada today.”

Whither reconciliation?  Boraine’s message concerning the objective of a truth and reconciliation commission, quoted above, is “not to point a finger or engage in a witch hunt”.  Similar thoughts are expressed at the outset of the Assessment (p. x):

“If there is to be restoration to friendly relations, or the making of one view or belief compatible with another, then we must first abandon the post-modernist infatuation with the pretense of taking moral responsibility to make amends for the past.  Reconciliation is not about laying blame or demanding that the other side take a knee. That is capitulation, not reconciliation. In order for there to be true reconciliation in the proper sense of the word, there must first be understanding, and a respect for a diversity of opinions and viewpoints about the legacy of IRS.  Only through an examination of all sides of the question can we reach a true understanding of what occurred and why…”

The Assessment, by demonstrating that the TRC report contains egregious untruths, makes a major contribution to reaching a more balanced understanding of residential schools.

_____

Thanks for reading. For more on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission read - Re-Evaluating Canada’s (Un)Truth and Reconciliation Commission (substack.com)

 Footnotes

1. Residential schools were often referred to in the early days as industrial or boarding schools.  Industrial schools focussed on teaching students a trade such as carpentry.  Boarding schools attempted to teach agrarian techniques.  The TRC does not distinguish between the experiences of students at the two types of residential schools.

2. See Assault on Decency, by Robert Stragg and Patrice Dutil, Dorchester Review, 2021, Vol 11, No 1 for a fulsome account of the Ryerson record and the grossly unfair attacks that have been mounted on this distinguished educator’

3. The other authors are Joseph Quesnel, Frances Widdowson, Gerry Bowler, Hymie Rubenstein, Brian Giesbrecht, Masha V. Krylova, Lea Meadows and Marshall Draper.

4. Univ of Toronto Press, 2017.  Miller has written extensively about residential schools including Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Univ of Toronto Press 1996).

5. B.C. Studies, April 10, 2016

6. Murray Sinclair’s Fabrications, by James C. McCrae, Dorchester Review, online, Aug 3, 2022

7. Dorchester Review, online, April 11, 2022.

8. Dorchester Review, online, July 13, 2022

9. Assessment, p. 31.