Reconciliation in Canada

Reconciliation: building a renewed relationship with Indigenous Peoples based on the recognition of rights, respect and partnership.

Conversation regarding repairing non-Indigenous and Indigenous relationships in Canada was first initiated in 1998, when the Canadian federal government responded to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples’ (1996) report with their own, called Gathering Strength: Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan. This action plan addressed the government’s role in creating and implementing residential schools and included a Statement of Reconciliation. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an official government apology for residential schools 11 years later, in 2008.

During this time, Canada’s largest class action settlement emerged, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). This settlement acknowledged the harmful legacy of residential schools impacting Indigenous people, and established a multi-billion dollar recompense to assist former students with healing. The IRSSA also set aside money to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), an advisory body tasked with giving voice to more than 6,000 Indigenous residential school survivors over a five-year period. This was accomplished by raising public awareness through national events in major cities and collecting personal testimonies into a historical document. 

The TRC presented its findings in a series of reports in June 2015, with a final report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, released in December 2015. In addition, the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action offered policy recommendations in specific areas challenging the government to not just make amends, but ensure that systems will be established so that these atrocities will never happen again.

According to the Yellowhead Institute’s Calls to Action Accountability: A 2023 Status Update on Reconciliation (Jewell and Mosby, 2023), “Zero Calls to Action were completed in 2023. Eight years since the release of the 94 Calls to Action, 81 Calls remain unfulfilled.”

In the short time we have been annually observing Canada’s record on its supposed progress, we’ve held the tension of the promise of reconciliation with the actual reality – exacerbated by the deep chasm between the two and frustrated by the discrepancy between inaction and Canada’s fantastical myths of benevolence.

Eva Jewell and Ian Mosby

Although the reconciliation conversation was pursued first between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian government, the word ‘reconciliation’ has become a broader grassroots invitation extended by Indigenous communities to the wider public. Individuals, families, schools, organizations, and businesses are also invited to learn about the truth about Canada’s history and its lasting, harmful legacy.

It is important to note that reconciliation is not for Indigenous people. Indigenous people have nothing to reconcile with a system that created and implemented racist policies and intentional harm against them. Reconciliation is, however, for non-Indigenous people. It is an opportunity for older generations to learn the history they were never made aware of, and it is an opportunity for younger generations to learn about and normalize living history. 

Reconciliatory education does not focus solely on the history of residential schools. It requires Canadians to look at the bigger picture that is colonization. Broken treaties, land disputes and inequitable socio-economic circumstances originate from and are perpetuated by colonial racist policies and embedded discriminatory attitudes. Consequently, colonization is a centuries old system that continues to benefit some over others, in particular, it benefits those who have white, European, Christian backgrounds.

While non-Indigenous individuals might feel attacked or removed from this truth for various reasons, this does not change the fact that this system must be changed and that we all have the power to do so. Reconciliation, therefore, becomes a collective responsibility to move forward in justice and effect change in our areas of influence.

See how True North Aid is supporting Reconciliation efforts in Canada by clicking here.