Truth, Reconciliation, and a Web of Fiction

Résumé En

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada held its closing event on the 15th of December 2015. The three commissioners released an extensive report on the Indian Residential School (IRS) system and its many social, psychological, and cultural consequences on the First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities of Canada. The sixth and final volume of the report included ninety-four calls for action. The newly elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, pledged to implement every single one of them. Six years later, only thirteen of these recommendations have been fully implemented (Nardy 2021). This is not to say that nothing has been done to support reconciliation efforts. Some progress has been recorded, including improved access to healthcare and education. This is simply to underscore the long and winding road to reconciliation that still lies ahead for Canadians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, if they want to build a lasting relationship based on mutual trust and understanding.Recent events, however, have proved that reconciliation might even be a longer way off than many are willing to admit. In Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaq fishermen have been facing racist attacks for more than a year over a lobster dispute that questions their traditional fishing rights (Kilpatrick 2020). The controversy over unmarked graves at former residential school sites has revived tensions and (not so) ancient grudges across Canada. Lately, Mr. Trudeau spent Canada’s first official Truth and Reconciliation Day on a holiday with his family in Tofino, B.C., a few miles from a Tk’emlups te Secwepemc community which was celebrating the event. Despite being invited, he did not attend (Walsh & Kirkup 2021).So, where does the future of reconciliation truly lie? Undoubtedly, in a renewed commitment from the federal and provincial authorities to implement all the ninety-four calls for action, and bridge the many gaps that keep most Indigenous communities at the margins of Canadian society. Nevertheless, it may also lie in the contributions of the many Aboriginal artists whose works of fiction not only bear witness to the trauma and losses suffered either as IRS survivors or as intergenerational victims, but also allow the recovery of Indigenous epistemologies targeted by the IRS system. While the TRC devoted only a few lines to these authors, their efforts and achievements deserve wider coverage and dissemination, and this is what this short essay purports to do.