Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

306 • Truth & Reconciliation Commissionperspectives, encouraging collaboration, and making connections between personaland public history.The Canadian Museum for Human RightsAs a national public history institution, the new Canadian Museum for HumanRights (cmhr) in Winnipeg is mandated to “explore the subject of human rights, withspecial but not exclusive reference to Canada, in order to enhance the public’s understandingof human rights, to promote respect for others, and to encourage reflectionand dialogue.” 143 Speaking at the trc’s Forum on the National Research Centrein Vancouver on March 3, 2011, cmhr President and Chief Executive Officer StuartMurray talked about the museum’s vision for, and role in, national reconciliation. Heemphasized the prominent role of the cmhr’s First Nations, Inuit, and Métis advisors,as well as the Elders Advisory Council, Aboriginal Youth Council, and the broaderAboriginal community, in the planning and programs developed by the museum. 144Given the deep controversies that exist regarding the history of the residentialschool system, it is perhaps not surprising that the cmhr was criticized by the SouthernChiefs Organization in Manitoba in June of 2013, after media reports that the museumwould not “label human rights violations against First Nations as genocide.” From theSouthern Chiefs Organization’s perspective, the museum was “sanitizing the true historyof Canada’s shameful treatment of First Nations.” 145 Stuart Murray issued a statementon July 26, 2013, clarifying the museum’s position.In the Museum, we will examine the gross and systemic human rights violationof Indigenous peoples. This will include information about the efforts of theAboriginal community, and others, to gain recognition of these violations asgenocide—and we will use that word. We will look at the ways this recognitioncan occur when people combat denial and work to break the silencesurrounding such horrific abuses.... We have chosen, at present, not to use theword “genocide” in the title for one of the exhibits about this experience, but willbe using the term in the exhibit itself when describing community efforts for thisrecognition. Historical fact and emerging information will be presented to helpvisitors reach their own conclusions. While a museum does not have the powerto make declarations of genocide, we can certainly encourage—through ongoingpartnership with the Indigenous community itself—an honest examination ofCanada’s human rights history, in hopes that respect and reconciliation willprevail. 146The museum signalled its intention to create opportunities for Canadians to engagein a much broader and long-overdue public dialogue about the issue of genocide asit relates to the residential school system. The cmhr envisioned creating a public