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What’s Truth? What’s Reconciliation?

Free forum takes place June 10 at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Langley campus
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What’s Truth? What’s Reconciliation takes place June 10 at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Langley campus. Photo via www.whatstruthwhatsreconciliation.com

The public is invited to learn more about truth and reconciliation during an afternoon forum focused on healing, learning and sharing.

What’s Truth? What’s Reconciliation?, taking place June 10 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Langley campus, seeks to address these two questions with honest, revealing answers.

The afternoon will begin with a traditional First Nations smudging ceremony, followed by presentations by Dr. John Borrows, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria, and Isabel Jackson, co-founder of the Aboriginal Lawyers’ Forum of the Canadian Bar Association of B.C. The event will be moderated by Samantha Urano, a lawyer with Dhanu Dhaliwal Law Corporation.

“The history of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada is rich and diverse,” the event website says.

“Sadly, it is also fraught with the pain of abuse inflicted on Indigenous peoples through the Indian residential school system, and the harmful legacy of those institutions.

“For over 100 years, Aboriginal children were removed from their families and sent to institutions called residential schools. The government-funded, church-run schools were located across Canada and established with the purpose to eliminate parental involvement in the spiritual, cultural and intellectual development of Aboriginal children. The last residential schools closed in the mid-1990s.”

The event is free to attend and is hosted by the B.C. Coordinating Council Public Affairs Council of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in co-operation with the Surrey and Abbotsford Interfaith Councils. Donations to the Langley Food Bank will also be accepted.

The forum will be held in West Auditorium 1270. For more info, visit www.whatstruthwhatsreconciliation.com.