In the wake of horrific revelations of unmarked grave sites, and with more likely to emerge, we feel that it is necessary that we read the TRC together. We have also heard the call from many Indigenous groups, including Native Earth Performing Arts, for white/ non-Indigenous/ settler Canadians to read the TRC if they hadn’t done so.

By committing to read the TRC Executive Summary Report over a series of weeks, we seek to deepen our understanding of how the residential school system perpetuated the genocide of Indigenous peoples across Canada. In this, we draw inspiration from projects such as the TRC Reading Challenge and Theatre Passe Muraille’s reading of the TRC this summer. By joining together as a community of educators and students, we hope that the shared experience of reading aloud and reflecting on the knowledge shared in the report will give us a strong base of understanding to respectfully work together in the future.

The Department of Theatre is planning to host a weekly reading via Zoom from 10:00-11:00 a.m. each Monday beginning September 27. Each session will include 35-40 minutes of reading, followed by 15-20 minutes for individual contemplation, journaling, or drawing. We won’t assign reading ahead of time but will rather invite those in attendance to take turns reading in an organic fashion. You can keep your screens on or off, as you wish.

This is part of a cross-Canada initiative organized by theatre professors from sites including York, Western, XU (formerly Ryerson), McGill, and University of Alberta. Currently there are additional reading groups organized in U of Sask, SFU, Carleton, Guelph, Queen's, Concordia (in Edmonton), U of T Scarborough, Western, York, McGill, U of A, and XU. Our colleagues at McGill are setting up a fundraising site to raise funds for the Indian Residential School Survivors Society: https://www.irsss.ca/. I will share further details once they are available.