Full Description
Since the 1980s, successive Canadian institutions and federal governments as well as Christian churches have attempted to grapple with the malignant legacy of residential schooling through official apologies, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
In Residential Schools and Reconciliation, award-winning author J.R. Miller tackles and explains these institutional responses to Canada's residential school legacy. Analysing archival material and interviews with former students, politicians, bureaucrats, church officials, and the Chief Commissioner of the TRC, Miller reveals a major obstacle to achieving reconciliation - the inability of Canadians at large to overcome their flawed, overly positive understanding of their country's history. This unique, timely, and provocative work asks Canadians to accept that the root of the problem was Canadians like them in the past who acquiesced to aggressively assimilative policies.
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Terminology
Introduction: "We Did Not Hear You"
Part One: Exposing the Problem
1. The Churches Apologize
2. The State Investigates: The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
3. The State Responds: Gathering Strength and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation
Part Two: Finding a Solution
4. The Bench Adjudicates: Litigation
5. The Parties Negotiate
6. Implementing the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
Part Three: Redress and Reconciliation
7. Truth and Reconciliation
8. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
