New funding will support Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Taskforce

The Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives (SCCA) would like to congratulate Erica Hernandez-Read, Lead of the Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce (TRC-TF) and all of its members for their successful application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant.

Funding from SSHRC’s Insight Development Grant will go a long way to support the continued efforts of the TRC-TF in achieving its mandate, which is directly inspired by “Call to Action #70” from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report from June 2015, which states:

“70. We call upon the federal government to provide funding to the Canadian Association of Archivists to undertake, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, a national review of archival policies and best practices to:

1. Determine the level of compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles, as related to Aboriginal peoples’ inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why, with regard to human rights violations committed against them in the residential schools.
2. Produce a report with recommendations for full implementation of these international mechanisms as a reconciliation framework for Canadian archive.”

Together the TRC-TF and its Indigenous partners will continue outreach and dialogic engagement, expand its literature review and undertake comparative analysis to form its final report. The report will list of actionable recommendations to national, provincial and territorial archival associations and institutions as well as to the individual professional and present a set of protocols and principles pertaining to the culturally responsive management of Indigenous archival resources.

Taken collectively, this body of research will serve as a reconciliation framework for the Canadian archival system.

Please visit the SCCA website, to learn more about the TRC Taskforce.

Luciana Duranti & Cédric Champagne, Co-Chairs, Steering Committee on Canada’s Archives