Stepping toward restorative justice: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Sep 15, 2009
from Elecia Chrunik's article in The Sasquatch:
In June 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of the Canadian government to former students of Indian residential schools for “failing them so profoundly.” The apology, long sought from survivors, was only one part of the court-approved package that also included $1.9 billion in compensation distributed to living survivors.
Thousands of Aboriginals have come forward in recent years to speak about the mental, physical and sexual abuse they suffered at the schools that operated across the country. The purpose of the schools was to “kill the Indian in the child” and systematically destroy Aboriginal culture. Harper said the forced assimilation was “wrong, caused great harm and has no place in this country.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the other piece of the package that aims to help heal the rift between oppressor and oppressed. The Commission will document survivors’ stories, hold seven national events and create a public archive. The Commission’s success will be measured by how much the rest of Canada participates....
With an entirely new set of commissioners, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is ready, once again, to move toward its goals. These include acknowledging the lasting impacts of residential schools, providing a forum for survivors to share their stories and making that information accessible to the public. There is a sense of urgency to move the Commission forward, as more than 1,400 survivors die each year as the population ages.
The Commission is based on the model of restorative justice (as opposed to the penal retributive justice method of standard court systems) that is victim-focused. Its goal is to give more power to survivors by creating a long-lasting account of their experience and its consequences on native culture and society.
“The restorative justice model requires that you take a look at the problem and you determine a solution that will restore balance to the people who are involved,” said Sinclair in an interview with CBC radio.
While healing circles and victim-focused reprisal have been used in certain cases in Canada and in countries like South Africa to come to terms with apartheid, this is the first time this model is being tested on the scale of multiple generations suffering for more than 100 years. Sinclair called the task “daunting and scary.”
The process can only work if survivors and the rest of Canada participate. “I want the survivors to be able to say that they were heard. I want the public to say that they heard them. I want the general society, the Canadian society, to be able to say that now they know what they can do about it,” Sinclair said.
