Towards Reconciliation? - An analysis of post-colonial structures within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Abstract: Canada has a long history of colonialism that ended in 1867. Before and after this the Indigenous peoples have been the target of several assimilation strategies, the most famous being the Indian Residential Schools system. To deal with its legacy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was set up. Critique has been directed towards the commission for failing to deal with unequal power structures in society within its work but rather having a victim-centered work focusing on their stories. This has led to the goal of reconciliation being affected as well. This paper has looked for post-colonial structures within the final report of the commission by analyzing three aspects: how the commission name/label the Indigenous peoples, if an Indigenous or Western perspective is dominant in its work, and how the relationship between different Indigenous and non-Indigenous governmental bodies looks like. It has also looked at how this has affected the commission’s work towards reconciliation, both from its own definition and from others. The findings of the research are that the work of the commission has been affected by the post-colonial structures in Canada within all three aspects and that this has negatively affected the work towards reconciliation.