The Imperative to Reconcile: ‘Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future’

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (2015) Report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, attests to the practices of cultural genocide that characterized the residential school experience for many of the Aboriginal children who were removed from their homes and sent to residential schools across the country. The history, legacy and policy context of the residential school era is well documented in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Report. The reader is privy to the activities of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as they evolved and were implemented throughout the country, as well as to the various detailed calls to action that serve as an outcome of the Report. It provides a comprehensive picture of the realities, turmoil, and harsh consequences that were a product of imperial policies meant to assimilate Aboriginal children and communities. One cannot help but be curious, however, about the extent to which the general public will embrace the calls to action set out in the Report since it was not the general public that brought the issue of residential schools to the public agenda to begin with. This is not to suggest that the response on the part of mainstream Canadians will be less than acceptable; instead, it serves to inquire about the ways the general public will frame their responses in light of what they value.