Indian Residential Schools Settlement Research Articles

“‘I didn’t learn anything’”

The Indian residential school system is a part of Canada’s dark and ‘hidden’ history. Despite the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement being reached in 2006, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) publishing its final report in 2015, and the further discovery of unmarked graves at former school sites in 2022, many Canadians are still unaware of the atrocities of residential schools and the continued mistreatment of Indigenous peoples throughout what is now known as Canada. This essay explores Fort Albany Residential School, also known as St. Anne’s, in Fort Albany, ON. Using Department of Indian Affairs school files, accessed through the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), and testimonies by survivors to the TRC, this essay will argue that St. Anne’s was an unsanitary and dangerous environment for Indigenous children because of inadequate funding, overcrowding and malnourishment, and the use of brutal discipline which caused some students to risk their lives in attempt to escape such horrors.

Justice Frank Iacobucci and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada

In this radio interview, Justice Frank Iacobucci shares his insights into the legal, political, and ethical forces behind The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (2007) and The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2007–2015). These initiatives were de­signed to address the many serious issues and injustices that have long impacted Indigenous peoples and continue to radically reshape First Nation communities in Canada.

A Brief History of Reconciliation in Canada

This article provides a roadmap of the process of reconciliation in Canada, beginning with the first articulation of the word in Canadian law, and carrying on through to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the Oka Crisis, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and finally, Prime Minister’s promise to fulfill the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 “Calls to Action”. The author argues that in order for reconciliation to be realized, the governments of Canada will need to recognize and affirm local Indigenous education laws, as it pertains to their right to govern themselves in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Undermining Justice: The Political Framing of Actors in the Independent Assessment Process

This article presents findings from a critical discourse analysis of House of Commons debates about the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court compensatory adjudication process intended to resolve claims of sexual and physical abuse that occurred at Indian Residential Schools and one of five key elements of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Our analysis is guided by the question: What do elected officials’ discussions about the IAP reveal about the implementation of compensatory transitional justice mechanisms in settler colonial states, and about colonial relations (specifically attempts at reconciliation) more generally? Our study focuses on debates that took place between 2004 and 2019. We explored elected officials’ framing of both Survivors and the Canadian State in their discussions about the IAP. Our analysis reveals the limited reach of dialogue based in a partisan and antagonistic context and supports those scholars who assert that transitional justice is incompatible with reconciliation and decolonization. By way of contributing to the larger interdisciplinary study entitled Reconciling Perspectives and Building Public Memory: Learning from the Independent Assessment Process, of which this article is part, we reflect on what our findings mean not only for public memory but also for studying the IAP moving forward.

'I Lost My Talk': Indian Residential Schools, Copyright, Archives and Commissions of Inquiry

People give statements to commissions of inquiry, courts, administrative tribunals, police and other government bodies. Who owns the copyright in those statements? What practical value is there in copyright ownership in those contexts? This paper examines in detail the copyright issues relating to the statements that survivors of Indian Residential Schools gave to Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As related background, the paper gives a detailed review of the Supreme Court of Canada's order to destroy statements given by survivors to the Independent Assessment Process. This paper examines copyright cases from Canada, England, the United States and Australia dealing with interviews generally, statements and indigenous peoples. This paper is one of a series by the author examining the many legal issues relating to Indian Residential Schools and the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Research and Outcomes at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Compared to other commissions of inquiry, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc) that investigated residential schools in Canada has had a modest research output and influence on public policy. Although the commissioners worked hard to carry out their mandate and raise awareness of the importance of resolving the legacy of residential schooling and promoting reconciliation, their effectiveness was hampered by several factors. Opposition from some interest groups, including the federal government, complicated their efforts, while some of their own characteristics and approaches also contributed to their difficulties. The limitations imposed by the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement that defined their assignment, the heavy reliance on legal talent within the commission, and the sheer size of the task they faced were some of the challenges confronting the trc. Ironically, the emphasis of the commission reports on the centrality of history and the commission’s definition of “reconciliation” might prove to be two of the most enduring elements of the trc’s legacy.

Indigenous Legal Principles: A Reparation Path for Canada’s Cultural Genocide

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Canada’s justice system and the lawyers that operate within it are ill prepared to comprehend or reconcile the relationship between colonial legal systems and indigenous systems of law. They do not get training in indigenous law, so vital to crafting appropriate reparations for the wrongs justified by colonial practices and prejudices, and that could open doors to reconciliation and healing. The example used in this article to illustrate how the two systems of law could successfully interact is the historic Indian Residential School Settlement – the largest settlement in Canadian history, almost entirely based on Indigenous law and legal theory, and harmonized in part with principles of the common law of tort. The Indian Residential School Settlement proves that in post-colonial societies western frameworks lack the tools necessary to remediate injuries motivated by systemic discrimination, which, in this case, was cultural genocide. Different perspectives and legal theories are necessary to craft appropriate reparations and the processes used to achieve them. Unless indigenous laws, traditions, and practices are central to the design and implementation of reparations, state responses to the cultural genocide perpetrated against indigenous peoples in Canada will not open pathways to either healing or reconciliation.

The Harms Caused: A Narrative of Intergenerational Responsibility

Born out of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the Independent Assessment Process is a program that provides monetary compensation to former students who suffered sexual and physical abuse at Indian Residential Schools. As “Canada’s Representative” during hearings of the Independent Assessment Process, this author, a young lawyer at the time, bore witness to grizzly accounts of acts perpetrated against claimants that left her unsettled. Unsettled by what was heard, yes, but also in her observations that the process did not satisfy the needs of all claimants, nor did it engage with her own sense of responsibility as a non-Indigenous Canadian.
 The author weaves together her experiences and observations as “Canada’s Representative” to explore intergenerational justice in a Canadian setting, and what processes might offer a more complete approach in handling the Indian Residential Schools legacy. First, shecanvasses the existing framework of dispute settlement in the context of Indian Residential Schools, namely criminal, tort, and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. While pointing out the strengths these mechanisms do have to address some of the harms of Indian Residential Schools, she ultimately suggests their inherent legal limitations make them inadequate tools to provide redress to victims and engage society more broadly.
 The author goes on to define transitional justice, set out its established tenets and themes, and begins to map out a Canadian application of these principles to the Indian Residential Schools policy by drawing on examples from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. These principles take shape as innovative instruments for advancing the goals of reconciliation and of Canadian society. They are not without their own flaws, however, as the author also points out, that may affect how Canadians—in particular, non-Indigenous Canadians—view their legitimacy.
 Lastly, the author analyzes prevailing views of societal responsibility to provide a normative underpinning for intergenerational justice in a Canadian context. She concludes by advocating Canadians move from a stance of guilt and blame toward one of a broad assumption of responsibility as they continue to grapple with the legacy of Indian Residential Schools.

On the Call for a Residential Schools National Monument

In its final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called “… upon the federal government, in collaboration with Survivors and their organizations, and other parties to the Settlement Agreement, to commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools National Monument in the city of Ottawa to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities.” As we reckon with this “call to action” number 81, and bear witness to recent and ongoing public repudiation of contentious monuments, it becomes apparent that the logic of such a monument must be questioned. On the surface, it would appear that a counter or therapeutic monument (for which we have models) might best suit call 81’s objectives. I argue that the 144 Indigenous-led commemoration projects funded through the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, which reflect contemporary Indigenous commemorative approaches, forms, and practices for remembering and healing from traumatic pasts and their ongoing legacies, are those most relevant to the Residential Schools National Monument project. They can inform its process, design, siting, and programming, which may enable it to resist, counter, redefine, and perhaps even decolonize the “national monument.” In this article, I both critique call 81 and seek to contribute to this possibility.

The Supreme Court's Indian Residential Schools Cases: The Beatings Continue

The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked to rule on 8 cases involving Indian Residential Schools to date. One criminal case, five civil cases (of which it only agreed to hear three of them) and two cases involving the administration of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (one of which has not yet been argued). This paper provides a summary of these cases, plus another Supreme Court case relevant to Indian Residential Schools dealing with whether the Roman Catholic Church is a legal entity. In every case, the Supreme Court has found imaginative and numerous ways to harm the victims of Indian Residential Schools in the name of law. If the only court decisions you read about Canada's Indian Residential Schools are the Supreme Court decisions, let this paper be your guide.

This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States by Andrew Woolford

Reviewed by: This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States by Andrew Woolford Sarah K.P. Hayes THIS BENEVOLENT EXPERIMENT: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States. By Andrew Woolford. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Through the lens of genocide studies, This Benevolent Experiment illustrates how the Indigenous boarding school systems in Canada and the United States contributed to North America's cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples. Woolford sets the groundwork for his book by defending the term cultural genocide; he argues that the qualifier "cultural" does not minimize the genocidal objective of the boarding schools, nor does it ignore the many Indigenous communities that persevered and survived the boarding schools' attempt at cultural annihilation. To do this, Woolford invokes Rafael Lemkin's definition of genocide, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, which includes the extermination of a group's traditions, language, religion and culture for the purpose of eliminating the group as a whole. This Benevolent Experiment applies this definition to the assimilative mission of the North American Indigenous boarding schools to assert that Canada and the United States used the boarding schools as a tool for cultural genocide. Woolford fashions the term "settler colonial mesh" to help readers understand how this cultural genocide operated on the macro-societal level (the larger social and political forces that conceptualized the "Indian Problem"), meso-societal level (specific government and non-government institutions, including the boarding schools, that sought to solve the "Indian Problem") and the micro-societal level (the individual actors, such as school officials, teachers, and staff, who interacted with students, parents and communities). Woolford visualizes each of these levels as nets, that when placed together form a mesh "that operates to entrap Indigenous peoples within the settler colonial assimilative project" (3). However, Woolford reminds us that mesh is porous, and therefore holes in the settler colonial project sometimes allowed for Indigenous resistance and survival. Woolford applies the metaphor of the settler colonial mesh to two schools in Manitoba (Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School and Fort Alexander Indian Residential School) and two schools in New Mexico (Albuquerque Indian School and Santa Fe Indian School). Through this comparative analysis, Woolford contends that while the Canadian and U.S. systems were different in many ways, both Canada and the United States aggressively pushed residential schooling for the purpose of "destroy[ing] Indigenous groups as groups" (93-4). Furthermore, Woolford analyzes these schools to demonstrate how different assimilative practices were enforced, made flexible, and resisted in order to [End Page 120] contract and expand the settler-colonial mesh, rendering it always in flux. Here, Woolford enters into conversation with scholars of the American Indian boarding schools, such as K. Tsianina Lomawaima and Brenda Child, by exhibiting how some students and parents took advantage of the porousness of the settler colonial mesh by resisting, or by taking advantage of, a Euro-American education. Woolford not only contributes to the study of Indigenous boarding schools, but also to genocide studies, as he uses the histories of the boarding schools to show how nonhuman actors can play a role in genocide. Specifically, Woolford discusses the roles of food-scarcity, land/territory, and disease in the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples. Woolford argues that geography has generally been overlooked in genocide studies, and outlines the various roles that geography played in how administrators attempted to control the student body. However, as Woolford illustrates, geography also allowed Indigenous communities to influence and sometimes manipulate school administrations. This Benevolent Experiment concludes with an analysis of how Canada has attempted to unravel the settler colonial mesh. Woolford takes a close look at Canada's Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) passed in 2006, Indigenous reactions to the Agreement, Prime Minister Harper's subsequent national apology, and the possible reasons why the United States has not followed Canada in similar reparations. Woolford argues that the United States lags behind Canada in reparations because of the U.S. boarding schools' perceived use of "softer" assimilation techniques marked by fewer reported cases of physical and sexual abuse. However, Woolford asks his readers not to glorify Canada's...

An evolution in queer indigenous oral histories through the Canada Indian residential school settlement agreement

ABSTRACTThe Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement ushered First Nation, Metis, and Inuit people, along with their non-indigenous neighbours in Canada, into a transitional justice era. Indian Residential School survivors still alive today were finally able to share their truth about the human rights violations they experienced as children while in Indian Residential Schools. As a Health Canada Resolution Health Support Program worker I was able to witness the resilience embodied by the most courageous people I have ever met: able to survive the cultural genocide inflicted by the Canadian government, and their sweeping policies to get rid of the Indian in the child.

'And Then the Pope Died' The Timeline for How Canada Reached a Settlement Agreement on Indian Residential Schools

How did Canada and the churches finally agree to a settlement agreement on Indian residential schools? What events led to this momentous achievement in Canadian history? This paper tells the history of many factors and events that finally resulted in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

“I’m not really healed … I’m just bandaged up”: Perceptions of healing among former students of Indian residential schools

Attempts at resolution between former students of Indian residential schools and the non-Aboriginal Canadian population began with the signing of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2006. The Settlement Agreement outlined provisions for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the stories of former students and for the Resolution Health Support Program to offer emotional and cultural support to former students and their families. Although former students have catalogued their stories through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, experiences of healing from the events of Indian residential schools remain relatively unknown. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of healing among former Indian residential school students. In partnership with an Aboriginal support agency in a small Saskatchewan city, we interviewed 10 Aboriginal people affected by residential schools. The focus of the interviews was to generate participants’ conceptions and experiences of healing regarding their residential school experiences. We found all participants continued to experience physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual impacts of residential school attendance. Disclosure of their experiences was an important turning point for some participants. Their efforts to move on varied from attempting to “forget” about their experience to reconnecting with their culture and/or following their spiritual, religious, or faith practices. Participants also noted the profound intergenerational effects of residential schools and the need for communities to promote healing. The findings will be used to guide an assessment of the healing needs among this population in Saskatchewan.

Settler biopower: accumulation and dispossession in Canada’s Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement

ABSTRACTThrough the example of Canada’s 2007 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), this article explores the work of settler biopower within seemingly progressive policies of inclusion. The IRSSA catalyzed a range of policy initiatives, aimed at the reconciliation of Indigenous/settler populations as well as the constitution of a national redress climate, together with a relatively private, unprecedented compensatory regime. The management and regulation of Indigenous populations to the ends of dispossession and displacement – via genocidal practices or amalgamation – are characteristic of settler biopower. This article explores the Canadian discourse of reconciliation and the logic of ‘healing’ as biopolitical technologies of settler governmentality. In the context of the IRSSA, settler biopower works to ‘make heal’ Indigenous populations and ‘let die’ pathologised Indigenous refusal. The products of the IRSSA’s work of statement gathering, regulating compensation, national event planning, and history making are both ephemeral and material. The engagement of participants, both Indigenous and settler, results in psycho-affective yields; these emotions, experiences, and new memories ossify into the new, shared archive of the settler state. This generative mode of settler biopower perpetuates settler primitive accumulation of Indigenous lands via dispossession, working beyond land, toward the dispossession of Indigenous bodies and the yields therein: desire, affect, and imaginaries.

JUST AND UNJUST REALLOCATIONS OF HISTORICAL BURDENS: NOTES ON A NORMATIVE THEORY OF REPARATIONS POLITICS

Prevailing connotations of reconciliation orbit concord or harmonious coexistence, meaning that concern for justice is necessarily subordinated to a more casually pragmatic peace. Bringing justice considerations to the fore means focusing on reparations as a key element of reconciliation’s suite of activities—but reparations are necessarily a matter of process, which precludes considering elements of the “package” in isolation from one another, as is the case with traditional evaluative criteria of motivation or proportion. Accordingly, this article proposes that reparations are better framed as a considered reaction to the unjust allocation of burdens, so that subsequent reallocations serve justice by answering the needs and demands of survivors. Taking cues from a variety of sources both within and beyond the transitional justice literature, the work at hand attempts just such a retrospective reframing by looking at a recently completed Canadian reparations process: the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA).

Gender, Justice, and the Indian Residential School Claims Process

Survivors of Indian Residential Schools in Canada are involved in one of the largest compensation processes in the world. A significant component in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court process aimed at resolving claims related to serious physical and sexual abuse suffered at residential schools. This article discusses a community–university research collaboration, which set out to explore how women involved in the IAP, including Survivors, support workers, lawyers, and adjudicators, understood the capacity of the model to facilitate healing. The results suggest attention to several aspects of policy development including representations of the body and sexuality, impacts of child abuse and trauma, and colonial histories of power and control, in addition to healing and training strategies.

Gender, Justice, and the Indian Residential School Claims Process

Survivors of Indian Residential Schools in Canada are involved in one of the largest compensation processes in the world. A significant component in the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), an out-of-court process aimed at resolving claims related to serious physical and sexual abuse suffered at residential schools. This article discusses a community–university research collaboration, which set out to explore how women involved in the IAP, including Survivors, support workers, lawyers, and adjudicators, understood the capacity of the model to facilitate healing. The results suggest attention to several aspects of policy development including representations of the body and sexuality, impacts of child abuse and trauma, and colonial histories of power and control, in addition to healing and training strategies.

Residential Schools and Opinion-Making in the Era of Traumatized Subjects and Taxpayer-Citizens

This essay tracks the media-led production of a Canadian common sense about residential schools in the decade leading up to the 2005 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Newspaper commentary on residential schools lawsuits accentuated the already constrained understanding of the agency, duration, and effects of the schools’ harm within private law. Civil litigation was a strategy for seeking the accountability of churches and government; however, arguments in the mainstream media repeatedly asserted that the wrong of residential schooling was limited to specific, individual crimes of sexual and physical assault. These arguments reinforced the parameters imposed by tort law. The newspaper commentaries cultivated a common sense about residential schools that drew on the discourse of trauma and a neo-liberal discourse delegitimizing claims on state resources. Trauma’s biographical scale and focus on the catastrophic event reinforced the emphasis on specific crimes. The neo-liberal taxpayer-citizen could empathize with the individual traumatized by violence, whilst dismissing broader claims about residential schooling. In newspaper commentary, then, residential schools became discursively dis-embedded from the broader framework of colonial policy. The claim of a collective experience of cultural loss was key in the struggle to resituate the schools within this framework; however, the recognition ultimately won may bear the imprint of a common sense that constrained what the recovery of culture could mean.

Unsettling the lawyers: Other forms of justice in Indigenous claims of expropriation, abuse, and injustice

This article considers, from the experience of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, the limitations of the current formal justice system and the common ways that lawyers and parties act within it. Looking at the combinations of lawsuits, settlement negotiations, structured compensation schemes, truth and reconciliation processes, and memorial and education programs now provided for in the IRSS, the article suggests that we may need ‘process pluralism’ and different orientations to deal with modern mass harms: now recognized harms (like loss of culture, family, language, as well as physical, mental, and social injury) that the formal legal system has not yet developed the capacity to address. Placing the IRSS in a larger international context, the article suggests that some legal and social recognition of ‘new’ human harms and injuries has necessitated the development of different legal and quasi-legal processes. Whether called ‘restorative,’ ‘transitional,’ or ‘alternative’ justice, new forms of dealing with wrongs, harms, and conflicts will require redesigning legal processes and institutions; legal professional education; and social, cultural, and philosophical orientations to human injuries and ‘redress.’ Not all who are injured (both individually and in groups) want or require the same ‘remedies,’ and our conventional and historical common law and adversarial system must be adapted to the diverse needs of those who are injured by past and unconscionable wrongs, especially when inflicted by major governmental, religious, and civil society institutions and practices.