² On the importance of mandates for the outcomes of truth commissions see Hayner, Priscilla, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2011)Google Scholar, ch. 6.

³ On the composition and appointment process of TRCs in international comparison see Freeman, Mark, Truth Commissions and Procedural Fairness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 28–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Tanja Zinterer's extremely insightful monograph Politikwandel durch Politikberatung (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2004)Google Scholar is the most comprehensive study of the RCAP process. In addition to reviewing the archival and documentary record, Zinterer interviewed all the RCAP commissioners and a number of others directly involved in the process. This article is indebted to her work throughout. I have not quoted from her book because it is written in German, but have indicated specific reliance on her ideas as appropriate. A translation would make a very welcome addition to the RCAP literature in Canada, a literature that is particularly sparse on procedural issues.

⁵ Jung, Courtney, “Canada and the Legacy of the Indian Residential Schools: Transitional Justice for Indigenous People in a Nontransitional Society,” in Identities in Transition, ed. Arthur, Paige, 217–50 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁶ Ibid., 217.

⁷ It should be acknowledged that the same critique might be, and in fact has been, levelled at truth commissions in transitional-justice contexts. See Nagy, Rosemary, “Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections,” Third World Quarterly 29, 2 (2008), 275CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Hawthorn, Harry B., A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies, 2 vols. (Ottawa, 1966–1967)Google Scholar; Berger, Thomas R., Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1977)Google Scholar; Lysyk, Kenneth M., Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry (Ottawa: Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1977)Google Scholar; Report of the Task Force to Review Comprehensive Claims Policy, Living Treaties: Lasting Agreements (Ottawa: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 1985)Google Scholar; Canada, House of Commons, Report of the Special Committee, Indian Self-Government in Canada (Ottwa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1983)Google Scholar.

⁹ Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP], The Mandate of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Background Documents (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1991), 9Google Scholar [RCAP Mandate].

¹⁰ Stanton, Kim, “Truth Commissions and Public Inquiries: Addressing Historical Injustices in Established Democracies” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2010), https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/24886Google Scholar, similarly argues that the TRC should be understood as being in the nature of a public inquiry, looking back to the Berger Inquiry.

¹¹ Duggan, Colleen, Editorial Note, International Journal of Transitional Justice 4 (2010), 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Freeman, , Truth Commissions, 28Google Scholar.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.

¹⁵ Arguably, this decision in turn followed in the procedural footsteps of the highly successful Berger Inquiry, to which Justice Thomas Berger brought personal and professional credibility based on his extensive track record of advocacy for native rights. Berger, Thomas R., “The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry,” Queen's Law Journal 3 (1976–1977), 3–4Google Scholar.

¹⁶ RCAP Mandate, 10.

¹⁷ Ibid., 11.

¹⁸ Sharpe, Robert J. and Roach, Kent, Brian Dickson: A Judge's Journey (Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, 2003), 457Google Scholar.

¹⁹ RCAP Mandate, 4.

²⁰ Quoted in Sharpe, and Roach, , Brian Dickson, 457Google Scholar.

²¹ Cairns, Alan C., Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000), 143Google Scholar, emphasizes the law-over-politics ideology of RCAP and notes that “[t]he preference for law over politics feeds on Aboriginal, especially First Nation, distrust of Canadian governments and the majority society.”

²² Ibid., 121-22.

²³ Zinterer, , Politikwandel durch Politikberatung, 183Google Scholar.

²⁴ This development could be usefully compared to the extraordinarily successful efforts at public education by the Stolen Generations process in Australia. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are the mobilization of popular-culture modes of knowledge transmission and the efforts of the Australian Human Rights Commission. See also Kennedy, Rosanne, “Subversive Witnessing: Mediating Indigenous Testimony in Australian Cultural and Legal Institutions,” WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 36, 1/2 (2008), 60Google Scholar; Kennedy, Rosanne, “Reconciliation from Below: The Sorry Book Campaign and the Emergence of a Witnessing Public in Australia” (Paper presented at Beyond Reconciliation conference, Cape Town, December 2–6, 2009)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Kennedy, , “Subversive Witnessing,” 59, 63Google Scholar.

²⁶ It should be acknowledged that some focused inquiries have taken a long time and that some with broad mandates have concluded more quickly. These appear to me to be exceptions that do not disprove what would intuitively seem to be the case: more area to cover takes more time and resources. See also Sharpe, and Roach, , Brian Dickson, 458Google Scholar.

²⁷ Zinterer, , Politikwandel durch Politikberatung, 182Google Scholar.

²⁸ AFN Report Card, http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/aboriginals/pdf/afn_rcap.pdf.

²⁹ Including solicitor-client, litigation, mediation, and settlement privileges, to name only the most important.

³⁰ Sternlight, Jean R., “ADR Is Here: Preliminary Reflections on Where It Fits in a System of Justice,” Nevada Law Journal 3 (2002–2003), 289Google Scholar; Imgrogno, Andre R., “Using ADR to Address Issues of Public Concern: Can ADR Become an Instrument for Social Oppression?” Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 14 (1998–1999), 855Google Scholar; Fischer, Karla, Vidmar, Neil, and Ellis, Rene, “Culture of Battering and the Role of Mediation in Domestic Violence Cases,” Southern Methodist University Law Review 46 (1992–1993), 2117Google Scholar; Knowlton, Douglas D. and Muhlhauser, Tara Lea, “Mediation in the Presence of Domestic Violence: Is It the Light at the End of the Tunnel or Is a Train on the Track?” North Dakota Law Review 70 (1994), 255Google Scholar.

³¹ In his practice, on the bench, in his academic work, and as an advisor to government, Justice Iacobucci focused on the areas of corporate law and tax law.

³² Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement between Canada and the Plaintiffs of the National Class Action on Indian Residential Schools (May 8, 2006), http://www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca/settlement.html.

³³ The statement was offered by the Honourable Jane Stewart, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, on the occasion of the unveiling of Gathering Strength—Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan; it can be found at http://www.itk.ca/page/statement-reconciliation.

³⁴ The principles developed by the Working Group on Truth and Reconciliation and those of the Exploratory Dialogues (1998-1999) were the result of a country-wide consultative process with survivors, Aboriginal healers and leaders, legal counsel, church leaders, and senior government officials. A report on the group's work was published by the Department of Indian Affairs and is available at http://www.glennsigurdson.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Reconciliation_healing.pdf.

³⁵ “Residential Schools Commission Delays May Need to Be Addressed: Iacobucci,” CBC News, February 16, 2009, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/02/16/trc-search.htmlGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Ibid., Schedule N: Mandate for Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

³⁷ Letter, Brian Dickson to Brian Mulroney, August 2, 1991. Reproduced in Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP]/, The Mandate of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Background Documents (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1991)Google Scholar, part C.

³⁸ IRSSA, Schedule N, 2 n. 3.

³⁹ I am not aware of any study of the self-interpretive acts of RCAP. This absence reflects a general lack of academic engagement with the process of RCAP. A comprehensive study of press releases, forewords, introductory remarks at hearings, and other self-interpretive acts of RCAP would make an important contribution to our understanding of the RCAP process. Overall, the academic literature on RCAP to date falls short of what might be expected from such a momentous commission.

⁴⁰ Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, ch. 1; Anthonissen, Christine, “Framing Testimonial Narratives: Constructing a Trade-Off between Justice and Reconciliation” (paper presented at Beyond Reconciliation conference, Cape Town, December 2–6, 2009)Google Scholar. Leebaw, Bronwyn, “The Irreconcilable Goals of Transitional Justice,” Human Rights Quarterly 30, 1 (2008), 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, analyses a number of transitional-justice objectives that may turn out to be in tension rather than mutually enforcing.

⁴¹ Llewellyn, Jennifer, “Bridging the Gap between Truth and Reconciliation: Restorative Justice and the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” in From Truth to Reconciliation: Transforming the Legacy of Residential Schools, ed. Brant-Castellano, M., Archibald, L., and DeGagne, M. (Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2008)Google Scholar.

⁴² For the central importance of “healing” as an organizing principle of RCAP see Conradi, Alexa, “Revisiting the Legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: A Rhetorical Analysis of Healing” (master's thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 2006)Google Scholar.

⁴³ Diebel, Linda, “Healing the Wounds of Residential Schools,” Toronto Star, January 3, 2009Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Puxley, Chinta, “Forgiveness Not Possible for Some Residential School Survivors: Commissioner,” Canadian Press, February 21, 2010Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Indeed, one of the burdens of the term ‘reconciliation’ is its close association with Christian practices, given its etymological origins in the Catholic teachings of banishment from and readmission to the community of faith.

⁴⁶ Conradi, , “Revisiting the Legacy,” 10Google Scholar and passim.

⁴⁷ I borrow the notion of a creative absence from French symbolist theory, in which the aesthetic object is evoked through absences in the text rather than named and produced. In this sense, healing is the unspoken ultimate goal of the process, a goal too elusive to be named and one that might be rendered impossible once spoken.

⁴⁸ “The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is an Aboriginal-managed, national, Ottawa-based, not-for-profit private corporation established March 31, 1998 and provided with a one-time grant of $350 million dollars by the federal government of Canada as part of Gathering Strength—Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation was given an eleven-year mandate, ending March 31, 2009, to encourage and support, through research and funding contributions, community-based Aboriginal directed healing initiatives which address the legacy of physical and sexual abuse suffered in Canada's Indian Residential School system, including inter-generational impacts.” Aboriginal Healing Foundation, “What Is the Aboriginal Healing Foundation?” http://www.ahf.ca/faqs (Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2012)Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Throop, Brett and Johnson, Graeme, “Truth and Reconciliation: An Interview with John Milloy,” Arthur, March 22, 2010, http://www.trentarthur.ca/index.php/feature/1895-truth-and-reconciliation-an-interview-with-john-milloy.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Curry, Bill, “Churches Get Apology from Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Globe and Mail, April 7, 2010, http:/ywww.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/churches-get-apology-from-truth-and-reconciliation-commission/article1526792/.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Freeman, , Truth Commissions, 29Google Scholar.

⁵² Mullet, Étienne, Neto, Félix, and da Conceição Pinto, Maria, “What Can Reasonably Be Expected from a Truth Commission: A Preliminary Examination of East Timorese Views,” Peace and Conflict 14 (2008): 369–93, 379CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ The issue of gender relations and related power structures among commissioners would certainly warrant a separate study, but goes beyond the scope of this article.

⁵⁴ This is not to suggest that they were lacking in professional expertise, merely to argue that this was not the dominant basis for their appointment.

⁵⁵ RCAP Mandate, 21.

⁵⁶ Cairns, , Citizens Plus, 132Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Indeed, it has become part of the post-RCAP rhetoric to point to areas of non-implementation and conclude from these that RCAP was a wholesale failure.

⁵⁸ Zinterer, , Politikwandel durch Politikberatung, 159Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 181–82.

⁶⁰ Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP], Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Ottawa: RCAP, 1996), vol. 5Google Scholar, appendix C.

⁶¹ For a careful, if somewhat defensive, review of the public image of lawyers in Canada see Fernandez, Angela, “Polling and Popular Culture (News, Television, and Film): Limitations of the Use of Opinion Polls in Assessing the Public Image of Lawyers,” in In the Public Interest; The Report and Research Papers of the Law Society of Upper Canada's Task Force on the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Bar, ed. Sossin, Lorne, 209–31 (Toronto: Irwin Law/Law Society of Upper Canada, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁶² Editors' note: See Green, Robyn, “Unsettling Cures: Exploring the Limits of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement,” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 27, 1 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶³ Wilson, Marie, in an interview with the United Church Observer, November 2, 2009Google Scholar: “Q Former colleagues at CBC North, where you worked for close to two decades, have called you ‘tough’ and ‘strong.’ How will those qualities serve you as you listen to the stories of residential school survivors? A I fully expect to be both hardened and softened by this experience. I'm not going to be any use to anyone if I'm sitting there blubbering through a terrible story. On the other hand, I don't ever want to lose my heart for the humanity behind that story.”

⁶⁴ Duggan, , “Editorial Note,” 320Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ This is not to suggest that success in specific outcome goals is always easy to evaluate or methodologically obvious. An interesting example of the complexities involved is Arnason, Freyja, “Barriers to Change: RCAP and Aboriginal Healthcare in Manitoba: The Perceived Impact of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples on Aboriginal Health, Health Services and Health Policy in Manitoba” (master's thesis, University of Manitoba, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ The peaceful progress of the Aboriginal Day of Action in 2007 may be cited as evidence that there has indeed been significant change since RCAP. While this annual day of action or protest as it is variously called, which is organized by First Nations communities from across the country, saw a number of roadblocks and street protests in 2007, the atmosphere tended to be festive rather than fearful. One of the modes of change has been in policing. While Oka represents a low point in the relationship between First Nations and the RCMP, the management of the 2007 event was an example of cooperative and consultative policing. Much of the credit for this development goes to Aboriginal officers in the RCMP, particularly Superintendent Shirley Cuillierrier, who managed the national policing strategy for the Aboriginal Day of Action. However, neither the violence turned inward nor the violence perpetrated against indigenous people has abated.

⁶⁷ Russell, Peter, “First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders: Strengthening Relationships and Closing the Gap,” Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 10, 1 (2006), 95Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Zinterer, Politikwandel durch Politikberatung, asks whether policy change can be effected through a commission process giving policy advice and concludes that despite its successes, RCAP was ultimately unable to produce the necessary paradigm shift in indigenous policy.

⁶⁹ It has also tended not to identify obstacles to implementation, because barriers are seen to exist at a fundamental or philosophical level. For example, a legal or jurisprudential debate on Aboriginal sovereignty has tended to obscure the bureaucratic resistance to change at the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development or unilaterally imposed federal accountability rules as implementational stumbling blocks. For a discussion of the latter example see Shepherd, Robert, “Moving Tenuously toward Lasting Self-Government for First Nations: Understanding Differences with Respect to Implementing Accountability” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2006)Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Harding, Robert, “Re/framing Aboriginal Social Policy Issues in the News: Old Stereotypes and New Opportunities” (PhD diss., Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁷² Ibid., 1.

⁷³ Kelly, Fred, “Confessions of a Born Again Pagan,” in From Truth to Reconciliation: Transforming the Legacy of Residential Schools, ed. Brant-Castellano, M., Archibald, L., and DeGagne, M. (Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2008), 27Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ For a typology of bystanders, consider the work of Staub, Ervin, e.g., “The Psychology of By-Standers, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers,” in Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust, ed. Newman, Leonard S. and Erber, Ralph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.