SCPL Reads: Truth and Reconciliation Reading List

An examination of the barriers facing Indigenous people within the healthcare system from the perspective of an empathetic settler physician.

After leaving her medical practice in Pennsylvania in 2011, Jarol Boan returned to her childhood home in Saskatchewan, Canada to practise medicine. There she found a healthcare system struggling with preventable chronic diseases and institutional racism. Through working to provide medical services in Indigenous communities and learning first-hand from her Indigenous patients, Boan embarked on a road to enlightenment and reconciliation. 

In this ground-breaking book, Crystal Gail Fraser draws on Gwitch'in concepts of individual and collective fortitude to illuminate student experiences in northern residential schools. Led by survivor testimony, Fraser shows how both students and their parents played a role in changing the system to protect and empower their communities.

My name is Corinne George. I am Wet'suwet'en with Gitksan lineage from the Gidimt'en (Bear) Clan. As a result of colonization, I have encountered incredible levels of trauma. I need to acknowledge and speak my truth. As I share my pain and experiences, I have gathered self-awareness and every time I speak about my trauma, I heal a little bit more. I do not deserve to be treated like I do not exist. Despite the historical impacts of colonization and trauma, my connections to my ancestral ways and my identity have been critical. This is how I survived and how I strive to thrive.

Truth Telling is a collection of essays about the contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada. From resistance and reconciliation to the resurgence and reclamation of Indigenous power, Michelle Good explores the issues through a series of personal essays.

The shocking and tragic story of Indigenous erasure and genocide at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada.

Your next step on the journey of reconciliation starts here. What can you do to be a better ally for your Indigenous colleagues, community members, and friends? By actively listening to the history and current lived experiences of Indigenous peoples, you can take steps to address the inequities they continue to face. You will learn more about the true history shared by Indigenous peoples and colonial governments, why reconciliation is mostly the responsibility of non-Indigenous people, approaches to intervene when you see racism happening, better ways to respond to emotions that come up when doing the work of an ally, how to be an active team player for equity and inclusion.

52 Ways to Reconcile is an accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country. As much as non-Indigenous people want to walk the path of reconciliation, they often aren’t quite sure what to do, and they’re afraid of making mistakes. This book is the answer and the long-overdue guide.

In a collection of writing that spans the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at residential school sites, the murder of young Indigenous girls, and the indifference towards the basic human rights of his family members, this book is inspired by his award-winning columns 'from the centre.' Based on years' worth of columns in the Winnipeg Free Press, CBC, and elsewhere, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples.