Canada’s Indian Residential Schools Legacy

• Main Author: Larissa Fulop
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Indian; First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.672.2321; http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article%3D1030%26context%3Dundergradtjr

were removed, often forcibly, from their homes and placed in Indian Residential Schools, where they were compelled to abandon their Native languages, culture, and religion on account of both physical and psychological abuse.1 At present, the government of Canada is making attempts to remedy this dark chapter of its history by providing survivors with various forms of reparations so as to promote reconciliation throughout Canadian society at large. As Antonio Buti reminds us, “the right to reparations for wrongful acts has long been recognized as a fundamental principle of law essential to the functioning of legal systems.”2 As will become evident in this paper, reparations made according to a state-run, top down approaches is untenable. Reparations for harms suffered by First Nations children, their families, and communities under Canada’s Indian Residential Schools system illustrates a case of transitional justice mechanisms as work in a de facto non-transitional context.3