CULE recognizes the significance of the release of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on Dec. 15, 2015. According to Justice Murray Sinclair, the Chair of the TRC, “the Canadian residential school experience was one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our collective history.” According to the report, an estimated 150,000 children were forced to attend church and government-run residential schools.”
“The schools were intended to sever the link between aboriginal children and parents,” the report states. “They did this work only too well. Family connections were permanently broken.”
CULE recognizes that some of our members are the intergenerational survivors of residential schools and that as the report states, the dark legacy lives on in Canada’s child and family services system.”
As members of Canadian society, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, we support the implementation of the TRC’s 94 recommendations and will work towards educating our members about the report findings and recommendations.
The full report can be viewed here: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=890
TRC archive site at the University of Manitoba: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=905