Sean Carleton & Niigaan Sinclair Book Launch (Truth Before Reconciliation)

Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair celebrate the launch of Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism (University of Manitoba Press), with special guests Michelle Good and contributors. Hosted by Shelagh Rogers. The TRC’s Final Report, released in 2015, is the outcome of many years of research and rigorous scholarship by hundreds of academics across Canada. Despite six volumes evincing the genocide, some Canadians choose to deny, downplay, and disparage these findings in a battle for public memory waged in popular media and across social media platforms. Countering soundbites with substance, Sean Carleton and Niigaan Sinclair, along with a team of expert historians, educators, Survivors, archivists, and archeologists, analyze the genesis, methods, and consequences of denialism; push back on denialist claims; and highlight some of the primary sources and peer-reviewed scholarship that denialists ignore or misrepresent. Importantly, they also document the harms denialists have inflicted on Survivors and communities. Embedded in the lived experiences of Survivors and supported by the evidentiary record, Truth Before Reconciliation is a valuable tool to help develop the historical and information literacy needed to identify and combat denialism and anti-Indigenous racism as we collectively build a more honourable future for all.