Winnipeg Foundation fires up effort to build National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation with $5-M donation

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This article was published 14/03/2024 (594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is one big step closer to a new home, thanks to a $5-million donation from the Winnipeg Foundation.

It’s the largest single donation to an Indigenous-led organization in the foundation’s history.

The NCTR has been based in the University of Manitoba’s Chancellor’s Hall building since 2015, but the organization quickly outgrew it, breaking ground on a piece of land on the campus in 2022 with the intention of building a larger centre.

The new facility will include research rooms, public exhibits, classrooms, child-care spaces and private areas for residential school survivors and their families to access records.

The current NCTR area will remain as office space, and the new location will expand on the organization’s archival work, using climate-controlled storage vaults.

The donation was announced in an emotional ceremony Thursday. People carried in a tapestry listing the names of children who died as a result of their time at residential schools, the red fabric long enough to stretch from one end of the room to the other. It was folded and placed on the NCTR’s Bentwood Box — a large cedar-carved case containing personal items shared by people as an expression of reconciliation.

While the gift — which kicks off the NCTR’s $40- million fundraising project to complete the new building — was cause for celebration, the gathering was difficult for survivors who told their painful and angry stories connected to the history behind the archives.

Eugene Arcand, a survivor from Muskeg Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, took time to recognize the anguish he and other survivors have faced in recent years, including in 2021, when the unmarked graves of Indigenous children were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

“I don’t look at this as a donation. I feel it as an investment,” Arcand said, tearing up as he spoke.

“But before that could happen, complacency had set in in Canada after the (Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s) 94 Calls to Action, and the ones that really need to be thanked the most are the 215 (children in the unmarked graves) that woke up the world.”

He was joined by elders and matriarchs, who gathered in support as he finished his remarks.

“I’m not wiping these tears away,” he said. “And I encourage all of you not to wipe your tears away.”

The federal government committed $60 million to the new space in 2022. The facility is expected to cost approximately $100 million; the NCTR is working to raise the remaining $40 million.

The Winnipeg Foundation’s contribution is the first major donation to the project, and the second-largest donation in its 103-year history of supporting social improvements in the city.

“The $5 million goes towards the capital build of their new home, so at the basis of it, it’s bricks and mortar,” foundation president and CEO Sky Bridges said.

“But it’s more than that, it’s a home.”

The building is projected to open in 2029, following a lengthy process that included nationwide consultations, NCTR executive director Stephanie Scott said.

“We wanted to really go out to the community, to speak to survivors, to get that visioning, to be really clear about what they wanted, how they want to see themselves represented,” she said.

“Everything from the landscapes to the rooms, to being inside the programming; what does that space look like?

“We’re hoping that we can utilize technology to the best of its ability, as well. We’re hoping that one day that we can also create holograms with survivors, (after) interviewing them now and asking them thousands and thousands of questions.”

Scott and Bridges said they hope the donation will draw the attention of other potential donors.

“We have met with the Province of Manitoba, we are in discussion right now — Premier Kinew, if you’re listening, please come forward,” Scott said.

“We’re asking for $20 million or more, whatever you can give to the survivors on behalf of their families and all Canadians in order to educate what really needs to be told.”

Laurie McDonald survived Ermineskin Residential School in Alberta in 1963. Today, he’s a 75-year-old Two-Spirit retired educator.

Two-Spirit is a term used within some Indigenous communities, encompassing cultural, spiritual, sexual and gender identity. The term reflects complex Indigenous understandings of gender roles, spirituality and the long history of sexual and gender diversity in Indigenous cultures.

“As a survivor, there are many things that come into play. For me, as a Two-Spirit person, we suffered the same abuses, neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse,” McDonald said.

“But I tell you here — and this is why I’m so glad that what has transpired here, and what is about to become a permanent place for us — that you’re not going to forget that what happened to us, what happened to me. I want you to know it was much more traumatic… know that, understand that. But I survived it.”

He said he’s thankful that the centre will have a space for his words.

“What is important is the stories that I relayed at the beginning of this process many years ago have some place where that sacred story will be stored,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca