Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism

“Without truth, justice is not served, healing cannot happen, and there can be no genuine reconciliation”―The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

The TRC’s Final Report, released in 2015, is the outcome of many years of research and rigorous scholarship by hundreds of academics across Canada. More than 5 million documents from governments, churches, and schools, hundreds of secondary sources, and the testimonies of over 7,000 residential school Survivors informed the Commission’s work.

Despite six volumes evincing the genocide, some Canadians choose to deny, downplay, and disparage these findings in a battle for public memory waged in popular media and across social media platforms. Denialists do not refute the existence of the schools or that abuse happened. Rather, they cherry-pick and distort facts to minimize the harms done to Indigenous communities as they seek to turn reconciliation into a partisan issue and preserve national myths of benevolence.

Countering soundbites with substance, Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, along with a team of expert historians, educators, Survivors, archivists, and archeologists, analyze the genesis, methods, and consequences of denialism; push back on denialist claims; and highlight some of the primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship that denialists ignore or misrepresent. Importantly, they also document the harms denialists have inflicted on Survivors and communities.

Embedded in the lived experiences of Survivors and supported by the evidentiary record, Truth Before Reconciliation is a valuable tool to help develop the historical and information literacy needed to identify and combat denialism and anti-Indigenous racism as we collectively build a more honourable future for all. 

Sean Carleton is a settler historian and associate professor in the departments of History and Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. His award-winning research examines the history and political economy of schooling and settler capitalism in Canada.

Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and a professor at the University of Manitoba where he holds the Faculty of Arts Professorship in Indigenous Knowledge and Aesthetics in the Department of Indigenous Studies. Niigaan is also an award-winning writer, editor, and activist who was named to the “Power List” in 2022 by Maclean’s magazine as one of the most influential individuals in Canada.