Ottawa, Ontario - June 2015
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today participated in the closing ceremony of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) at Rideau Hall, where he listened to remarks delivered by the Governor General and the TRC commissioners. Yesterday, the Prime Minister held a private meeting with TRC commissioners to acknowledge their remarkable efforts to record, understand and explain the dark chapter in Canadian history that was the Indian residential school system. He was accompanied by Bernard Valcourt, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.
During the private meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Harper thanked the TRC commissioners – the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair (Chair), Dr. Marie Wilson (Commissioner) and Chief Wilton Littlechild (Commissioner) – for their hard work and dedication in building public awareness about residential schools and fostering reconciliation, understanding and respect.
The Prime Minister also took the opportunity to express his deepest admiration for the tremendous courage that it took for the former students of the Indian residential school system to come forward and share painful memories.
The TRC was created as part of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement which recognized that the Indian residential school system had a profoundly lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language.
On June 11, 2008, the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government of Canada, acknowledged these harms and delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons to former students, their families, and communities for Canada's role in the operation of the residential schools.
