Sweden looks to Canada as it launches a truth commission for the treatment of indigenous people
Geraldine Shingoose wasn’t quite sure what to make of the email that landed in her inbox from the Canadian Embassy in Sweden.
For years, Shingoose had spoken to school groups, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) and even Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price about the abuse she suffered in Canada’s government-funded school system.
Now the same state wanted to press her into diplomatic service and request her presence in, of all places, Stockholm.
“I was pretty shocked to get an invitation like that,” said Saulteaux’s grandmother, who is from the Tootinaowaziibeeng Treaty Reserve in Manitoba and now lives in Winnipeg.
But the inquiry intrigued her.
Sweden launched its own truth commission to investigate the treatment of its Indigenous population, the Sami and the Canadian Embassy had offered to help. It wanted to bring in Ms Shingoose to talk about the TRC.
She had never been to Europe. And the opportunity to help other indigenous people appealed to her.
“I accepted,” she said. “To be invited on a trip like this by Canada to represent our experience in that way — it’s a moving act of atonement.”
It is just the latest example of how Nordic countries are relying on Canadian expertise to investigate modern and historical crimes against the Sami, whose traditional territory spans Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.
For years, Sami leaders have lobbied for a truth and reconciliation process similar to the one held in Canada between 2008 and 2015.
In 2016, the Sami Parliament held roundtable discussions with Paulette Regan, former head of research for the TRC, and Wilton Littlechild, one of the TRC’s three commissioners.
Sweden’s government relented in 2020. The 12-member commission is now conducting hearings and will deliver a final report by the end of 2025.
Finland and Norway have also launched missions and have studied the Canadian example closely.
The Swedish mandate is broader than Canada’s TRC, which focused on residential schools. Sweden’s commission will examine the history and politics of the Sami people dating back to the 16th century.
The Sami were uprooted from their traditional lands, sent to inferior schools, forced to attend church and prevented from speaking their own language or practicing their own religion.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Sweden conducted studies on the Sami that involved excavating Sami graves and measuring skulls for racial differences.
– At the time, all Swedish political parties were in favor of this research, says Marie Persson Njajta, chairman of the Sami Parliament’s steering group for truth and reconciliation. – The opinions of the Sámi are still alive today. We still have to live by laws that were founded in that era of racial biology.”
Above all, Njajta hopes that the commission can educate foreign Swedes about the country’s colonial past.
“In school today in Sweden, we learn more about indigenous peoples abroad than about the Sami people,” she said.
While Sweden follows Canada’s lead in a number of areas, its emphasis is more on truth than reconciliation. The mandate calls it a “truth commission”, whose main priority is to research and disseminate information about Sweden’s treatment of the Sami, although an obligation to “promote reconciliation” is further down in the document.
“I commended them for taking redemption out of the title,” Shingoose said. “We talk about reconciliation in this country, yet our people live in conditions without potable water. Families live in overcrowded homes. We cannot have reconciliation as long as this continues.”
On arrival in Sweden, she met the Stockholm Sami Association and the chairman of the Truth Commission. They exchanged gifts and she offered a piece of advice: The process must be led by indigenous people, with indigenous psychological support available to all involved.
“I told my story and heard from them how children were taken from families, how sacred objects were taken away and banned,” Shingoose said. “Our ancestors had such similar experiences.”
Finally, she told the Canadian Embassy staff about her experiences at the school. Some were moved to tears by her story of coming to the Muscowequan Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan at the age of five and suffered a blow to the head which caused permanent hearing damage.
“It was incredibly difficult to hear,” says Jason LaTorre, Canada’s ambassador to Sweden. “But I found the experience with Geraldine to be something I will remember for the rest of my life. She is one of the bravest, strongest people I have ever met.”