Right now in the world I think there are something like 62 truth commissions that have been organized. There are some successful commissions, I think, and some not so successful.
Reconciliation has many different components. Of course it includes things such as apologies, for example. It includes things such as recognizing the harm that's been done. It includes putting in place structures that ensure it will never happen again. And all of the above include making people who have been victims of discrimination or racism or abuse or subordination trust a society, trust a democratic or any kind of government structure.
So as I said earlier, in our own context here in Canada, you just can't throw money at a problem and think it's going to be resolved. It takes more than that. It's much more holistic than that. So the justice system has to strive for that too, and that's why it's so important for people to have access to the courts, for judges to be empathetic and understanding of who's in front of them so that they understand the different cultural ideas about children or about women or about the proper conduct of family life in certain situations. And you don't get that if people have just been very narrow in their life experience or have just had a very confined idea of what the law is all about, a set of rules and procedures. It's much more than that.
Reconciliation can be seen as part and parcel of the administration of justice, or it can be extra added for reasons to avoid a civil war or reasons to bring people onside to avoid future civil strife or separation and those kinds of things. So I would see it as both. I think it has to be integral to the day-to-day operation of justice as well as in some situations require extra added effort such as we are going to do in Canada with the truth and reconciliation commission as a result of residential school abuse.