First national gathering of residential school survivors planned for Winnipeg June 15 to 19, 2010
TRC press release
Truth and Reconciliation Canada announces details for first National Event
December 11, 2009
Toronto - The Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of Truth and Reconciliation Canada (TRC), with Commissioners Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild, today announced that the TRC’s first national event will commence in Winnipeg on June 15, 2010. It will run to June 19, 2010. The event will take place at the Forks, an historical gathering place for Aboriginal people.
The Winnipeg event is the first of seven national events the TRC will hold over the next five years. Subsequent events will take place in Alberta, British Columbia, the Maritimes, Northern Canada, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
In the coming weeks, the TRC will be releasing information as to how people, especially former residential school students, can participate in this historical event.
TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair said “this event is a first for former Indian Residential School students, and a first for Canada. My fellow Commissioners and I have made a commitment to former students that we will hear from as many of them as we are logistically and humanly able to."
The date and location were selected, in part, on the basis of a recommendation by the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Committee (the advisory committee to the TRC established pursuant to the Settlement Agreement). The Survivor Committee will assist in determining dates and locations for future national events.
The national events are part of the TRC mandate and are intended to engage and educate the Canadian public about the Indian Residential School system. They will honour those whose lives were touched by residential schools and give those individuals an opportunity to present statements to the TRC. They will also celebrate regional diversity.
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Contact:
Rod Carleton
Media Relations
Truth and Reconciliation Canada
Telephone/Telephone: (613) 992-8195
Cell/Cellulaire: (613) 325-6724
rod.carleton[at]trc.ca