SASKATOON – Another step has been taken to ensure the voices of survivors are heard throughout Canada. On Tuesday, the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) joined eight other post-secondary institutions in partnering with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
The partnership will allow researchers and students at the U of S to access information they otherwise wouldn’t have.
“We need change, we need to embrace these histories and that’s something I see happening right across the country,” said Ry Moran, director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
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Some five-million electronic records of statements, documents and materials were gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, including stories from residential school survivors.
“When you think about it, one of the reasons the country is in the situation it’s in now, tragic is because it’s been uninformed,” stated U of S president Peter Stoicheff.
“It hasn’t had the information that is needed or when it’s had that information it hasn’t been disseminating it through the education system and at the universities so it’s huge to have to be able to have this kind of access.”
Approximately 40,000 records at the national centre are available to the public and survivors have requested their own records to piece together their own history.
Meaghan Craig contributed to this story