Reparations are inherently blood money and further the categorization of Indigenous peoples.

Efforts to expose and redress violent pasts through truth commissions, the issuance of formal apologies, and various forms of compensation have emerged as desired measures used by state governments to redress historical injustices and other forms of collective violence and atrocity, especially since the of World War II.25Some argue that we are, for better or worse, in a historical moment of reparation and acknowledgment by characterizing this as an ‘age of atonement,’26an‘age of trauma,’27or an ‘age of apology,’28within which has emerged a culture of redress29and a politics of reconciliation.30A defining characteristic of this ‘era’ or ‘age’ is a central focus and value placed on truth telling processes and learning from the past. Truth telling is a concept that refers to such efforts to uncover, record and publicize in justices like the residential school system. The process is typically understood as a formal, state-sponsored, victim-centred, supportive, and emotionally difficult process31that engages survivors, truth commission representatives, civil servants, news media, and public audiences in revealing a formerly denied injustice and developing a new historical record.32The work of truth commissions, which facilitate truth telling processes, involves hearing testimony, researching, recording, and analyzing historical records, and publicly reporting theirfindings.33The process is thought by some to be a form of reparation in and of itself.34 For some, truth telling offers survivors the possibility of dignity, healing, and respect.35In the Canadian context, the TRC defines truth telling as a ‘sincere acknowledgment’ of the harm done to, and healing required by, survivors of the Indian residential school system.36A key aspect of this process involves recovering parts of the past that had been obscured, denied, and ignored by the Canadian government and churches. The TRC emphasizes that during this process, ‘Canadians must look to, and learn from, the past.’37At the same time, some have noted that truth telling produces subjects of the truth and reconciliation process. Truth telling processes narrowly define these subjects as ‘traumatized victims’ 38and ‘survivors’ 39who are ‘fixed in the lexicon of reconciliation ’40 and are inscribed in a ‘logic of healing,’41 rather than decolonization and justice. Glen Sean Coulthard emphasizes that very valid emotional expressions such as anger or resentment are deemed negative in truth telling processes by commission representatives and settlers, not only in terms of being characterized as undesired, irrational emotions, but as impediments to individual healing and national reconciliation.42Truth telling processes also tend to be one-sided. The roles, responsibilities and investments of peoples other than former students are not articulated.43Former students and their descendants are often overly burdened.44 While many former students conveyed that sharing their stories was powerful, integral to their personal healing, and in the service of educating youth, their communities, and the broader Canadian public,45 truth telling processes have also been critiqued as being wholly different from the various truth and storytelling practices of Indigenous communities.46 Jeff Corntassel, Cha-win-is and T’lakwadzi emphasize that for many Indigenous peoples, truth telling must ‘link political action and cultural teachings...to draw the focus back to community and family processes of restorying justice and history, as a means to challenge the colonial relationship with Canada;’47this entails storytelling that24J. MATSUNAGA focuses on ties to land and resilience that can be used by future generations towards decolonization and justice.48With its focus on uncovering the truth and producing new knowledge about the residential school system, the TRC’s work was additionally meant to provide context and meaning for the Common Experience Payment.49 Generally, compensation programs do not overtly or directly stake a claim in any kind of knowledge production or truth telling about historical injustice. Compensation programs are typically treated as instruments that symbolically and materially reinforce formal apologies50and truth and recon-ciliation processes.51Compensation is also meant to symbolize the commitment a government has made to correct an injustice.52 Governments take this approach because survivors and their representatives typically demand some form of compensation and because this approach, like the TRC, is in line with psychological and legal principles in restorative justice. These principles hold that if compensation is to be meaningful, it must be appropriate by way of processes that are neither too excessive nor intrusive lest they be counter-productive and infringe on the dignity of claimants.53In the case of residential schools, Jennifer Llewellyn asserts that public funds should be spent as part of a restorative justice process to make clear that this is a public issue and not simply a tort matter.54 It should be noted, however, that some survivors see compensation for historical injustice or large-scale atrocity as ‘blood money.’55 Robyn Green characterizes the compensation programs that are laid out in the IRSSA as ‘therapeutic investments’ for the Canadian government.56 A consequence of such an ‘investment,’ according to Green, is that it enables Indigenous populations to be managed ‘at a distance’. Compensation for residential schools enables the documenting and categorizing of Indigenous peoples as unable to work due to their state of health as a result of residential schools,’57and thus are in further need of state interventions. As Laura Fullenwieder emphasizes, there is a direct correlation between suffering and remuneration; by self-declaring as a former student and applying for the Common Experience Payment, applicants are folding themselves into‘a distinctive population [that has been] categorized, collated, and ascribed normative characteristics related to suffering, injustice, sickness, “healing,” and resilience.’58 Green highlights that what is often elided or perhaps overlooked in the scholarship is that the bureaucratic techniques that mobilized residential schools are likewise used in reparations practices.59 These critiques under-line that a consequence of reparation in the form of compensation is the further and continued management and categorization of Indigenous peoples as problematic.