It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer. So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established in 2008 and led by the Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair (Chair), Dr. Marie Wilson, and Chief Wilson Littlechild.

Phil Fontaine is a Survivor, TRC honorary witness, and former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Aimée Craft is the Director of Research at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. She is the author of Breathing Life into the Stone Fort Treaty.