Key recommendations of the commission’s ambitious study

Mayor supports role in design, choice of site

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is calling for a national monument in Ottawa “to honour survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities” — and the mayor is open to the idea.

The commission also wants a statutory holiday created to commemorate the “history and legacy” of the residential schools.

The recommendations are two of 94 in the commission’s final report released Tuesday.

The report urges the federal government to build the Ottawa monument in a “publicly accessible, highly visible” location, in collaboration with survivors and parties to the legal settlement agreement around residential schools.

It also recommends similar monuments in each provincial and territorial capital.

Mayor Jim Watson was not available for comment Wednesday, but a statement from his office said he “would be open to working with the federal government and First Nations to find a suitable location for the memorial in Ottawa.

“Should the City be asked to play a role in the design process, Mayor Watson would be supportive of that as well and he would want to ensure that there is consultation with the public on both location and design,” the statement said.

The call for a highly visible residential schools monument comes at a time when there is a heated public debate around plans to erect a monument to victims of communism in Ottawa near the Supreme Court of Canada, on land long reserved for a judicial building.

A recent EKOS poll, commissioned by the website iPolitics.ca, found that a majority of Canadians think the victims of communism memorial is a poor idea. But, asked to rank a list of new facilities “to showcase Canada’s National Capital Region,” respondents placed a “memorial for historical injustices against aboriginal peoples” near the top (the victims of communism memorial ranked at the bottom).

It is unclear whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had a site in mind in Ottawa that would be considered both publicly accessible and “highly visible” for a national monument to honour survivors and children who died in residential schools. As many as 6,000 children are estimated to have died in the residential school system. About 150,000 children attended residential schools over more than 100 years. The last school was closed in 1996.

The report also called for changes to museums and archives and the Historic Sites and Monuments Act.

It recommends a national review of museum policies to determine the level of compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It also recommends that a national funding program for commemoration projects “on the theme of reconciliation” be established to mark Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017.

It calls on Library and Archives Canada to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the federal government supported in 2012, when it comes to access to information and documents about “what happened and why, with regard to human rights violations committed against them in the residential schools.”

It wants records related to residential schools to be accessible to the public as well as a review of archival policies and best practices as related to information about residential schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission went to Ontario Superior Court in 2013 to force the federal government to release millions of documents related to residential schools.