What's Left 2015-06-07 Volume 15
This week was marked by the the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). After six years of testimony and research, the TRC released its 94 recommendations aimed to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the progress of Canadian Reconciliation. Most of Canada received the report with an increased sense of understanding of what transpired for Canada's Indigenous peoples during and following more than a century of assimilation, abuse and murder within the Canadian government's residential school program. Although this history is no surprise for Canada's Indigenous communities, the commission's work has amplified the many stories of children being taken from their homes, mistreated and, in many cases, killed. The report did not mince words when it called the residential school system one of cultural genocide.