Truth and Reconciliation REPORT CARD #TRC

 UPDATE

Tansi Nîtôtemtik, 

Today’s post continues our assessment of TRC Call to Action #4, specifically in relation to the following requirements of the national standard for Indigenous child welfare: 

    ii. Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take the residential school legacy into account in their decision making. 

    iii. Establish, as an important priority, a requirement that placements of Aboriginal children into temporary and permanent care be culturally appropriate. 

READ

• 5 Years after TRC: A National Standard (Part 2)
• 5 Years After TRC: A National Standard

 

Indian Child Welfare Act:^[6] The Gold Standard

The United States enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (CWFA) in 1978, in response to overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the child welfare system. The CFWA is exemplary as it empowers Indigenous communities with inherent jurisdiction to resolve matters involving children in need of care.^[7] 

When determining the best course of action for an Indigenous child, the ICWA requires US courts to consider the following:

1. A genuine desire from the biological parents to place an Indigenous child in care.^[8]
2. Active efforts to keep the family together (e.g. rehabilitative programs) to be unsuccessful before any placement is ordered. ^[9]
3. A higher burden of proof to require placement/adoption.^[10]
4. A legislated order for placement to keep the child close to their family and community.^[11]

US should follow Canada’s lead and reckon with its own destructive legacy

Library and Archives Canada / Reuters

Canada confronts ‘cultural genocide’ against aboriginal people

 

Opinion by Lauren Carasik | June 16, 2015

On May 31 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) released a summary of its report on the history and legacy of the nation’s residential schools. The report concluded that Canada’s aboriginal policy, designed “to eliminate aboriginal governments … and cause aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada,” has caused unspeakable and enduring suffering that amounts to “cultural genocide.”

The U.S. also had a shameful program of residential schools for its Native American children, often operated by churches with government funding. A reckoning for the destructive legacy of forced assimilation is long overdue. It’s time for the U.S. to follow Canada’s lead in establishing a truth and reconciliation commission and acknowledge the havoc its policies have wrought.

Canada’s legacy

Started in the 1880s, the schools were funded by Canadian government but run primarily by churches. An estimated 150,000 aboriginal children attended the residential schools during their century-long tenure. But the goal was never to educate the children. Instead, the schools were designed to destroy aboriginal culture by removing children from reservations and severing ties with parents and communities, in order to inculcate ‘civilized’ and Christian values. The last residential school closed in 1998, but the after-effects continue to exact a devastating toll today. This is true not only for those haunted by their stay at the schools but for the entire community of aboriginals whose culture and systems of government were targeted for annihilation.
Many of the 80,000 survivors recounted their harrowing tales of forced separation from their communities and brutal physical, sexual and psychological abuse to the Commission. And the TRC found that more than 3,000 aboriginal children perished in the in residential schools from abuse, neglect and illness. Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the TRC, estimated that the figure could be far higher, since shoddy record keeping obscured the Commission’s final accounting.
The TRC was formed as part of the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, in the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history. In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged and apologized for the harm caused by Canada’s residential schools. But he has refused to commit to implementing the Commission’s 94 recommendations, including provisions for health, education, justice and commemoration. Canada cannot simply close this sordid chapter and move on. Instead, it must enact policies and programs that would ensure aboriginal communities have the support, tools and resources to heal and thrive.

The grave injustices of North American residential schools and their aftermath are clear. But seeking and speaking the truth is only the beginning of a long process of reconciliation.

“Kill the Indian in him, and save the man,” Richard Pratt, a U.S. Army officer who pioneered the concept of off-reservation boarding schools opined in an oft-quoted 1892 speech. At the time, Pratt’s goal of cultural rather than physical genocide, though despicable, was less extreme for its time than that of others who advocated for the outright extermination of the nation’s native people.
But, as in Canada, the U.S. schools served their intended purpose of demolishing Native American traditions and history. Thousands of children died from abuse, neglect and malnutrition. Others were harshly punished for residual ties to their culture or spirituality. And the schools often pushed boys toward manual labor and girls to domestic service. As a 2009 United Nations report concluded, instead of working toward full integration “the training prepared Native children to be assimilated into the bottom of the socio-economic ladder,” where many continue to struggle.
The historical trauma inflicted on parents can haunt subsequent generations. Researchers found stress hormone adaptations in the children of Holocaust survivors, perhaps caused in utero, that may predispose them to ill health. And the effect is not limited to environmental factors: it may actually be woven into DNA. This trauma may partly explain the social ills that continue to plague Native communities both in the U.S. and Canada, including high rates of addiction, mental illness, domestic and sexual violence, family disintegration and poor physical health. Reservations in the U.S. experience suicide epidemics, and though the reasons are not clear, there is agreement that one of the factors is “the legacy of federally funded boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native American children from their homes,” according to The New York Times.

Need for reparations

The U.S. has made some efforts to end its history of forced assimilation.  For example, in 1978 Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act to keep Native American children with their families or communities. But nearly 40 years later, the law has failed to meet its mark, and Native American children are still being fostered and adopted into communities that fail to reflect their cultural heritage.
Last month a commission in Maine found that the state placed five times as many Native American children in foster care as non-native children. Maine is hardly alone: In 2013, advocates in Nebraska linked a spike in the number of the state’s Native American children in foster care to the legacy of boarding schools. And placement of children within their communities for fostering and adoption is hampered in part by lack of appropriate homes.
That shortage, which reflects the damage inflicted by governmental policy, reinforces the need for comprehensive reparations to heal and rebuild damaged communities. The specifics of a reparations package must be crafted and embraced by Native American groups. It would likely include individual and collective restitution, restoration and truth telling.
The grave injustices of North American residential schools and their aftermath are clear. But seeking and speaking the truth is only the beginning of a long process of reconciliation. Both Canada and the U.S. must commit to atoning for the schools’ horrors by expending political capital and economic resources to help Native communities truly recover.

Lauren Carasik is a clinical professor of law and the director of the international human rights clinic at the Western New England University School of Law.

SOURCE: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.

Native abuse inquiry deadline looms as documents mount

The Truth and Reconciliation commission into Indian residential school abuse faces a deadline to wrap up, while historical documents pile up.

Blair Gable Photo

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is looking through documents stored at the Library and Archives Canada Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Que. Christopher Smith, collection management clerk, works in an area containing documents being examined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

By: Donovan Vincent News reporter SOURCE

The race is on for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission probing abuse in Indian residential schools to comb through mountains of historical government records in search of documents pertaining to this painful chapter in Canada’s history.

For the past four years, the commission has been holding public hearings across the country during which survivors have told riveting personal stories about mistreatment in residential schools.

Those hearings have wrapped up and by June 2015 the commission must write a report that includes recommendations for preventing a similar tragedy in the future.

Kimberly Murray, a lawyer and executive director for the commission, says there’s not enough time left.

“There’s no way we’ll be able to go through and collect every document,’’ says Murray, a Mohawk from the Kanesatake reserve.

A major piece of the commission’s work is pulling together all the witness statements, documents and research on residential schools and putting the massive haul in a new National Research Centre to be located in Manitoba.

The document search is a sleuthing job not unlike one Sherlock Holmes would undertake.

Already the federal government has, under duress and court order, provided 4.2 million documents to the commission.

But recently, Ottawa issued an RFP to hire a firm that will pore through an additional estimated 60,000 boxes stored in vaults in five Library and Archives Canada locations across the country.

Not every box will contain documents germane to the commission and that’s the tricky part. The job requires painstaking sifting to flag the relevant records.

While there hasn’t been an eyeball on every one of the 4.2 million documents already provided, important ones involving incidents like the deaths of students in residential schools have been looked at and reviewed, Murray said.

“We have key topics that we’re writing about. Every Health Canada record we’ve looked at. Every hospital record we have we’ve looked at,’’ she says.

Researchers follow a trail, like following breadcrumbs. When they come across documents with dialogue pertaining to a subject the commission is writing about, that dialogue is traced back through other records. Often these dialogues happened between federal departments — the RCMP, for example, talking to Health Canada.

The residential schools intersected with many government agencies, including National Defence.

“We’ve seen photographs of the Department of National Defence taking (residential school) children to hospitals,’’ Murray said. “Some children were also temporarily housed in military barracks.’’

Murray pointed out that aside from 33 federal departments in Canada, including Aboriginal Affairs, the commission is also waiting for documents from churches that ran the residential schools.

“Many Catholic entities have not produced their documents to us yet,’’ Murray said.

Canada’s residential schools for aboriginal people began in the 1870s and the last one closed in 1996. There were more than 130 of these government-funded schools across the country that were set up to eradicate parental involvement in aboriginal children’s cultural, intellectual and educational development.

Residents suffered horrible sexual and physical abuse. More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were placed in the schools. An estimated 80,000 former students are still living today.

The $60-million, five-year commission was formed as part of a settlement agreement.

There’s been finger pointing at Ottawa over the fact the remaining time is too short to sort through all the relevant records.

When asked about that complaint, Andrea Richer, a spokeswoman for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt, pointed out the federal government helped the commission get a one-year extension to complete its mandate.

“Our government remains committed to achieving a fair and lasting resolution to the legacy of Indian Residential Schools,’’ Richer said in a statement.

Gordon Williams, 73, a former residential school student and member of the commission’s survivor committee that advises the inquiry, said survivors like him did their part by telling their stories to the commission.

“A lot of people were very emotional about what happened,’’ he said referring to the testimonials the commission heard.

Now it’s time for the documents and records to speak, said Williams, who attended the Birtle Indian Residential School, west of Winnipeg, from 1957 to 1961.

Murray says although the commission’s mandate wraps up next year, the story won’t end there.

“When we’re done, we’re not walking away without making sure that the legal obligation to produce those records continues past the commission, and those records be given to the National Research Centre,’’ Murray said.

'60s scoop' survivors back in Toronto court

Plaintiffs say a generation of people lost their Aboriginal identity after being taken from their homes

CBC News \  Jul 15, 2013 4:05 PM ET

 

Beaverhouse First Nation Chief Marcia Brown Martel is back in a Toronto court July 15 to present the '60s Scoop' case concerning the cultural deprivation of Aboriginal people. (Melanie Ferrier/CBC)
A class action lawsuit filed on the basis that young First Nations people were deprived of their cultural identity was expected to be in the courts on Monday.

Between 1965 and 1985, an estimated 16,000 Aboriginal children in Ontario were removed from their homes and placed in other — mostly non-native — communities in what is called by some “the 60s scoop.”

Chief Marcia Brown-Martel of the Beaverhouse First Nation and Robert Commanda were two of those children taken from their families. They launched an attempt at a class action lawsuit in February 2009.
In May 2010 a judge conditionally granted a motion to certify the action as a class proceeding.
But in December 2011, it was ruled that conditional certification of a class action proceeding should not have been granted.
Brown-Martell and Commanda are expected to present their case before a new judge at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.
“I am dismayed that the Government of Canada has taken the position that there is no justifiable claim because its actions were in the best interests of me and 16,000 other children who were taken from our homes and raised far away from our communities without regard for our cultural identity,” said Brown-Martel in a press release issued by the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.
“Canada’s argument that it had no capacity and no obligation to protect our Aboriginal cultural rights is reprehensible [and] is a continuation of the assimilation policies inflicted upon First Nations through the Residential School system.”

A website has been established to help First Nations people register and obtain more information on the class action proceedings.

Brown-Martell and Commanda spoke about the case with CBC’s Superior Morning. Listen to the interview here.

http://www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com

[This interview is tragic, as it explains how parents were forced to give up their children...Trace]

Ottawa ordered to find and release millions of Indian residential school records

By GLORIA GALLOWAY, OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

The federal government must scour its archives for millions of documents related to the Indian residential schools that operated in Canada for more than century – institutions where physical and sexual abuse was rampant and from which many students never returned.
An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled on Wednesday (Jan. 30) that it is not good enough for Ottawa to provide the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) with records that can be found in the active files of departments.

More Related to this Story

• TERRY MITCHELL, LORI CURTIS Canada, first nations have a road map. It was the Kelowna Accord
• residential schools Debate over crucial residential school documents delays reconciliation deal
• INTERVIEW What Shawn Atleo wants from Stephen Harper: real change, real commitment

Awareness

Video: Teaching legacy of residential schools necessary: Commission

CP video

Justice

Video: RCMP reports on abuse in residential schools

Video

Video: Shawn Atleo: Status quo is the common enemy for all first nations
 

Most of the relevant documents were long ago sent to Library and Archives Canada (LAC) for storage, and Mr. Justice Stephen Goudge said the government must now retrieve them so that the commission can fulfill its mandate of compiling a historical record of the residential-schools experience.
Canada’s obligation under a settlement agreement signed in 2006 with the school survivors, the government, the churches that ran the institutions, and others, is straightforward, Judge Goudge wrote.
“It is to provide all relevant documents to the TRC,” which was created as part of the settlement agreement, he wrote. “The obligation is in unqualified language unlimited by where the documents are located within the government of Canada.”
The department of Aboriginal Affairs has turned over a million records and promises hundreds of thousands more. But 23 other departments have refused to do likewise. It is estimated that millions of school-related documents in the archives could occupy 6.5 kilometres of shelf space, and finding them could cost as much $100-million.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-ordered-to-find-and-release-millions-of-indian-residential-school-records/article8001068/

 

The only thing I can add is America needs to do the same - and if it's up to me, we will have the records released in my lifetime for the residential schools here and the genocidal Indian Adoption Projects...Trace

Victory for First Nations could cost Ottawa billions

Ottawa spends $3 million to battle First Nations child welfare case

Heather Scoffield,              October 01, 2012

 

OTTAWA - The federal government has been billed more than $3 million for its unsuccessful attempts to keep a high-stakes battle over First Nations child welfare out of the courts.
Invoices obtained through Access to Information show the Justice Department, acting on behalf of Aboriginal Affairs, paid out at least $3.1 million for legal services between 2007 and June 2012.
Government lawyers were trying to quash claims from First Nations child rights advocates that Ottawa is short-changing native communities by funding child welfare services at 22 per cent below provincial levels.
The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations launched a human rights challenge that dates back to 2007.
They say the federal government is discriminating by not providing the same level of child welfare support to First Nations children as other children in Canada receive from provincial governments.
Ottawa has challenged the advocates with legal technicalities at every step along the way, arguing that the case does not belong in the court system.
After much back and forth, and more than $3 million later, the Federal Court rejected the government's arguments, ordering a full hearing at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
"They've spent that trying to avoid this hearing on the truth," said Cindy Blackstock, the society's executive director.
"That really raises the question of what they're trying to hide. All we've wanted from the get-go is a factual hearing on whether they're discriminating or not."
Indeed, last week, the tribunal decided to set aside several weeks of hearings on the issue in February and March.
"I'm expecting Canada to really drag it out and use about any tactic they can to drag it out," said Blackstock.
Blackstock obtained the federal invoices through an Access to Information request and provided the documents to The Canadian Press.
At stake is far more than federal funding for child welfare.
If the First Nations advocates win the day, the case will put pressure on Ottawa to increase child welfare funding, as well as to match provincial funding in other areas of First Nations services, such as schooling, special education, policing and health.
Already, First Nations have started legal action on special education and policing in Ontario, using similar arguments to the child welfare case.
Victory for the First Nations could cost Ottawa billions.
"We think that after these cases go through, the federal government's programs for First Nations people will need a drastic overhaul in order to deliver services equal to what other Canadians receive," said Kent Elson, a Toronto lawyer who is involved in the policing and special education challenges.
But if the government wins, recently won powers for First Nations to launch human rights complaints would be severely restricted, the acting head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission has said.
"We think this is one of the most important human rights issues this decade," Elson added.
Aboriginal Affairs officials said Monday they don't intend to speculate on how much the case will cost at the end of the day, but spokeswoman Genevieve Guibert said in an email that the government hopes the tribunal will dismiss the complaint, putting an end to litigation.
The government has increased the funding from $449.5 million a year in 2006-07 to its current level of $580 million, Guibert said.
A spokesman for Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan said last week that the federal government does not believe the courts are the proper forum for differences over child welfare.
"We believe that the best way to ensure First Nations children and families get the supports and services they need is by working together — with First Nations, provinces and territories — and not through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal," Jan O'Driscoll wrote in an email.
"Our commitment to supporting First Nations children and families is clear."
O'Driscoll said funding for family services has "significantly increased" and the quality of such services has improved to focus on preventing the problems that jeopardize the welfare of native children.
"As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further."
But Blackstock said she and the AFN worked for 10 years behind the scenes to negotiate a compromise with the government, before turning to legal action.
"The bigger question is, do we want to be a country where racial discrimination is a way that we save the government money? This case is fundamentally about the type of Canada we want," she said.
"It's not a legitimate fiscal restraint measure."
First Nations children are dramatically over-represented in the child welfare system, mainly because of poverty, overcrowded housing and poor parenting linked to substance abuse and neglect, research shows.
Recent census data shows there were nearly 30,000 children in foster care in Canada on a given day. Other research suggests about 70,000 children pass through foster homes at some point in a given year.
Up to 40 per cent of those children are First Nations kids, Blackstock said.
Last week, the United Nations committee on the Convention of the Rights of the Child took Canada to task over its treatment of aboriginal, immigrant and disabled children.
When asked about the criticism in the House of Commons, Conservative parliamentary secretary Bob Dechert lashed out at the UN committee rather than address the child welfare matter.
"The sad reality is that Syria is a member of this committee," Dechert said.
"Syria, a country whose rulers are stealing the innocence of an entire generation of its children, is criticizing Canada. Imagine that. This is no doubt to distract from the atrocities that Syrian children are currently facing every day."

© The Canadian Press, 2012

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