10 | Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Recommendation
- The Commission recommends that federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and all parties to the Settlement Agreement, undertake to meet and explore the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as a framework for working towards ongoing reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation
In response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Canada created a healing fund, administered primarily by Aboriginal peoples, that would specifically address the residential school legacy and assist former students who were physically and sexually abused. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF), established for this purpose in 1998, delivers a wide array of programs while conducting innovative research on the effects of the residential system on Aboriginal peoples. Its directors convinced the federal government to expand its mandate to include not only those who attended the schools but also those who were affected intergenerationally (the parents and descendants of the students) as well. In 2010 the federal government discontinued funding for the AHF, thus depriving former students and their families of a highly valued and effective resource. The closing of the Aboriginal Health Foundation will make Canada's reconciliation journey even more challenging in the years to come.
Recommendation
- The Commission recommends that the Government of Canada meet immediately with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to develop a plan to restore funding for healing initiatives to the Foundation within the next fiscal year.
The International Context
The Commissioners determined early on that the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has an international importance. This was underscored when the United Nations proclaimed 2009 as the International Year of Reconciliation. Over the past two decades, more than forty truth and reconciliation commissions have been struck following civil conflicts in countries such as South Africa, Peru, Colombia, and Sierra Leone. Canada's TRC is unique in that it is the first commission to address human-rights violations that span over a century and focus on the treatment of Indigenous children.
The Commissioners also recognize it is important to place Canada's residential school system within the international context, particularly now that the world community, including Canada, has endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The residential school system was not unique to Canada. Governments and missionary agencies in many countries around the world established boarding schools as part of the colonial process. The systems varied from time to time and place to place, but they shared many common elements and left a common legacy. For these reasons, the Commission has participated in international activities. Representatives from other countries that have a history of residential schooling for Indigenous children, or similar abuses of Indigenous peoples, also have travelled to Canada to observe Commission events.
In April 2010, Justice Murray Sinclair made a presentation to the Ninth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York on the work of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 2010 the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recognized the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as a model of best practices and an inspiration for other countries.
In September 2010, Commissioner Wilton Littlechild addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council's fifteenth session in Geneva, Switzerland, on the value that truth commissions bring to global reconciliation efforts. There, he expressed the Commission's support for an international experts' seminar on truth and reconciliation processes. Such commissions can play an important role in resolving conflict and improving relations between states and Indigenous peoples.
In September 2010, Commissioners Littlechild and Wilson presented at the sixth gathering of Healing Our Spirit Worldwide, an international forum and healing initiative that focuses on health, governance, and drug and alcohol issues and programs in Indigenous communities across the globe. Many former residential school students from Canada participated in this event.
In October 2010, the Commissioners co-hosted a youth retreat in British Columbia with the International Center for Transitional Justice. This initiative brought together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth to learn about social justice, the role of truth and memory projects, and the specific history and purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and to identify opportunities for youth to design and participate in truth and reconciliation activities here in Canada.
In March 2010, the Commission participated in the International Expert Group meeting on Indigenous Children and Youth in Detention, Custody, Adoption and Foster Care in
