What is the Truth and Reconciliation Report?
It's almost been one year since 215 children were recovered in a mass grave outside of Kamloops B.C
On May 28, 2021, the Tk'emlups te Secwépemc people recovered the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, outside of Kamloops, B.C.
The fourth wave of COVID-19 & the standstill nature of the pandemic forced Canadians to pay attention to an issue Indigenous communities have been telling us for years: the truth about residential 'schools.'
As these first (of now thousands of) children were recovered in Kamloops, we collectively became aware that our so-called 'civilized' country took children away from their families, communities, and cultures to kill the Indian in the child.
What exactly are residential ‘schools’?
Many non-Indigenous folks growing up in Canada were taught that residential 'schools' were created to help assimilate Indigenous folk into 'Canadian culture,' that it was a service provided to Indigenous communities to 'help.'
We hope you'll join us in unsubscribing from this Canadian propaganda and choosing the truth:
This wasn't some well-intended act that was poorly executed; this was intentional violence with the malicious purpose of cultural genocide (and, arguably, full-on genocide) of the people Indigenous to this land.
Want to do a quick litmus test on why this was intentional? How many of you went to elementary schools in Canada with unmarked graves behind them? If you attended public school in Canada before 1996, were you experimented on, severely mistreated, degraded, and abused?
Yeah, didn't think so.
Fast Facts on Residential ‘Schools’
Residential Schools are "a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples" (The TRC Report)
From 1863 to 1996 over 150 000 children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in these ‘boarding schools’. That is seven generations of Indigenous people over course of 150 years. Many children never returned home, and those who did suffer from unimaginable trauma.
The explicit intent was to separate these children from their families and cultures, in an effort to quote: "kill the Indian in the child."
In 1920, the Indian Act made attendance at Indian Residential Schools compulsory for Treaty-status children between the ages of 7 and 15.
The schools were often underfunded and overcrowded. The quality of education was substandard. Children were severely mistreated, degraded, experimented on and abused.
The odds of a student dying at these schools were 1 in, 25, which is greater than the 1 in 26 odds of a Canadian soldier dying in WWII.
Meanwhile, 1 in 5 students suffered from physical and sexual abuse.
So what exactly is the TRC Report?
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed as a means of reckoning with the devastating legacy of residential 'schools.' From 2007- 2015, the TRC carried out extensive research, including hearing from Residential Survivors, their families, members of their communities, former staff of residential schools and others.
This Indigenous-led effort documented the experiences of over 6,500+ residential school survivors and resulted in the Canadian government handing over 5 million records, including claims of sexual and physical assault.
The full report, published in 2015, includes stories from people with lived experiences and 94 Calls to Action to continue reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people. The government of Canada accepted this report via Prime Minster Trudeau in 2015.
94 Calls to Action and Only 13 are done
The TRC Report shares the devastation and violence experienced by Indigenous folk and gives the government a cheatsheet to reconciliation with the 94 Calls to Action.
When our government accepted the TRC report in 2015, there was an official acknowledgement of the violence Canada committed against Indigenous people. Yet, from 2015-2020 only 10 of the 94 Calls to Action were enacted.
In 2021, an additional three calls to action were implemented within record time only following the public outcry at the discovery of unmarked graves containing Indigenous children of Canada's residential school system.
Which begs the question, if they were that easy to do, why hadn't we done them already?
Status Update on 94 Calls to Action
Calls to Action 18-24: Health
0 of 7 Completed
Calls to Action 25-42: Justice
2 of 18 Completed
Calls to Action 43-94: Reconciliation
8 of 52 Completed
Calls to Action 1-5: Child Welfare
0 of 5 Completed
Calls to Action 6-12: Education
0 of 7 Completed
Calls to Action 13-17: Language and Culture
3 of 5 Completed
Looking towards Truth and Reconciliation in Canada
As we approach the first anniversary of the collective awareness in this country shifting towards truth and reconciliation, join us in asking what the fuck are we waiting for?
Yellowhead Institute sites 5 reasons for the lack of action on the 94 Calls to Action:
Paternalism (policy that fails to centre Indigenous leaders and solutions)
Structural anti-Indigenous discrimination (which continues to justify dispossession, violence and poverty)
Public Interest (lack of engagement by non-Indigenous Canadians when issues 'fall off the news cycle')
Insufficient Resources (including lack of funding)
Reconciliation as exploitation/performance (too much focus on symbolic action)
We saw our government and our communities mobilize at breakneck speed during the pandemic, so we know that what's lacking isn't the ability to move fast in government, but rather, the lack of political will to do so.
Demand Action on Truth and Reconciliation in Canada
Canada is a wealthy, "civilized" nation, with an abundance of resources, that continues to fail the Indigenous people of this land.
We've drafted a simple email and put the below email addresses for you to email on our website at: www.oncanadaproject.ca/trc-action.
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Beyond 94 CBC, CBC, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Indigenous Watchdog, Yellowhead Institute, The Guardian, Government of Canada
