Didn't finish this book, but that's not due to the book but to me. but what I read was very good. Recommended reading.

In some of my reading I had run across mention of Canadians Residential Schools but I was not very familiar with this history. This book is a very detailed account of the Canadian's Government's attempt at Reconciliation. There are some examples of what the Residential Schools did but most of the book is about the aftermath. Anyone with an interest in Canadian History and Indigenous Peoples will find this book very interesting. The text is accompanied with some photographs of those involved.

As Canada celebrated its 150th birthday this year, reconciliation was increasingly a buzzword on the lips of politicians, journalists, and celebrities. Most people seemed to recognize that we have a ways to go in our relationship with Indigenous peoples—but most people also seem unwilling to put that recognition into action. As my recent review of Seven Fallen Feathers shows, our country is still a hostile place when it comes to Indigenous lives. And the present situation is a direct result of the more-than-150 years of colonialism executed as official government policy, including the residential school system.

Residential Schools and Reconciliation is an historical overview of the actions taken by governments and churches involved in residential schooling in the years since the residential school system was wound down. J.R. Miller provides a brief description of residential schools but assumes the reader is generally familiar with the term. The book focuses not so much on the schools themselves, on the abuse and suffering, but rather on the ways in which our society and some of its largest organizational entities have attempted to respond to and reconcile the harm done to Indigenous peoples. Miller’s book is very scholarly but never too technical or too dry, and their treatment of the subject matter is both sensitive and comprehensive. I’ve been reading a lot about residential schools over the past few years, but I still managed to learn so much from this book.

Miller begins by examining the apologies offered by the official church bodies that ran or co-ran residential schools. He discusses why these apologies came about, the internal strife that often accompanied them, and the reactions on the part of survivors and Indigenous members of these congregations. While I was aware of the role that many churches had played in residential schools, and that various attempts at apology had happened, Miller helped fill in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. I appreciate the way he highlights how different survivors reacted very differently to these apologies. There is a tendency for settlers like myself to paint Indigenous issues in these broad, sweeping generalizations: oh, Indigenous people are opposed to pipelines; Indigenous people are upset with Trudeau’s government, etc. The reality is, unsurprisingly, so much more complex. The more I follow and listen to Indigenous people, particularly on Twitter, the more I get a glimpse of the internal arguments—arguments that I’m not party to, that I don’t participate in, because they are none of my business, but that reveal and remind me of the great diversity of individual and cultural voices within the group settlers have labelled “Indigenous”.

A great deal of Residential Schools and Reconciliation focuses on this idea of whether or not the responses have been appropriate and sufficient. In their discussion of the church and, later, government apologies, Miller refers to the criteria for a successful and intentional apology as outlined in The Age of Apology. He points out areas in which the apologies worked well, such as the way they have allowed some survivors to open up, come to terms with, or more openly express their feelings about their experiences. He also points out where people or groups have expressed dissatisfaction with the apology process.

Next, Miller chronicles the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and how its mandate gradually shifted to include residential schools as the commissioners recognized how important it was to the people they interviewed. This chapter and the next, which details the government’s response to RCAP’s report, are full of details that, at times, bogged me down—but it’s very interesting, and I suspect someone reading this for purposes of research will find it extremely useful.

I was more interested in the next part of the book, which discusses the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Basically, government was tired of being taken to court so many times, so they eventually agreed to litigate everything en masse and have one big settlement. Obviously I’d heard of this, but Miller does a good job explaining how it came about, what it entailed, and who did and did not benefit. It’s really messy and really, really bureaucratic. In general, it just gives you a good sense of why Indigenous people are so fed up with trying to deal with the governments—for every little bit of ground (sometimes literally, if we’re talking about land claims) regained, kilometres of red tape must be negotiated. The result is a process so dehumanizing that it retraumatizes the people who have already had their dignity and humanity stripped from them once by the government.

The final part of the book concerns the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with related attempts by the government to advance the cause of reconciliation. The TRC’s final report was only released a few years ago, so this is still fairly fresh. I learned a lot about the origins and workings of the TRC that I hadn’t—I knew it had been funded by the money from the settlement, but I didn’t know there were three original commissioners who eventually ended up resigning and the commission essentially restarted after that! Reminds me a lot of the current inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

One conviction, which this book strengthened for me, is that the government still doesn’t get it. I think individual people do—some of the politicians and some of the public servants who, collectively, run what we call “government” in this country. But the system as a whole remains a very colonial and racist institution. It is obsessed with, beholden to, budgets. It wants to bottom-line the issues of residential schools and reconciliation, to attach a dollar value, to pay that out, and then declare the matter closed. As long as this type of thinking prevails, reconciliation can’t truly happen. The government has to stop saying, “OK, if we do this, then we’re even. OK, if this happens, then we start fresh.” That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. But the government keeps trying it, because it is scared that if it actually ever admits how much work it needs to put into reconciliation, then voters will revolt over the potential cost. That’s why it’s so important for settlers to educate themselves on these issues—because, yeah, it will cost taxpayer money to fix this mess. But the human cost of not fixing it is so much higher.

Much of what I have read or watched about residential schools focuses on explaining the schools themselves and what survivors endured there. Those are important stories, of course. And I was sceptical, going into this book, precisely because I was wondering what an academic might reveal that I haven’t been learning from other sources closer to the issue. Yet Residential Schools and Reconciliation actually serves a very important purpose. It educates about the response to residential schools, what happened afterwards, much of which occurred at a time when I was too young to appreciate what was happening in our society. I’d highly recommend this volume for anyone with an interest in the steps that churches, governments, and survivors have taken, and that after reading, you ponder whether or not it really is enough.

Review will be published on Goodreads on November 13.

"Residential Schools and Reconciliation : Canada Confronts Its History" by J. R. Miller is a well written and clear book that covers the details of the current Reconciliation process underway in Canada. The book is by no means the last word on the process of Reconciliation in Canadian as to the crime which was the Residential School system. The reason is that the process is on going. It is a process that engenders both restitution for what occurred and the development of a national understanding of what occurred.

The book however is essential reading for all Canadians and anyone interested to know what reconciliation and restitution in such a situation looks like. It is full of details about the successive governments, religious organizations and First Nations who have been engaged in this process. It has not been a straightforward process. Single acts of apology and litigation have not been enough but have been broadened as it should in addressing something so fundamental to the lives of First Nations peoples and Canadians. These details need to be known so we may all fully appreciate what has been achieved and the work that has to be done. This book is remarkable in that it is highly readable despite such a high attention to detail.

Essentially and surprisingly this is a very positive and uplifting book that engages in the hard realities and the struggles that have been happening to address such a fundamental wrong. One learns to appreciate the efforts of such people as Phil Fontaine of the AFN as well as the significance and development of such events as Harper's 2008 apology in the House of Commons. In this book you can see clearly why an apology from the Catholic Church and the signing on to the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights is so important, as well as many other details. In essence this is a very important book to read right now.

Residential Schools and Reconciliation: Canada Confronts Its History by J R Miller is the study of actions and reforms in the Native Peoples' treatment and standing. Miller is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Saskatchewan. He is the author of numerous works on issues related to Indigenous peoples including Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens and Shingwauk’s Vision, both published by University of Toronto Press.

I picked this book up as a comparison to how the Native People were and are treated in the areas that are now the United States and Canada. The US Native Americans have and continue to be marginalized. Life on the reservation remains poor. Those outside the reservation must adapt to a Western way of life although the social pressures of "fitting in" have been lessened as society evolves. There is still violence as Wounded Knee in 1975 showed. Presently Standing Rock shows how capitalism trumps treaties and sovereignty.

In my reading and study of history Canada played only a minor role mostly in the War of 1812, WWI, and as a Cold War partner. Treatment of the Native Peoples never made headlines here. The general assumption was, by comparison, Canada did rather well. The reality of that assumption is another matter. The Canadian government teamed up with the four major branches of Christianity -- Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian. The government wanted inclusion in education and health care. The church(es) wanted conversion. The churches had the drive and motivation to carry out the work.

The residential schools were disastrous and brutal. Most ended in the 1970s with a flurry of civil suits against the government and churches. Churches and the government started a process of reconciliation with apologies and compensation. Miller covers both sides and details the progress and hangups. The continuing work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal people and the Constitution Act of 1982, section 35 recognizing Aboriginal rights has brought about a great deal of change although not it is not complete it does recognize the errors of the past. 

Residential Schools and Reconciliation documents the struggle for rights of Aboriginal peoples of Canada and the progress made so far. It also shows a more conscious effort to correct wrongs and improve the current situation. It is not complete but by comparison, it is much better than other aboriginal peoples have fared. A well-documented history that seems to honestly describe the issues and errors of the past.

Available November 7, 2017

A history book I will be sure to use as a reference work for my upcoming paper (whose due date is quickly approaching - I better get started!). It deals with the topic of Native American schools in Canada, which I'm not overly familiar with (not just in Canada, but also in general). This is a theme that I think should be getting more attention, even though the situation has lately much improved.