Personal recollections and civic responsibilities: dispute resolution and the Indian Residential Schools legacy
Date
2015-01-29
Authors
Hough, Maegan
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Abstract
The author attended Independent Assessment Process (IAP) hearings as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Her experience in IAP hearings raised questions about our approach, as Canadians, to historical wrongs, especially those, like loss of language and culture, which fall outside of the purview of criminal and tort-law. This thesis explores the legal, social, and political dispute resolution mechanisms available in Canada to address harms as they have been applied to the Indian Residential Schools Legacy. It finds that the approach to date has been limited by the assumptions inherent in those institutions. The author proposes that Canadians, as a society, need to reframe and restart our discussion about harms and reparations using a framework of “responsibility”, and provides some possible mechanisms to begin that discussion.
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Keywords
alternative dispute resolution, Indian Residential Schools, responsibility, reparations