Reconciliation and Healing:

1. Reconciliation and Healing: Alternative Resolution Strategies for Dealing with Residential School Claims 2000

2. Purpose • Bring together survivors, aboriginal healers and leaders, legal counsel, and church leaders, and senior government officials from across Canada • Consider the impacts of the residential school experience and explore the use of alternatives to the court process in the resolution of claims • Develop framework of approaches and options to widen the framework of choices in residential school dispute resolution

3. Outcomes • Development by all constituencies who participated in the dialogues a Statement of Principles for the implementation of alternative approaches • Contributed to the concept of Pilot Projects initiated at different locations across the country • Created a safe place for difficult conversations and opened a dialogue where none had existed before

4. The Idea for the Dialogues • George Thomson, the DM of Justice, initiated a call followed soon by a meeting with the National Chief, Philip Fontaine, and Scott Serson, the DMof INAC • Independent co-ordination and facilitation was my role, and joined by Mark Wedge • Others were brought into the discussions to help shape the approach to the dialogues • Maggie Hodgson was the key point person in identifying and drawing together aboriginal participants ; Shawn Tupper and Doug Ewart from Government ; and senior church representatives

5. The Exploratory Dialogues • Kamloops, British Columbia ( September, 1998) • Nakoda Lodge, Alberta • Regina, Saskatchewan • Winnipeg, Manitoba • Toronto, Ontario • Rankin Inlet, Northwest Territories • Whitehorse, Yukon • Montreal, Quebec • Final Dialogue ( “Wrap Up”) in Toronto ( June 1999)

6. The Organization of the Dialogues • 8 dialogues across Canada to ensure that differences in situations and experiences across the country were respected and honored • 40 – 70 participants reflecting all points of view at each dialogue • Each dialogue had people participate who had attended an earlier dialogue to help weave the work of the dialogues together • Notes were developed for each Dialogue and shared , and then drawn together in a final report

7. The Emergence of Guiding Principles • Emerging from the sharing of experience, ideas, and learnings at the different dialogues was the possibility of drawing together a set of Guiding Principles • Developing such a set of principles was the purpose of a final national dialogue held in June 1999 in Toronto with representative participants invited from each of the dialogues across the country

8. The Guiding Principles “ For Working Together to Build Restoration and Reconciliation” • Participants • Process • Outcomes • Training and Awareness • Closing Comments

9. Participants • Building Relationships through mutual respect and understanding • Self design • Inclusivity • Equal and equitable opportunity • Community Participation • Health and safety

10. A Participation Snapshot • Respect is the foundation, and enhances our ability to see, hear, and value others • Those expected to use an alternative process, the survivors and the institutions must be equally and mutually involved in designing it • Increasing the extent of participation in designing the process will improve the potential to create innovative, community appropriate and lasting process

11. Representatives of the survivor groups must be supported so they can participate on an equal footing. Special care must be given to elders and survivors with special needs • Communities should be involved wherever possible – and consider role in broader reconciliation • The health and safety of persons making disclosures of abuse must be protected at all times. Disclosure should not be made without crisis support immediately available and protocols in place.

12. Process • Fair Process • Holistic and Spiritual • Flexibility • All Decisions Consensus Based • Honour the Process • Voluntary • Free to Choose

13. A Snapshot on Process • Any process to resolve claims must demonstrate transparency, fairness, integrity and rigour • Within alternative processes, the broad impacts of the schools should be recognized to the extent possible • Each process must be shaped to fit the specific needs of the participants and the affected communities

14. Consensus is crucial in designing and introducing a restoration and reconciliation process –ie the parties agree to “live with the outcome” of a “total package” • Honouring the process involves responsibility to the process, to each other, and the principles • Participation in alternatives to litigation should be on an entirely voluntary basis . The goal is to develop a range of choices – a wider framework of alternatives from which informed choices can be made to enter a process or to leave it • The right to make claims through the courts must be respected and maintained in any alternative process

15. Outcomes • Fair Result • Appropriate Remedies • Effective Linkages

16. A Snapshot on Outcomes • Any resolution process should be designed to provide for: • Disclosure with Safety • Validation with Sensitivity • Remedies with Flexibility • Commemoration with Respect • Healing, Closure, Reconciliation and renewal

17. For many survivors possible elements of remedies for abuse to • Monetary Compensation • Acknowledgement of the wrong done and that it was not the fault of the survivor • Apologies to individuals, families and communities • Active steps by governments andchurches to create understanding in the broader community and local communities of the extent of the aqbuse that took place, accompanied by efforts by the church to reduce the perception in some communities that those bringing forward abuse claims are attacking the church • The creation of funds for healing, education and cultural recovery for the survivors and their families • Effective access to training and other programs • Memorialization and community ceremonies • Commitment to future prevention activities

18. Effective Linkages • to other programs and services should be made to complement and support • And among different institutions, groups and organizations participating in the process • Within institutions, organizations, and groups reconcile inconsistencies and to integrate activities, policies, and programs across departmental and other lines of authority

19. Closing • Principles should be used as guides, not rules – must be respected, but not rigidly applied • Innovative adaptation is encouraged, minimizing any principle is fervently discouraged for ignoring any one can imperil the objective of designing a fair process • Each principle is essential, some more in some circumstances than others, and others may emerge from local experiences

21. Training and Awareness • Awareness about the issues and training in the use of these guiding principles and dispute resolution processes is an essential part of working together