{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.017080745341614908, 'fraction_numerical': 0.006211180124223602, 'mean_word_length': 5.121140142517815, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Introduction to the Canadian Historical Review Forum on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

From time to time, the Canadian Historical Review commissions articles that address a particular issue and publishes them together as a Forum. This Forum on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began rather differently. In 2017, we received Brian Gettler’s piece, “Historical Research at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.” During the peer review process, one reviewer suggested that the Canadian Historical Review devote a Forum to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc) to consider its implications for the writing and teaching of history. We thought this an excellent idea and immediately commissioned additional articles, including a number from Indigenous authors. In light of the importance and timeliness of this issue, and in order that the content of these pieces will be as current as possible, the Canadian Historical Review will be publishing these pieces as they are received and proceed through the peer review process. Gettler’s article was published in December 2017 and in this issue, we present two more by James R. Miller and Krista McCracken. Gettler’s article began this Forum by explaining the research processes of the trc. As Miller does in this volume, Gettler reminded readers of the legal and practical constraints in which the trc worked. The trc was mandated by the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (irssa), the culmination of the class action suit brought by Indian Residential School survivors against the federal government and Christian churches. As such, it focused its attention on these historical actors and in so doing tethered itself to a national narrative that flattened out regional variation and ignored the role played by other governmental bodies including provincial and territorial authorities. The trc also operated on a very short timeline. The irssa gave it only two years to complete its work and the trc passed on these time limits to their contract researchers: Gettler, for example, had just under six months to analyse over 80,000 documents provided to him and to write his report on the schools in Quebec. The work was limited in other important ways. Very few documents in the dataset sent to Gettler came from Indigenous sources. Indeed, the research mandate of the trc by the irssa focused on amassing government and church records related to the schools. Moreover, the trc relied upon a database created by a government department, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development 100