Truth Before Reconciliation

<p><strong>“Without truth, justice is not served, healing cannot happen, and there can be no genuine reconciliation” –The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada</strong></p> <p>The TRC’s Final Report, released in 2015, is the outcome of many years of research and rigorous scholarship by hundreds of academics across Canada. More than 5 million documents from governments, churches, and schools, hundreds of secondary sources, and the testimonies of over 7,000 residential school Survivors informed the Commission’s work.</p> <p>Despite six volumes evidencing the genocide that took place within the system, some Canadians choose to deny, downplay, and disparage these findings in a battle for public memory waged in popular media and across social media platforms. Denialists do not refute the existence of the schools or that abuse happened. Rather, they cherry-pick and distort facts to minimize the harms done to Indigenous communities as they seek to turn reconciliation into a partisan issue and preserve national myths of benevolence.</p> <p>Countering soundbites with substance, Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, along with a team of expert historians, educators, Survivors, archivists, and archeologists, analyze the genesis, methods, and consequences of denialism; push back on denialist claims; and highlight some of the primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship that denialists ignore or misrepresent. Importantly, they also document the harms denialists have inflicted on Survivors and communities.</p> <p>Embedded in the lived experiences of Survivors and supported by the evidentiary record, <em>Truth Before Reconciliation</em> is a valuable tool to help develop the historical and information literacy needed to identify and combat denialism and anti-Indigenous racism as we collectively build a more honourable future for all.</p>