A critical look at Truth and Reconciliation
The TRC has been widely lauded but many Indigenous people challenge its very premise
Wrongs of the past – and present
The operation of the Indian Residential School system is one of Canada’s most ignominious crimes. The wretched tales of the survivors – captured extensively by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – paint a sordid narrative of abuse and neglect. On an institutional level, the commission framed the century-long term of the schools as ‘cultural genocide.’
With the truth being told as the TRC released its final report in 2015, the reconciliation process began. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a renewed relationship with the Indigenous peoples in Canada, one “based on recognition, rights, respect, cooperation and partnership.”
Unlike his predecessor Stephen Harper, Trudeau has acknowledged Canada’s colonial past. But to some, Canada has a colonial present.
Jeff Corntassel, Cherokee Nation citizen and director of Indigenous Governance at University of Victoria, cites the massive number of Indigenous children in foster care as an example of ongoing colonialism.
“The taking of indigenous children from their families’ homes, is still occurring at a fairly rapid rate,” he says.
In 2011, Aboriginal children made up nearly half of all foster children in Canada, even though they account for only seven per cent of the the country’s child population.
Jeff Corntassel looks towards independent and community-based decolonization efforts (Courtesy of Jeff Corntassel)
Corntassel acknowledges the efforts of the TRC to shed light on the dark ravages of residential schools, but says there are limits to the commission’s recommended path to reconciliation.
“It was an important way of bringing out survivor testimonies and an important way of raising this to the forefront of Canadian consciousness,” he says.
Although he says TRC’s 94 calls to action are an encouraging start, Corntassel notes that the fundamental reasons behind the acrimonious relationship between Canada and Indigenous nations – the unceded land and the ongoing disruptions to Indigenous families – is not addressed.
Cora Voyageur, professor of social sciences at University of Calgary, doesn’t think this criticism is fair. She argues that land-claims are being addressed by the state through other channels.
Voyageur, a residential school survivor and Dene from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, says that the TRC worked in accordance with its mandate and made a significant contribution towards reconciliation.
An exercise in assimilation?
“At its worst,” says Corntassel, the TRC is a way to assimilate Indigenous peoples into the Canadian political economy.
“The question folks have to ask themselves is – what are they reconciling themselves to?” Corntassel asks.
“At the end of the day, reconciliation isn’t really looking at the underlying colonial system. It’s looking to make amends in symbolic ways within the current capitalist system,” he says.
Corntassel subscribes to the view – popularized by many Native scholars and activists – that the Indigenous way of life is in conflict with state-sanctioned capitalist accumulation. Corntassel emphasizes the ongoing disruption of Indigenous nations’ relationships to land and water as a result of colonization.
According to this viewpoint, by ceding territories to Indigenous nations, and truly allowing for their self-determination, Canada – and its economic system – would be losing access to land and resources.
However, this logic dictates, the risk of alienating Indigenous communities comes at a price, in the form of blockades, protests and other disruptive activities. Hence, reconciling with Indigenous communities and making modest overtures is in the long-term strategic interests of Canada.
“There have been other researchers that have looked at how reconciliation is basically a way to mitigate risk in society,” Corntassel says.
One can interpret the TRC as a way to prevent violence, says David Newhouse, professor of business as well as Indigenous studies at Trent University.
Newhouse, Onondaga from the Six Nations of the Grand River community, personally views the TRC as a way of creating a “critical dialogue” between long disenfranchised communities and a state that reacts slowly to legit grievances.
He credits the commission for framing its recommendations as calls to action. Otherwise, he says, they would be shelved as most of the recommendations of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report.
Indigenous adaptation of capitalism
Newhouse, who researches Indigenous economies, says resistance to capitalism is futile, considering the incredibly powerful force of the world’s dominant economic system.
“Aboriginal people need to get on board with capitalism,” he says. “I argue that assimilation and absorption into a capitalist economy is inevitable.”
But Newhouse says that he hasn’t observed Indigenous groups meaningfully looking to practice an alternative anyway. Instead, he has observed Indigenous communities working “to mitigate the worse effects of capitalism” by practicing their own adaptation of it. In effect, he says, this means organizing an economy that respects land, air and water.
However, Newhouse concedes that incorporating Indigenous values into large-scale production is a challenge.
“The Indigenous dilemma of how to participate in capitalism while respecting the environment is now the human dilemma,” he says, noting the absence of an easy answer. “Capitalism, as you know, is extremely exploitative of human labour and natural resources.”
Reinvigorating communities v. state-sanctioned reconciliation
For Corntassel, real resurgence for Indigenous peoples is happening at the grass-roots level.
“For a lot of those peoples whose relationships have been shattered by residential schools and and by ongoing colonization, getting back to the land and getting back to water is crucial,” says Corntassel.
He sees land-based education, language revitalization, reclaiming land, using original names of colonized spaces, and hunting and fishing as effective forms of community-based decolonization.
While the state helps with some of these efforts, such as by Indigenizing school curriculum, Corntassel is wary of relying on the Canadian government. He notes that state funding can easily reduce or disappear altogether.
Centuries of colonial rule has embedded distrust in Indigenous minds, to the point where documented promises of reconciliation are not enough.
Corntassel draws on activist, author and community leader Cindy Blackstock’s definition of reconciliation – “not having to say sorry twice.”
Canada’s economical use of apologies aside, do the actions of the state and living standards of Indigenous communities suggest that reconciliation has truly begun?
