Toronto, Canada – The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) and the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism are pleased to announce their upcoming conference entitled, “From Truth to Reconciliation: Towards a Just Future for Indigenous Peoples of Canada.

This conference will examine the urgent moral and legal challenges confirmed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Canada in coming to terms with its colonial past and present and how it can radically reconceive itself in order to create a just future. The potential for reconciliation will be considered from the perspectives of three key relationships: our shared and now fully revealed history; our relationship with the land; and the relationships between nations. The event will be structured in a series of discussions between indigenous and non-indigenous panellists, with the aim to promote innovative thinking and cross-cultural dialogue.

Keynote speeches will be given by Dr. Phil Fontaine, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and Douglas White, former Chief of the Sununeymuxw First Nation.
The conference seeks to attract university faculty, specialists in the field, students, media representatives, opinion-makers, politicians, Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples alike, and to empower the attendees with facts, references, analysis and perspectives in formulating their own opinions about the TRC declaration and related issues.

The objective of the conference is not only to educate the public in understanding the realities of Canada’s Indigenous peoples today, but to bring to light another experience of genocide, and recognize how this case can be related to others, such as the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust. A comparative approach to the study of genocide and human rights promotes prevention, combats denial for all human rights atrocities world-wide, and can serve to restore dignity to victims.

The Zoryan Institute and its subsidiary, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, is the first non-profit, international centre devoted to the research and documentation of contemporary issues with a focus on Genocide, Diaspora and Homeland.