"We did not deliver the [TRC's final report] to government. We recognized that government was going to be slow to respond … but we're not writing it for them, we are writing it for the rest of society," Sinclair said.
"It's up to society to step up and take the actions that are needed."
In signing the memorandum of understanding with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg, the university will become part of a network of almost two dozen institutions with digital access to Canada’s largest collection of material on the residential school system compiled over the lifetime of the commission.
The giant repository of categorized digitized documents will be available under strict privacy laws and established cultural-access protocols to ensure those accessing them do so with the utmost cultural sensitivity.
Some restricted documents may only be made available on a case-by-case basis and some may not be available at all.
Marilyn Buffalo, indigenous cultural adviser at the University of Alberta, said access to the archives is important for future generations to learn from the residential school era.
“There’s always hope and as educators and elders we are always constantly building toward a better future for our future generations and that is going to take some changing of minds,” she said.
“If the average Canadian could take even one course or one week to learn about this era, I think that will be a life-changing experience for everybody.”
University president David Turpin said allowing researchers to engage with the collection from Alberta would be “a catalyst for research and dialogue” and will also allow the university library to contribute its own archival material to the national centre.
“Reconciliation is something that’s a national initiative,” he said.
“This is a way to cement our relationship and ensure the archives … are available and used so we learn from this part of our history.”
Centre director Ry Moran said the partnership is an important step to ensure the work by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission continues to move forward.
“These partnership agreements are not just feel-good exercises,” Moran said in an interview earlier this week.
“They are actual commitments to do some very important work for this country’s healing.”
When the centre was established at the University of Manitoba five years ago, it served as a central collection point for records scattered across the country’s church and government archives.
Having now centralized the thousands of video statements, oral histories and documents, it’s job now, Moran said, is to ensure those archives are available to survivors and their families as well as researchers and educators “so that the country could become informed of the full history and the legacy of residential schools.”
“There is a collective need to preserve indigenous histories in solid ways and that isn’t just archival records, it’s also a matter of increasing our understanding of traditional knowledge,” Moran said.
“These survivors wanted Canadians to know and to understand what it was that they went through and make sure that never again would any child ever have to be exposed to that.
“Part of this journey of truth and reconciliation is combating a certain amount of ignorance and we as a country need to begin to not only be better informed but learn how to walk together, learn how to talk together and how to engage communities in meaningful dialogue to try and dramatically repair the damage that has been done.”
Turpin said the partnership was the latest example of the university responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for action that includes the creation of an indigenous advisory office and the development of an indigenous strategy that is currently underway.
Also in development is a council of elders with representatives from several indigenous communities.
The office of the provost has also set up a fund to hire indigenous faculty and staff that has seen the number of indigenous faculty members increase to 39 now from 17 in 2015.
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