Publication

This paper examines the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was launched in 2008 to gather the testimonies of students who attended the dysfunctional Indian Residential School system. Although the desired ends of the TRC were truth and reconciliation, it has run into stiff opposition by both the Canadian government and aboriginal peoples. The government, which has complicated TRC efforts to acquire required documents and archival files, wants to maintain a rosy narrative of its relationship with native peoples, while aboriginal resistance can be traced to a lack of trust in the Canadian government, a sense of re-victimization, and the very idea of the TRC.