CANADA
Edmonton Journal
Truth and Reconciliation Commission to compile estimate of how many students died at residential schools
BY BRENT WITTMEIER, EDMONTON JOURNAL MARCH 28, 2014
EDMONTON – Some are a mix of good and bad times. Others have been dulled into resignation and resentment. Some are just a few words.
Survivor stories were front and centre Friday on the second day of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission national event, running four days at the Shaw Conference Centre.
The words spoken are as different as the settings. For those preferring to make private statements, there’s a room behind a curtain. On the same floor, others tell their stories before hundreds of listeners.
More than 21,000 people are expected at the four-day event, the seventh and final event of the $60-million Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed in the aftermath of a $5-billion settlement between the federal government, Canadian churches and aboriginals in 2007.
Between the 1870s and 1996, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were placed in 139 federally funded, church-run schools, mostly in the northern and western portions of the country. The schools were plagued by abuses and poor conditions. Alberta had 25 schools recognized under the settlement, more than any other province or territory.
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