La Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada : une étude de la sublimation de la violence coloniale canadienne

• Published in: Revue québécoise de droit international
• Main Author: Monette-Tremblay, Justine
• Format: Text
• Language: French
• Published: Société québécoise de droit international 2018
• Subjects: scipo; droit; Canada; First Nations; inuit; inuits; Premières Nations
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7202/1068666ar; http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1068666ar

For more than 160 years, hundreds of thousands of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were sent to residential schools administered by the Canadian government and various religious institutions. The residential school system is today recognized as a part of the cultural genocide, defined as the “destruction of structures and practices that allow the group to continue to live as a group.” In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established with the mandate of documenting the residential school students’ experiences in order to establish the “historical truth” and begin the reconciliation process. This study aims to determine the impact of this commission on reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations in Canada. Through an analysis of the different degrees of violence, it appeared that this commission had failed to effectively contribute to this process of reconciliation. It has adopted a conception of reconciliation that rather reinforces the coloniality of power, the main source of violence. Indeed, this commission places the responsibility for reconciliation in the individual forgiveness of residential schools survivors instead of in the necessary decolonial process and territories restitution. In these circumstances, reconciliation is deprived of its decolonial potential and aims rather at reconciling Indigenous peoples with colonialism. Pendant plus de cent soixante ans, des centaines de milliers d’enfants issues des Premières Nations, Inuits et Métis ont été envoyés dans des pensionnats mis en place par le gouvernement canadien et administrés par différentes institutions religieuses. Ce système de pensionnat est aujourd’hui reconnu comme s’inscrivant plus largement dans le cadre d’un génocide culturel, définit comme étant la « destruction des structures et des pratiques qui permettent au groupe de continuer à vivre en tant que groupe ». En 2015, la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada a été mise en place avec l’objectif de documenter les ...