The author attended Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Her experience in IAP hearings raised questions about our approach, as Canadians, to historical wrongs, especially those, like loss of language and culture, which fall outside of the purview of criminal and tort-law. This thesis explores the legal, social, and political dispute resolution mechanisms available in Canada to address harms as they have been applied to the Indian Residential Schools Legacy. It finds that the approach to date has been limited by the assumptions inherent in those institutions. The author proposes that Canadians, as a society, need to reframe and restart our discussion about harms and reparations using a framework of “responsibility”, and provides some possible mechanisms to begin that discussion. / Graduate / mhough@uvic.ca

Based on Prime Minister Harper’s 2008 Apology for the Indian Residential School (IRS) system, this thesis addresses the need to confront the intergenerational legacy of this system on non-Indigenous Canadians in order to challenge our ability to actually ‘journey together’ with Indigenous Survivors. Aiming to break the silence that has surrounded this legacy, the voices of non-Indigenous descendents of former staff, as well as my own as a non-Indigenous Canadian, expose personal experiences of the lived reality of the IRS legacy. Working from a narrative methodology from within a decolonizing framework, this research includes interviews with two descendents of former staff, as well as an auto-ethnography of myself, as researcher, to capture the lived experiences with relation to this legacy. Results from this introductory work illustrate a variety of themes needing to be acknowledged, and deals with notions of opening dialogue, violence, guilt and responsibility within the context of the IRS system. / Graduate / 0334 / 0626 / 0630 / khaiste@gmail.com

During the Indian Residential School period (1867-1960) in the Mackenzie River area of the Northwest Territories, Indigenous students at several schools administered by the Order of the Grey Nuns produced crafts and art items that were then exported to the Order’s motherhouse in Montréal. This collection of 275 pieces, ranging from garments and footwear to paintings and drawings, was repatriated at the request of the Fort Providence Métis Council to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC), in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in 2001. While locationally repatriated, the Grey Nuns collection has to date remained in storage at the PWNHC until 2015 when, in cooperation of PWNHC staff, I was able to carry out a preliminary examination of the collection. The objective of this examination was to: (1) temporally and spatially trace the movement of the pieces across Canada, situating the PWNHC collection within the residential school history in Canada; (2) to explore if the making of these pieces by the children who attended residential schools in the Mackenzie River Valley perpetuated Indigenous artistic traditions; (3) to determine whether the materiality of the collection exposes the complex interrelations between children’s crafting knowledge and the colonial structure; (4) to explore the potential and challenges of reconnecting this collection now at the PWNHC with its source communities today. This thesis reports on the analysis of a small subset of the collection’s contents. This sample, consisting of two pairs of moccasins, one pair of mittens and a single souvenir object, was analyzed for information pertinent to my main objectives, and especially what they indicate about hybridity and materiality regarding the different cultural influences, Métis, Dene and Euro-Canadian, that met in the Indian Residential school setting. The objects, made at the behest of the Grey Nuns in order to meet the demands of the Canadian tourism industry, and provide badly needed income to support their Northwest Territories schools, exhibit a combination of two, and even three, of these influences, notably in the items’ styles, decorative motifs and the materials employed in their creation. Of particular note, these sample objects portray distinct Métis and Dene artistic knowledge and traits. Their making speaks to the continuance of important Indigenous women’s traditions, knowledge that did not disappear despite the often hostile institutional environment around their creators. The collections offers another window on student-colonizer relations within some Indian Residential schools in the Lower Mackenzie region in the early twentieth century. / Graduate / 0326 / abra.wenzel@gmail.com

Through this Peace and Conflict Studies autoethnography, I relate my stories in relationship to the First Nations lands and peoples of Northern Manitoba within the context of Child and Family Services. The stories identify relationships between social work interventions and peace-building interventions with examples of my contributions to the structural violence of colonization through assimilation, and my interventions that are consistent with peace-building to reverse the assimilation of colonization. The theories of structural violence, colonization, assimilation and genocide provide the framework to tell the anecdotal stories to identify the complex relationships. My stories describe my emotions of inner conflict and turmoil as I identify the day-to-day challenges ingrained within the system to build peace by reversing the tide of removing children from their families, communities, cultures and identities. The stories also identify some successes of peace-building by strengthening and unifying families and communities in response to experiences of colonization.

The Indian residential school (IRS) system is part of Canada’s colonial history; an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended IRS (Stout & Peters, 2011). Informed by Indigenous principles of respect, relevance, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationality (Deloria, 2004; Ermine 1995; Kirkness & Barnhardt, 2001; Wilson, 2008), this study uses classic grounded theory to explore how female IRS survivors or their female descendants are coping with the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Specifically, the general method of comparative analysis was used to generate theory and identify categories and conceptualizations. The emergent problem found that individual survivors and their descendants were dealing with kakwatakih-nipowatisiw, a Cree term used to identify learned colonial (sick) behaviours. These behaviours manifested first among the administrative staff of the schools, then eventually emerged as female generational violence between, for example, mothers and daughters. Indigenous women in this study aimed to resolve this, their ‘main concern’, in order to strengthen familial relations, especially between female family members. Analysis resulted in the identification of a theory derived from the social process of potentializing wellness, which was grounded in the real-world experiences of Indigenous women. Potentializing wellness involves three dimensions: building personal competencies, moral compassing, and fostering virtues. It was revealed that Indigenous women perceive the ongoing generational effects of IRS differently, and as a result, three behavioural typologies emerged: living the norm, between the norm, and escaping the norm. The “norm” refers to the belief that violence is accepted as a normal part of family life. The paradox, of course, is that this type of behaviour is not normal and Indigenous women in this study are looking for ways to eliminate aggressive behaviours between women. The discoveries made in this research, coupled with the final integrative literature review, suggest that Indigenous People’s cultural ways of knowing have a holistic component that addresses all wellness levels. Effective strategies to deal with intergenerational trauma can emerge when holistic health is followed by, or happens concordantly with, reclaiming cultural norms grounded in community and spiritual life. Indigenizing a Western intervention is not enough. Focusing on the spiritual as well as emotional, physical, intellectual, and social aspects of self is seemingly the best approach for Indigenous People who are dealing with the intergenerational effects of trauma.

In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.

In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.

The re-curated Canadian History Hall (CHH) opened at the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) in Gatineau, Québec, on July 1st, 2017, becoming the first Canadian national narrative to exhibit the history, experiences, and aftermath of Canada’s genocidal Indian Residential School (IRS) system. Through interviews and participant observation, this case study considers experiences of CHH curatorial engagements between Alberni IRS Survivors and museum professionals. Their experiences illustrate practical challenges, structural limitations, and complementary interests of Western museums and Indigenous source communities attempting to collaboratively curate difficult history. Despite having limited capacities for indigenization or decolonization, this thesis demonstrates that museums like the CMH can be complicated but beneficial partners for some Indigenous source communities and their anti-colonial engagements with Canadian society. / Graduate