Ottawa gives TRC another year to complete its mandate

Peter Irniq, a former residential school student at the Joseph Bernier school in Chesterfield Inlet, speaks at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearing in Iqaluit in March 2011. (FILE PHOTO)

The federal government has responded to a request from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, agreeing to extend the commission’s operating period by one year.

That means the TRC now has until June 30, 2015 to complete its mandate, creating a historical account of the residential school legacy and encourage healing among the aboriginal students who suffered abuse.

The federal government formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008 as part of the court-approved Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

“Our government remains committed to achieving a fair and lasting resolution to the legacy of Indian Residential Schools, which lies at the heart of reconciliation and the renewal of the relationship between Aboriginal people and all Canadians,” said Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development minister Bernard Valcourt in a Nov. 14 release.

A spokeswoman for the TRC said the details of what will happen during that extended period remain to be worked out.

But the additional year will give the commission time to complete a final report and process documents normally held at Library and Archives Canada.

As part of its work, the TRC launched in 2011 a tour of communities throughout Nunavut and Nunavik to ask people to talk about their experiences at aboriginal residential schools.

The TRC’s Inuit sub-commission, co-chaired by Robbie Watt and Jennifer Hunt-Poitras, played a large role in planning the northern tour, although its mandate ended earlier this year.

The statements gathered have been archived in a national research centre, to create a collective memory of Canada’s Indian residential school legacy,

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said it welcomed the TRC’s extension Nov. 15.

“In the spirit of reconciliation, this extension allows the TRC to fulfill its mandate to tell the full story of the residential school system to Canadians,” said ITK president Terry Audla in a release.

“The healing will continue, and so will the preservation of millions of records previously held in federal archives,” he said. “That is the legacy of the TRC. It cannot be rushed.”

Without the extension, the TRC’s mandate would have ended July 1, 2014.

TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair sought the one-year extension because the organization had until recently not had full access to documents held by the federal government.