'Truth & Reconciliation' Has Been Transformed Into Rent-Seeking Based On 'Falsehoods & Recrimination'

According to the federal department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, the aim of the May 2006 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) was “bringing a fair and lasting resolution to the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools.”

Twenty-four years later, this resolution is neither fair nor lasting.

The origin of the IRSSA dates to the 1980s, when former students and their advocates initiated legal efforts to compel the federal government, which funded the schools, and the churches that operated them, to atone for alleged school physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

Reconciliation Begins With Truth:  Nothing could be further from the truth

In 1998, the federal government issued a Statement of Reconciliation that acknowledged the abuses suffered by former students while establishing a multi-million-dollar Aboriginal Healing Foundation. An Alternative Dispute Resolution process was launched in 2003, providing an out-of-court mechanism for determining compensation and offering psychological support.

These efforts only created even more legal action. Before the IRSSA, there were as many as 20,000 active cases in litigation, together with about 12 class actions filed on behalf of former students. Over the years, however, traditional civil litigation was seen as unsustainable in resolving the outstanding claims. It was time-consuming, costly for the non-indigenous defendants, and presented significant legal hurdles for the aboriginal plaintiffs.

The comprehensive IRSSA, which came into effect in September 2007, resulted from a legally binding agreement among all the parties involved: legal counsel for former Indian Residential School students; legal counsel for the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and United Church school administrative entities; the Assembly of First Nations; other Indigenous organizations; and the Government of Canada.

This Agreement also created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to provide “those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools system with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences.” Beginning in 2008, the Commission travelled across Canada to hear from over 6,500 witnesses who told their stories without documentation, confirmation, or examination.

Still, the signing of IRSSA and its creation of the TRC suggest that confirming the truth about alleged indigenous boarding school abuse was one of its central goals.

Reconciliation Begins With Truth

Nothing could be further from the truth.

IRSSA payouts prove this assertion

The following justification for the legal Agreement with the Catholic entities applies to the other Christian denominations as well:

“WHEREAS the Government and the Catholic Entities recognize that court proceedings can be adversarial, lengthy and costly and often not the best way to resolve abuse claims; AND WHEREAS the parties desire a fair, comprehensive and lasting resolution of the legacy of Indian Residential Schools directed to, among other things, healing and reconciliation; AND WHEREAS the Government and the Catholic Entities have been and remain committed to working jointly with Claimants to assist in their healing and reconciliation and to employ fair, safe, effective and timely processes to validate and resolve IRS Abuse Claims, which processes will seek to avoid causing additional trauma for Claimants while also protecting the reputations of those named as abusers from unfounded allegations; AND WHEREAS the Government recognizes the importance of enabling the continuing contribution of the Catholic Entities in Canadian society and through this Agreement supports their ongoing viability….”

In short, the overarching goal of the IRSSA was not about ensuring truthful reporting. Instead, it was formed to end, once and for all, the financial and legal liabilities incurred by the government and the churches prior to its creation.

IRSSA payouts prove this assertion.

The largest class action settlement in Canadian history to date, the IRSSA has paid out $4.8 billion to former Indian Residential School students, “including in an out-of-court process for resolving claims of sexual abuse and serious physical and psychological abuse,” claims that prohibited rigorous cross examination and other evidentiary elements when such charges are lodged during ordinary criminal proceedings.

That the mantra ‘truth and reconciliation’ has too often meant ‘falsehoods and recrimination’ can best be seen from the operation and findings of the TRC.

As expected from its pre-release sound bites, the 2015 six-volume Final Report of the TRC on the history, operation, and legacy of the Indian Residential Schools reinforces the many half-truths, exaggerations, and selective reporting about the schools and their mission.

The written mandate of the TRC was to “reveal to Canadians the complex truth about the history and the ongoing legacy of the church-run residential schools, in a manner that fully documents the individual and collective harms perpetuated against Aboriginal peoples.”

The Report’s reconciliation recommendations and current demands require billions more

By indigenous cultural standards of evidence gathering and truth telling, perhaps it did. By contemporary Western juridical and objective social science standards, however, the Report is badly flawed, notably in its indifference to robust evidence gathering, comparative or contextual data, and cause-effect relationships. The result is that it tells a skewed and partial story of life at the residential schools and how this affected their students.

Among the Report’s many shortcomings are: implying without evidence that most of the children who attended the schools were grievously damaged by the experience; asserting as self-evident that the legacy of the residential schools consists of a host of negative post-traumatic consequences transmitted like some genetic disorder from one generation to the next; conflating so-called “Survivors” (always capitalized and always applied to every former student) with the 70 per cent of aboriginals who never attended these schools, thereby exaggerating the cumulative harm they are said to have caused; ignoring the residential school studies done by generations of competent and compassionate anthropologists; arguing that “cultural genocide” was fostered by these schools while claiming that aboriginal cultures are alive and well; refusing to cast a wide enough net to capture the school experience of a random sample of attendees, despite a huge budget which would have allowed the Commission to do so; accepting at face value the stories of a self-selected group of 6,000 former students — who appeared before the Commission without cross-examination, corroboration or substantiation — as representing the overall school experience.

The Report also disingenuously implies that, unlike all other people on Earth, indigenous Canadians never prevaricate, exaggerate or accept money for testifying at formal hearings, as occurred under the IRSSA, which awarded billions of dollars to tens of thousands of self-proclaimed “survivors.”

The Report’s reconciliation recommendations and current demands require billions more.

In its eagerness to portray the native residential schools in the worst possible light and present aboriginals as weak and helpless victims of fate, perhaps the most egregious shortcoming of the Report is the way it defames the tens of thousands of strong, independent and resilient aboriginal Canadians who would look at its findings and never see themselves.

“Finance is getting nervous”

Despite its shoddy and highly selective portrayal of life in these residential schools, it is generally unknown that the TRC spent millions of dollars over budget, according to Access to Information records obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s leading online publication covering Canadian government administration.

Files also cite federal complaints of “speculative” invoicing, overpaid staff and five-figure discrepancies in hospitality expenses.

“Finance is getting nervous,” said one 2014 Department of Indigenous Affairs memo. The court-ordered Commission was initially budgeted to receive $60 million under the IRSSA. Federal funding later grew to an approved $68 million and ultimately totalled some $76.6 million, accounts show.

Authorities complained when the Commission requested another $300,000 for a closing event held in Ottawa.

Memos indicate staff objected to unauthorized spending from the start of Commission hearings in Winnipeg in June 2010. On June 4, the Commission was informed that no hospitality spending exceeding $5,000 would be reimbursed without prior approval. On October 21, 2010, the late Chief Commissioner, Murray Sinclair, sought reimbursement for $102,195 in expenses, and on November 22, submitted receipts totalling $112,141 in hospitality costs.

Justice Sinclair wrote a letter to the Minister explaining that pre-approval was not sought “due to the rushed nature of the planning process” and requesting urgent approval of expenditures totaling $102,195,” memos said. When the final $112,142 bill was submitted, accountants questioned “discrepancies in the amount claimed.” The Commission replied that its original billing “was speculative.” The costs were paid.

In another complaint, the Department of Indigenous Affairs stated that six staff members assigned to work with the Commission were overpaid thousands of dollars, with the excess amount billed back to the federal treasury. “Salaries do not align with the collective agreements,” said a memo; “We will not reimburse using the maximum pay scales if the employee is not at that level.”

Plan to audit the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and have been met with resistance

Department staff employed at $96,700 a year were overpaid to $102,000 once assigned to the Commission. “Salary estimates on the chart provided by the Commission are at the top of the pay scale,” staff complained in one memo. “How can a PM-6 be making $102,000 when the maximum salary at the last increment on the PA scale is $96,700?”

The Commission spent nearly $7 million a year on employee salaries and benefits, according to a second Blacklock’s Access to Information records. The panel's detailed spending has never been fully disclosed. The Commission resisted an audit of its accounts, according to a federal memo.

“They plan to audit the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and have been met with resistance to date as the Commission claims it is an independent body,” staff wrote in a 2011 memo from the former Department of Indigenous Affairs.

The Department, in separate documents, sought special permission to fly Tim Hortons treats to a 2011 Commission hearing in Inuvik. The Arctic town has no Horton's franchise. “Hospitality from Tim Horton’s is considered a ‘treat’ for Inuvik residents,” said a May 27, 2011, memo, Hospitality for Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Second National Event.

“The elevated cost of food and shipping in the Northwest Territories creates hospitality expenses that are considerably higher than comparable hospitality in southern venues,” the memo said. Final hospitality expenses were $4,485, including “ordering buffalo pepperoni that supports cultural tradition and community business.”

“It is noted that Canada has provided significantly more money to the commission than the $60 million called for in the Indian Residential Schools Supplement Agreement,” staff wrote in a 2015 memo, and that some of this money should have been set aside to support the production of the final Report and the closing event,” staff wrote in a 2015 memo.

Salaries paid to the three Commissioners have never been disclosed, more proof that ‘truth and reconciliation’ has been transformed into rent-seeking based on ‘falsehoods and recrimination,’ a process that continues to this day.