Truth and Reconciliation Commission to release interim report, historical work
Posted Feb 24, 2012 04:00:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER – A commission set up to help First Nations heal from abuses they suffered in residential schools is about to release an interim report and a new historical publication.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada will release the documents during a presentation this morning at Simon Fraser University’s downtown Vancouver campus.
About 150,000 aboriginal children were forced to attend the schools, the first of which opened in the 1870s and the last of which closed in 1996.
Already, the commission has taken 25,000 statements from survivors, visited about 500 communities and has heard from about 100 former school employees.
Earlier this month, commission chairman Justice Murray Sinclair called the schools acts of genocide.
In January, one survivor testified he kept his hair short so abusers found it harder to grab him and bang his head against a wall.
