Can non-aboriginals handle the truth about the abuses that happened in Canada’s Indian residential schools?
That is a concern of Robert Watts, named early this year as the interim director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, part of the $4-billion settlement agreement reached between the federal government, the churches involved in running the schools and the Assembly of First Nations.
One of the factors affecting healing and reconciliation between residential school survivors and the rest of the country will be the “receptivity of the country to the truth,” said Mr. Watts, the former chief of staff to Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “We can have all the truth in the world, but if people aren’t listening ”¦ in terms of building for the future, we will miss an opportunity.”
The article opens with
“Can non-aboriginals handle the truth about the abuses that happened in Canada’s Indian residential schools? ”
and then goes on to describe various ‘reconciliation’ processes.
So, without telling what ” the truth about the abuses” is/was, the reader is left without any orientation to why these reconciliation processes are no more important than tea with the bishop’s wife on Saturday.