Remarks at the National Research Centre Signing Ceremony June 21, 2013 at the University of

By the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair Chair, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of

The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair Signing Ceremony of the Agreement to Host the National Research Centre on Residential Schools June 21, 2013

Thank you for that introduction, and thank you to all of you for being here; I’d like to thank you all for your attention and your participation in this day. This is a very important day for us at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I’m going to tell you in a few minutes why that is. But I want first to remark upon the fact that whenever we have a gathering like this, there’s always someone in the room who doesn’t know what this is all about. And so, I’m going to remind you, just a little bit, about why we have a TRC.

About, almost thirty years ago I guess, but twenty-five for sure, the Survivors of Indian Residential Schools began to consider the fact that many of them had cause to complain about the way they were treated. I always challenge the crowd to think about things in this way: imagine what it would be like if one day, without your knowledge, without your consent, without your participation, representatives of the government came to your house and started to take away your little children. Imagine what it would be like today for those of you who are in this room if they came and started to take away your grandchildren. And in doing that they let it be known to you that they were going to stop them from speaking your language. They were going to stop them from learning your culture. They were going to stop them from seeing you because they didn’t trust that you

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would be able to raise them properly. They were going to keep them from you as long as they could, but at least until they were adults. And then they might be returned to you, not only as adults, but they might be returned to you married, because some of the schools would require the children to marry each other before they left the school. And that was done because the government’s policy was that Aboriginal people were inferior; Aboriginal people were heathens, were savages, were pagans, and were not qualified to be Canadians until they had gone through this process. And therefore in order to bring them into Canadian society, they had to first be raised up into a state of civilization through a process that involved Christianization.

I had occasion recently to address the convocation at Ryerson University in Toronto. I realize, David [Barnard], that I’m mentioning a competitor but please forgive me. But at that event – which is the university incidentally which is named after Doctor Egerton Ryerson, who many historians credit as being the architect for the thinking that went into Residential Schools in Canada – I commented upon the fact that in the convocation I observed that about thirty percent of the graduates were Indigenous people, not only from Canada, but from other parts of the world as well. And I said, ‘When you look at the writings of Dr. Ryerson, after whom the university is named, you will remark upon the fact that his view was that Indigenous people were incapable of being educated at a university level, and that’s why they needed to be educated through industrial schools. Schools that would teach them manual labour so they could work with their hands, schools that would keep them at a low level within the economy, schools that would prevent them from meeting the full potential of being part of Canadian society.’ I said, ‘I wonder what Dr. Ryerson would be thinking today, as he observed all of these Aboriginal graduates as they are going through, some of them with PhDs, many of them with master’s degrees, all of them with bachelor degrees, all of them dedicated to working in various professions in Canada.’ I don’t know if he was spinning in his grave, but at least I would hope that he had second thoughts about his thinking, because today we know that Canadian society has had

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to have second thoughts about this policy. To put it simply, for the government to take children away from their families for no good reason other than to indoctrinate them into a different way of thinking is wrong. It was wrong then. It was not acknowledged to be wrong then, but it should have been. It is acknowledged now that it was wrong, but now we have to deal with the aftermath of all of that.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission came out of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement which resolved all of the lawsuits that had been started against the Government of Canada and the churches that ran the schools. There were significant abuses that occurred within the schools. People were badly injured physically as a result of what occurred within the schools, but everybody who went to those schools was damaged emotionally and psychologically. The trauma of being indoctrinated into another culture and another society, forcibly, against your will, and also to be institutionalized away from your family, away from those people who loved you and those people whom you loved, to be taken away from your communities, and to be isolated from them, for all of your childhood, and to be released back into those communities, and not being able to function properly within them, was devastating to each and every one of those children who came out of the school system. As well as they were able to cope with what was left to them in terms of their life, nonetheless they lost something. They lost something of great value to them. They lost their sense of self, they lost their sense of identity, they lost their sense of spirit, and they lost their sense of direction. They no longer knew where they came from. They no longer knew where their people came from. They had no idea where they were going, they had no idea why they were here, and they had no idea of who they were. They tried hard – many of us tried hard – to join this society and be a part of it, and many of us have succeeded but at great cost to our own sense of self. And now we know that we can do something about that. But it begins with the truth. It begins by acknowledging what happened, and it begins by knowing as much as we can about what happened. And if we are able to uncover those truths, and if we are able to uncover all we can about what

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happened, and how things happened, and why things happened, and where they happened, and who they happened to, and who did them – if we are able to do that, then and only then can we turn to the major focus of the future, which is reconciliation.

Reconciliation is about ‘What can we do about this now? What can we do about the fact that all this damage has been created?’ One of the first steps in that process is to understand that it wasn’t just Aboriginal children who have been damaged by this history; all Canadians have been damaged by it. This is not just an Aboriginal problem. At the same time those children were being placed in institutions and being educated that they were inferior and they came from inferior cultures and irrelevant languages, non-Aboriginal children in the public schools of this country were being told the same thing. And inadvertently, unconsciously, and perhaps unintentionally but perhaps intentionally as well, they were being taught to believe in the superiority of their own ancestors, the superiority of their own culture, the superiority of their own communities, and that therefore they had a right to be there, they had a right to govern, they had a right to be in charge. At one of our gatherings, a Survivor stood up and responded to a question about what reconciliation means, and he said, ‘I’m not sure, but I sure wish these people would stop acting like they own the place. They need to talk to us about where we fit into that ownership question’.

Reconciliation is going to be a hard thing to achieve. But remember this: Residential Schools were in existence for 150 years almost. It may take us that long to fix all of this, in order to address it properly. But it begins by acknowledging what the vision of reconciliation must be, and where it must take us. And as Commissioners we have agreed we must look towards reestablishing a relationship of mutual respect which would have been here at the time of first contact. When Europeans first came to this part of the world, they needed Indigenous peoples in order to survive. They needed Indigenous people in order to understand what they were able to do, how they were able to live on this land, and

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in order for that to happen, there had to have been a relationship of mutual respect. Reconciliation calls upon us to move back into that direction. But I think before we can get there, we also need to talk about how we can give self-respect back to the children and the grandchildren of those many generations of Survivors, who have been abused emotionally, psychologically and physically by Residential Schools. And in order to do that, we have to start talking to and about Aboriginal people in a more respectful manner. That involves changing the way we educate our children. It involves changing the way we govern this country. It involves changing the way that we are Canadians. It involves recognizing what Canada is all about. All of us want to be able to stand up and say that we are proud to be Canadians, every single one of us. I assure you that Indigenous people are not going away, and those who live in this country and have been there for generations now are not going to go away. And those newcomers who are arriving here are not going to go away. So in order for that conversation to make sense, we all have to come to a common understand about what it means to be Canadian. And what it means to be Canadian in the context of this story as well.

The importance of the National Research Centre that is being established here today through this agreement is that it will be a constant reminder to all Canadians about what the foundation of this relationship became, of what it is that we are working away from. It will be a reminder to all future Canadians that indeed what we have heard from Survivors in the past ten years or so did happen. We are creating a national memory here, for all Canadians to be able to rely upon. Because we know, if we do not do that, then it will be just matter of two or three generations from now that most Canadians will not only be able to forget that this occurred, but they will be able to deny that it occurred. And that can never happen, that must never happen, because this is part of what Canada is all about.

Creating a National Research Centre was an obligation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a result of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement

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Agreement. And because the TRC is going to end its mandate in one year from now, we knew that there had to be an ongoing obligation imposed upon the National Research Centre to continue some of the work that we ourselves had commenced while we were in place. And part of that obligation is being assumed by the here today in its agreement to undertake the establishment of the National Research Centre. And I’d like to thank the University of Manitoba and all of those who have worked with us for beginning this journey with us at this point in time. It began for us when we were privileged to hear the apology that was issued by President Barnard to all of the Survivors at the Halifax National Event in October of 2011. And at that point in time when the president stood up, and he talked about the importance of an academic institution taking responsibility for the way that it educated its students to ensure that they were capable of challenging those things in society that needed to be challenged, the message was very clear, it was very strong. And while that was not the factor that resulted in our making a decision to have the institution placed here, it showed us there was a very strong commitment at the University of Manitoba to advancing the cause of Residential School Survivors and the issues that they raised, and to establishing the University of Manitoba as a centre for Aboriginal excellence in the country. The proposal that we had received from the university was head and shoulders above some of the other proposals that we had received, because it talked about the importance of establishing this as a national centre. This is not just about Manitoba. This is not just about Western Canada. A National Research Centre for Residential Schools has to be about Canada. It has to ensure that all of Canada will benefit from the things that are going to occur here.

As the TRC, we have been given the opportunity to collect all of the statements that we can from the Survivors that are still with us, and have undertaken and continue to do that work. We have now over 6000 statements that we have collected, we have others that we are going to try to collect as well, that we know exist out there. But in addition to that, we have been given responsibility for gathering together the relevant documents relating to

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Residential Schools that currently sit in the archives in the churches and the government who are responsible for the running of the schools. That has not been an easy process because of the magnitude of the work that is involved. It’s a large effort that we have imposed upon the churches; it’s a large effort that we have imposed upon the government as well. Some of the resistance on the part of the government to providing us those documents had to do with the magnitude of the work, but we have convinced them it’s worthwhile, and we know now that those documents are going to flow. We know that they must flow, and we know they must be kept in such a way that all future generations of Canadians, including generations of children and grandchildren of Residential School Survivors, can have access to them so they will know what happened to their ancestors. They will know why things are the way they are.

Reconciliation is going to be a long and difficult process. As I said, it took 150 years to get to this point, it may take that long to be able to say that we have achieved a relationship of mutual respect. But nonetheless, in order for us to do that, somebody has to take care of those documents in the meantime. Somebody has to ensure that all of that information is protected for those future generations. And the National Research Centre is the institution that will do that. But in addition to maintaining the records and archiving them and making them available, we also have asked that the Centre undertake work in the area of research – new research relating to Residential Schools, new research relating to public education, dialogue, and putting together exhibits, and issues relating to ceremonies as well around the access to the exhibits, access to the documents. We’ve also asked the National Research Centre to continue to collect the kinds of stories that have been provided to us by the Survivors themselves, but not only by the Survivors but by the intergenerational Survivors, the children and the grandchildren of the Survivors who are the ones living with the full impact of the Residential Schools because they are the ones who no longer speak their language; they are the ones who lost their sense of culture; they are the ones who are still looking for a way to be all that they were intended to be.

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Continuing the collection of documents not only from the government and the churches that ran the schools is an important undertaking, as well as from other sources that the commission has not been able to access to this point in time. We know that there are documents in the hands of provincial governments. We know that there are documents in the hands of private collectors. We also know that there are documents in the hands of private museums, libraries, Aboriginal organizations, and individuals.

We also have asked the National Research Centre to assist Aboriginal peoples in the exercise of their rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, because that United Nations declaration in our view, was a sound framework for reconciliation in this country, and I commend to you, all of you, particularly those of you who are students here at this centre of learning, to familiarize yourself with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, because it will be at the forefront of all discussions between , Métis and Inuit people, and the governments of this country for years and generations to come.

We have also asked the National Research Centre and the University of Manitoba which will supervise its existence to fulfill the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which issued its reports in 1996 relating to a national repository of records, not just relating to Residential Schools, but relating to all issues around Aboriginal history and Aboriginal people in this country, including such things as the forced relocation of Aboriginal communities, the development and evolution of Aboriginal history generally, issues relating to Aboriginal governance, historically and at present, issues relating to Aboriginal women, issues relating to the Métis, and issues relating to the protection of traditional knowledge.

Everyone knows that the history of Residential Schools in this country is simply part of a history of assimilation that goes beyond the schools themselves. As I have said in the

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past, ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ But they took the children of Indigenous families away from their villages, and then the government set out to destroy those villages as well, through legislation. And the destruction of those villages through the passage of laws that limited the powers of leaders, that prevented the development of economies, that prevented the development of the community, in terms of its infrastructure, it’s quite significant. It explains to a large extent why there are poor roads, and there are poor houses, and there are no jobs, and no economies, and no entrepreneurs, and no businesses in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada. Because the country made it virtually impossible for them to come into existence.

We are proud to say that the National Research Centre, through the agreement signed today, will have a governing circle that will have a majority of Aboriginal people in charge of making decisions and assisting the university in its role in regard to the supervision of the Centre. We know that in doing so, that will involve people who will ensure the spirit of truth and reconciliation that we have talked about, and a memory of the children who passed through the schools, and a respect for Aboriginal culture, and the usefulness of it for future generations will be ensured.

We would like to thank all of those who have guided and contributed to the process of conceiving of the National Research Centre, including the Survivors who commenced all of this through their court actions, forcing Canada and the churches to enter into that Settlement Agreement which I have mentioned. We would particularly like to thank the Aboriginal leadership in this country who led the fight to ensure that a settlement agreement would be reached, that litigation would be commenced and conducted in a positive way – people such as Nora Bernard, Marlene Cloud, leaders such as Phil Fontaine, who is here with us today, Charlene Belleau, Willie Blackwater, all of whom were major players in the early part of the litigation process. We would also like to acknowledge and thank the many good and honourable people within government, within the churches, who

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acknowledged what was going on at the time. That they were involved, not only in the conduct of the schools but also in the conduct of the litigation, needed to be reconsidered, so that Aboriginal people and the issue of reconciliation can be put in the forefront of thinking, and that matters can be resolved in a way that is less damaging, not only to the Survivors, but to the country as a whole. I would like to acknowledge the children of the Survivors that endured so much, and who now have a chance to understand what was done to their parents, and to their grandparents. And we’d also like to acknowledge the role of the media in all of this. The fact that the media have played a role in publicizing the information that relates to Residential Schools, and educating the public generally, needs to be understood. And the role of academics in the university settings and throughout the country has also been significant. There has been more information written in the last five years about the state of affairs of Aboriginal people than was written in the previous one hundred. That’s an amazing view of how things are evolving. We need also to thank all of the Survivors who shared their stories with us, and who have agreed to allow us to archive those stories. Not all Survivors were ready to give us their statements, or have given us their statements. We know there are difficulties that many people still face in talking in a public way, or even in a private way, about what happened to them in the schools. We would acknowledge as well all of the churches that have opened their archives to us, and the government that has opened their archives to us, for our research purposes, and also to provide us copies of the documents that the Centre will now be housing.

We know that the future of our National Research Centre is being placed in good hands because when we undertook this work as commissioners, we committed ourselves as Commissioner Littlechild has said to you, to undertaking this work as though it were a sacred trust, because it was a sacred trust. In fact the documents that we will be signing here today are called Trust Documents. The reason why the University of Manitoba and other partners involved with the university are being called upon to sign those documents with us is because, as a Commission, we will cease to function. We will no longer be in

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existence in a year from now. And as a result of that, some other entity needs to undertake this work and to carry it forward, and we are asking the university and its partners to carry it forward with the same sense of trust, sense of sacred trust, that we have brought to this work and time. And that has been well understood by those who have worked with us at the university. In particular, I’d like to thank President Barnard for his personal commitment to the evolution of this agreement, and the development of all that has been taking place with regard to its signing to this point in time. And finally, I’d like to thank all of you for being witnesses today for this event, it’s important for us to know that your support is here. It’s important for us to know as well that there is a commitment reflected in your attendance here on the part of the university to continue this work. And so, on behalf of myself, and my colleagues, Commissioner Littlechild, Commissioner Wilson, we say ‘Migwetch’ to all of you.

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