Thoughts, prayers AND apologies: Katherine Morton Richards, ‘Thoughts and Prayers: Comparing Public Apologies for Residential Schools in Canada’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 48, 2, 2025, pp. 93-113 | settler colonial studies blog

Thoughts, prayers AND apologies: Katherine Morton Richards, ‘Thoughts and Prayers: Comparing Public Apologies for Residential Schools in Canada’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 48, 2, 2025, pp. 93-113

21Jul25

Excerpt: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established by the Canadian federal government in 2007, was tasked with investigating Indigenous peoples’ experiences with the Indian residential school system. Residential schools, run by the state and churches, removed Indigenous children from their homes and communities with the aim of assimilating Indigenous peoples into Canadian society. The TRC and its resulting final report reflect a significant milestone in the work done by survivors, families, and Indigenous nations to bring attention to the realities of the residential school program, extending to broader processes of reconciliation and restorative justice.1 Through the sheer volume of information collected and reported alone, the TRC made a substantial contribution to our knowledge about residential schools, particularly among settler Canadians, who too often deny or are ignorant of the intensity of genocidal colonial violence. Public inquires, such as the TRC, as well as state apologies—the subject of this article—engage in a similar politics of redress, something that is significant within contemporary responses to settler colonialism. Understanding the TRC as a significant event in settler colonial Canada, in this article I compare two public apologies for residential schools, one made before and one made after this restorative justice process.

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