Residential school history centre to share survivors’ accounts, educate

VANCOUVER — Many university students don’t know the history of Indigenous people in Canada, let alone the implications of the residential school system, but a director at the University of British Columbia says a new history centre will help bridge that knowledge gap.

The Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre opening Monday at the university will house archival photos, maps and personal accounts of survivors collected by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The digital materials will be available for survivors, their families, students and the general public to access.

“Now that the commission is over, all of that history and everything that began as the discussions of the TRC is at risk of simply not being sustained or moving forward,” said Linc Kesler, the director of the First Nations House of Learning at the university.

Kesler said the centre was designed to break the historical pattern of the public being left unaware of the abuses committed at residential schools.

Those who already know the history can also mine the archives to deepen their understanding, while others can get a basic grasp of the events and begin having a discussion on the implications for First Nations communities today, he said.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg opened in November 2015.

The University of B.C. announced it wanted to open a complementary West Coast centre that would give local survivors a space to gather and share their stories and also support collaborative research.