The need for truth and reconciliation
Reconciliation is a complex topic, one that at its core represents healing and coming together. In order to truly reconcile and move toward the future, we also need to acknowledge the truth of what occurred, and what continues to occur for Indigenous People in Canada.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a 351-page report that outlined, in damning detail, the history and ongoing legacy of residential schools. These so-called “schools,” run mostly by churches and funded by the Canadian government, enacted cultural genocide on our Peoples. Between the late 1800s and 1996, approximately 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families, communities and culture, and forced into an environment that facilitated severe cultural, emotional, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. In these “schools,” children were punished for speaking their own language and practicing their own cultures, forced to live in squalor, and were often never returned to their families of origin.
“Education is what got us here, and education is what will get us out.”
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The crises that persist in our communities
The last residential school closed in 1996, but the legacy of institutionalization and abuse has cast a long shadow on survivors and their descendents. The government’s policies on Indigenous issues continue to manifest in racism, systemic discrimincation, poverty, and dying Indigenous languages.
While many of our Peoples are reclaiming their cultural pride, revitalizing their languages and sharing their knowledge with the next generation, challenges still remain. Over 4,000 Indigenous women and girls have been missing or murdered since the 1980’s, when law enforcement first started keeping these statistics. This disproportionate level of violence against Indigenous women and girls reveals the legacy of intergenerational trauma, the systemic racism against Indigenous women and girls and their families, and the inaction at the level of law enforcement agencies.
Another hardship that continues today are the many Northern communities that suffer from food insecurity and ongoing boil water advisories. As of 2020, 87 percent of Nunavut’s water treatment facilities were reported to be in “poor” condition, and politicians continue to make promises but produce little results.
“We have described for you a mountain. We have shown you the path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing.”
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Further discoveries lead to renewed motivation
In 2021, the remains of 215 murdered Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at a former church-run residential school in British Columbia. Mere weeks later, the bodies of 751 murdered Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at a former residential school in Saskatchewan, and remains continue to be discovered.
While the news of these discoveries shocked many non-Indigenous Canadians, the sentiments among many Indigenous Peoples were of grief and frustration. We know that these are certainly not the first, nor the last remains of innocent children murdered at the hands of church and school leaders to be discovered on the soil of residential schools. In fact, somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 children are thought to be missing – their remains still unaccounted for.
Reconciliation as a path forward
With our grief and frustration comes a passionate drive to honour the voiceless and do right by our ancestors. Walking the path to reconciliation means ensuring our stories are told and our traumas are acknowledged. It instills hope in us that our children and grandchildren will be proud of their Indigenous identities, in a powerful testament to all that we as a People have overcome.
“Our future, and the well-being of all our children rests with the kind of relationships we build today.”
Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, Ambassador for Reconciliation Canada