Full Disclosure

So much for truth and reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to provide a public forum for Canada's aboriginal victims of residential school abuses has dissolved before it could even set up its internal standards and guidelines to enable it to commence with process. The residential school survivors have won a conciliatory apology from the Government of Canada, along with provisions for monetary settlement.

The establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was to represent an arena where they could air their grievances of having been dealt with badly through the auspices of the government and its associates in the residential school programs, various religious institutions. All of which, at the time, felt they were providing First Nations children with educational opportunities they might require to bring them into the broader community.

Trouble was, neither they nor their parents - for the most part - were invested in the 'white man's' philosophy of merging with the broader Canadian community. They were content to remain in their isolated communities and to continue their traditional way of life on the soil that was theirs before the arrival of European settlers. They did not aspire to leave what was familiar and true to them.

The residential schools project proved to be a success for some aboriginal children, and for very many others, a brutal, disjointed and miserable interruption of their lives. All of these details were to be taken into account, and the operation of the Commission was to provide a healing opportunity for those who held to their grievance and felt all the circumstances of their trauma needed to be aired.

But !poof!, gone the Commission, in one fell swoop. At least it seems that way to the casual onlooker. Not quite like that to the Commission chairman nor the other two members enlisted to oversee the Commission. It would appear the 80,000 survivors of residential schools will still be required to wait a little longer before they find closure on their psychological trauma.

Apparently, the Commission chairman, Justice Harry LaForme, had been under the impression that he had been given the authority to chair the Commission, with the able assistance of two assistants. The assistants have the impression that their investiture in this initiative bears equal weight with that of its chair. Consensus, they claim, is the name of the game, and Judge LaForme begged to disagree.

Moreover, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, maintained, despite Justice LaForme's accusations, that he had no intention of interfering with the work of the Commission and had never undertaken any mode of interference. Despite his anger over the rejection of his former chief of staff as commission executive director, by Justice LaForme.

Therefore, Judge LaForme, in whose judicial wisdom and experience so much was invested for the future healing of troubled souls, decided he would resign his post. Informing the Indian Affairs Minister that the Commission was doomed to failure as a result of inappropriate interference by the national chief, and through the intransigence of his commission subordinates.

There's quite a difference of opinion within First Nations' executive councils. While Chief Fontaine maintains all the commissioners be approved as mandated with equal authority, Chief John Beaucage of the Anishinabek Nation Grand Council opted for dismissing the dissenting two commissioners, Jane Brewin Morley and Claudette Dumont-Smith.

"With Justice Laforme's resignation, I can say without a doubt that First Nations have lost confidence in the Commission as it is presently constituted. Clearly, the remaining commissioners are responsible for this turn of events and need to be replaced."

As for Patrick Brazeau, Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples - dearly unbeloved of the Assembly of First Nations for his stinging condemnations of their inability to adequately represent the needs of First Nations - he recommends "This is about truth and reconciliation, so let's find out the truth".

Which could be very embarrassing for Chief Fontaine, no credit to him at all, and no help to the need of the residential school survivors, and the work of the Commission.