Remembering the children: decolonizing community-based restorative justice for Indian Residential Schools

Abstract

This article argues for community-based justice to confront the atrocities of residential schools in Canada. After considering the strengths of community-based restorative justice (CBRJ) in relation to state-sponsored transitional justice responses, I examine a case study of the Remembering the Children Society (RCS), an Indigenous church partnership, that has worked to commemorate children who lost their lives at the Red Deer Industrial School. The RCS engages in a decolonizing form of CBRJ by placing primacy on Indigenous cultures through (1) feasts and ceremonies, (2) freeing the spirits of children who died, (3) the centrality of elders, and (4) Aboriginal spirituality and world views on ‘working together’. The centrality of cultures contributes to decolonization through (1) cultural resistance in the face of assimilation, (2) the healing power of cultural resurgence, (3) the development of mutually honoring partnerships, and (4) the telling of decolonizing truths. In conclusion, I consider the broader impacts of the RCS in helping transform official narratives about residential schools.

Keywords:

• Community justice
• restorative justice
• decolonization
• residential schools
• transitional justice
• Indigenous tradition/culture/ceremony

Notes

1. The term ‘Métis’ sometimes refers to Aboriginal peoples of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry; however, the term more precisely refers to Aboriginal peoples who have an ancestral connection to historic Metis communities. http://www.metisnation.ca/index.php/who-are-the-metis/citizenship. The Métis Nation of Alberta is an association that politically represents and provides services to Métis peoples living in the Province of Alberta.

2. Importantly, even with RCS, there are different perspectives on restorative justice. Cecile Fausak places the emphasis on victims’ determination of what constitutes justice. Eric Large places the emphasis on ‘input … along with material and financial support to First Nations’ in restorative processes, without which restorative justice is simply a European legal imposition, while Lorne Green sees restorative justice as the traditional Indigenous way of dealing with infractions. Charlene Bearhead, another member of the RCS, suggests that restorative practice might be a more useful conceptualization as many Indigenous languages do not have distinct words for ‘justice’ (personal communications, 2015).

3. The Methodist Church ceased to exist in 1925 as it joined with the Congregational Union of Canada and the majority of the Presbyterian Church of Canada to form the UCC. The UCC takes responsibility for all residential schools that were run by its predecessors.

4. I extend special thanks to Cecile Fausak for providing depth and detail to my understanding of the origins and activities of the RCS through her substantial revision and extensive enrichment of a draft timeline of the group’s work that I had produced and shared with the group at the November 2014 workshop.

5. RDMAG refers to a focus group conducted in July 2014 at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery. All quotations are drawn from individual interviews unless a focus group or workshop is identified.

6. The cemetery sits on the land of one property owner; however, it can only be accessed through the land of a second property owner. For many years, the second property owner’s family erroneously assumed that the cemetery land was theirs as the cemetery sits a mere few meters from their house. Because access to the cemetery is through the second property owner’s land, it is the second property owner with whom the RCS has had most of its dealings. It is also the second property owner who had kept the headstones that he eventually transferred to the Museum.

7. BQ refers to a focus group conducted at Blue Quills First Nations College in St. Paul, Alberta.

8. Hodgson describes the man’s ancestor as a great uncle (workshop), while Fausak describes the ancestor as a great aunt (personal communication, April, 2015). Others also travelled from Nelson House in 2010 and in 2013.

9. The Bentwood Box is a tribute to survivors of IRS that travelled the country with the TRC and holds offerings made ‘to commemorate personal journeys toward healing and reconciliation’ (http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=42).