Rita Theresa Kopp ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im Programmbereich „Glokale Verflechtungen“. Sie forscht zu den Themen Erinnerungs- und Versöhnungspolitik, Transitional Justice und Wahrheitskommissionen. // Rita Theresa Kopp is a Researcher at PRIF's Research Department „Glocal Junctions“. She works on the issues of remembrance and reconciliation politics, transitional justice and truth commissions.
Ten years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada issued a historic report exposing the devastating colonial legacy of the Indian Residential School System. The Commission’s ‘94 Calls to Action’ promised healing, but a decade later, how much of that promise has been fulfilled? Have political promises been translated into progress, or faded into silence? How will the newly elected government and Prime Minister Mark Carney continue—or fail—to move forward on reconciliation? To mark the report’s tenth anniversary, this article reflects on the Commission's work, progress, and remaining challenges.
Ten years after the Gottfriedson case class action lawsuit was filed to claim for compensation over the destruction of language and culture caused by the Canadian Indian Residential School system (IRSS), an agreement was made public in January 2023: Canada’s federal government is prepared to pay a settlement sum of $2.8 billion into a new trust fund which shall enable 325 First Nations to invest into cultural and language revitalization. The agreement is just one step on the journey to building trustful relationships between Canadian Aboriginals and the settler-colonial state, but it is an important one, overdue and urgently needed.
