Will the work of the T & R Commission enable aboriginal peoples and all Canadians to move forward together?
Truth and Reconciliation: Six years in the making, the work of the Commission is finished ...but it says the work of Canadians has just begun. What's your reaction? Will it enable aboriginal peoples and all Canadians to move forward together?
GUESTS & LINKS
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INTRODUCTION
It is not often that a comprehensive report on Canada's troubled relationship with its aboriginal peoples is presented to the public. The last one was in 1996 when the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was completed. It is invariably an event of both solemnity and hope. Solemnity because of the seriousness of the issues in question, and hope because each report comes with an expectation that Canada can move forward and repair the relationship.
This week the Truth and Reconciliation Commission finished its work of six years and released a 300-page summary report - the full one is due in the fall. The Commission criss-crossed the country hearing the personal stories of 7-thousand witnesses; the painful legacy of the Indian Residential School system. Over a period spanning a century-and-a-half, 150-thousand children were removed from their parents and sent to schools to be 're-educated.'
The Commission was created as part of a formal apology in 2008 by the government of Canada to its First Nations for the residential schools program.
In delivering the report, Chairman Justice Murray Sinclair indicated that now is the time for Canadians to work together. It is an opportunity to begin to change a damaged relationship. He emphasized that the stain left by the residential schools is not something that First Nations can simply 'get over.'
In his words: "Reconciliation is not a new opportunity to convince aboriginal people to 'get over it' and become like 'everyone else' ...that's what residential schools were all about and look how that went."
The Commission makes 94 recommendations - some broad, some specific - that it says are necessary to reach a new understanding between all Canadians, including aboriginal peoples.
Justice Sinclair says that this reconciliation is the beginning of a process of change ....in the relationship between First Nations and the government ...and also at the personal, and family, and community level too.
At the Commission's closing ceremony this past week in Ottawa, Governor-General David Johnston put it this way:
"This is a moment for national reflection and introspection … to think about the depth of our commitment to tolerance, respect and inclusiveness, and whether we can do better. This is a moment to think about those people - those children, those mothers and fathers, those families and those elders, past and present. And it's also a moment to ask: where do we go from here?"
We want to hear your views.
What is your response to the work of the Commission? What are your thoughts on the recommendations? Is the process of reconciliation going to be easy? Are you confident that it will proceed as laid out by the Commission?
Our question today: "Will the report of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission enable aboriginal peoples and all Canadians to move forward together?"
I'm Rex Murphy ...on CBC Radio One ...and on Sirius XM, satellite radio channel 169 ...this is Cross Country Checkup.
GUESTS
Betty Ann Adam
Reporter with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix who covered the TRC and whose mother was in a residential school.
Twitter: @SPBAAdam
John Ivison
National Post newspaper columnist on political and national affairs.
Twitter: @IvisonJ
Ernie Crey
Social worker who has worked with first nation youth, former vice-president of the United Native Nations, veteran aboriginal fishing rights activist and co-author of the award-winning Stolen from Our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities.
Twitter: @Cheyom1
Terry Glavin
Award-winning journalist and columnist with Ottawa Citizen, co-author of a book about a residential school in B.C. titled: Amongst God's Own: The Enduring Legacy of St. Mary's Mission.
Twitter: @TerryGlavin
LINKS
CBC.ca
- Truth and Reconciliation: Aboriginal people conflicted as commission wraps up after 6 years, by Connie Walker
- Residential schools findings point to 'cultural genocide,' commission chair says
- Reconciliation not opportunity to 'get over it': Justice Murray Sinclair
- Education 'only way forward,' says GG David Johnston as TRC ends
- A history of residential schools in Canada
- Residential school survivor and Anglican couple forge 'unlikely' friendship
- CBC News Aboriginal
- CBC News articles: Truth and Reconciliation
National Post
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission lays out blueprint to atone for 'cultural genocide'
- 'Assault' on residential school students' identities began the moment they stepped inside
- Reconciliation commission report misses mark by demanding change to just about everything, by Michael Den Tandt
- Five of the best recommendations from the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, and five that will be problematic, by Jen Gerson
- Aboriginal success is the best form of reconciliation, by Wab Kinew
- Feds stopped keeping track of children who died in residential schools 'probably because rates were so high'
- 'Cultural genocide' controversy around long before it was applied to Canada's residential schools, by Joseph Brean
- Debunking the half-truths and exaggerations in the Truth and Reconciliation report, by Clifton & Rubenstein
- Call residential schools almost anything else. But don't call them genocide, by Jackson Doughart
- Canada has been seeking 'reconciliation' for almost 200 years, by Terry Glavin
- Children should be at the top of the post-Truth and Reconciliation to-do list, by John Ivison
Globe and Mail
- Residential schools amounted to 'cultural genocide,' report says
- Truth and Reconciliation report calls for steps to improve First Nations' lives
- Government remains silent on Truth and Reconciliation recommendations
- Editorial: Truth and Reconciliation - Genocide or not, Canada authored this story
- Fixating on the past makes progress difficult, by Jeffrey Simpson
- Truth and reconciliation: This is just the beginning, by Perry Bellegarde
- We'll get the truth on First Nations, but reconciliation remains elusive, by Bob Rae
- To know the horror behind Truth and Reconciliation, read this letter, by Bernie Farber
- The Truth and Reconciliation Commission: articles
Saskatoon Star Phoenix
Policy Options
APTN News
The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
- Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples
- Document: The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (PDF)