Abstract
From 2009 to 2012 the author lived and worked in Whitehorse as a lawyer for Justice Canada. One of her responsibilities was to attend Independent Assessment Process hearings in the role of “Canada’s Representative.” The experience of hearing from survivors and working within the limits of a torts-based process sent the author on an exploration of how harms are classified and remedied in Canadian law. The disconnect she felt between the narrow parameters of the legal process and the ongoing effects of historic harms that were evident in many aspects of northern life needed to be reconciled. Building on previous work that identified and classified harms, the author reviews the thirteen reparations that have been provided for the harms caused by the Indian Residential Schools policy in order to assess how well these reparations, when taken together, are able to address the full range of harms expressed by residential school survivors. The author then suggests additional mechanisms of responsibility, drawn largely from transitional justice theories, which could bring Canadians, as individuals and as a polity, into their role within the intergenerational legacy of the Indian Residential Schools policy and recognize the full range of harms experienced by survivors.
Highlights
Making the Personal SocietalAs a young lawyer working in Whitehorse, Yukon, I attended Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSAA)
I conclude that we need a new lens, and new language, in order to address the harms caused by the IRS policy
As a young lawyer and a new public servant working in the Yukon, I struggled with my role within the IAP because the stated goals of the process did not correspond to what I understood to be the needs of survivors, or to my own needs to connect with survivors and others about how the IRS legacy has affected all Canadians
Summary
As a young lawyer working in Whitehorse, Yukon, I attended Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSAA). Seeing a negative vision of “Canada”reflected back to me through the eyes of Indian Residential Schools (IRS) survivors forced me to reflect upon my heritage as a non-Indigenous Canadian and my role in those hearing rooms as a representative of the Canadian government At times this process of reflection left me paralyzed and at others it made me argumentative—I was alternately incapable of articulating my thoughts and belligerent towards any friends, coworkers, or unwitting strangers who I (often arbitrarily) judged inadequate in their knowledge or actions. In order to understand my reaction, to continue to perform my job, and be able to live in a small centre where I regularly met survivors at the grocery store, I needed to understand my role in the IRS legacy as a Canadian It was a deeply personal process undertaken as part of graduate studies, which I have written about elsewhere.[2]. Using the IRS policy allows me to use my experience working in the IAP hearings in the Yukon as a touchstone for the entire project
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