1. SENATOR MURRY SINCLAIR
Reconciliation
l'Université Laval
April 27, 2018
SENATOR MURRY SINCLAIR
Presenting on the Traditional Unceded Territory of the Abenaki and Wabenaki Confederacy and the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet)

2. Canadian Aboriginal Policy
For over a century, the Canadian Aboriginal Policy was to eliminate Indigenous Governments, ignore Indigenous Rights, terminate Treaties, and through assimilation cause Indigenous people to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada.
TRC Final Report

3. Education Perspectives
ABORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE Education was a means to become equal partners in the new relationship that was forming in Canada Schools were negotiated in all treaties signed after Confederation and were to be constructed on the home reserve of each First Nation
GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE
Aboriginal people were “uncivilized” and were socially, culturally and intellectually inferior
Children were removed from their inferior families and communities to distant institutions that came to be known as residential schools

4. From Treaties to Broken Promises
“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write…..Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.
Sir John A. Macdonald, May 9, From the House of Commons, Debates

5. Lebret/Qu’Appelle Indian School, SK
Kamloops Indian Residential School, BC
Shingwauk Residential School, ON
Sept-Îles Residential School, QC

6. Residential Schools Findings
Between
130 Schools
12 in QC
Poor conditions: food, shelter, education
Loss of language, culture, connection to family & community
Corporal Punishment suggestive of old system of flogging criminals
Some children never made it back home
150,000 children,
some as young as 4
Human Rights Violations: electric chair, food/medical experiments
Impacts still felt within families & communities
Lead to Canada’s Largest Class Action Lawsuit

7. Inferior Education & Living Conditions
“…the system was open to criticism. Insufficient care was exercised in the admission of children to the schools. The well-known predisposition of Indians to tuberculosis resulted in a very large percentage of deaths among the pupils. They were housed in buildings not carefully designed for school purposes, and these buildings became infected and dangerous to the inmates. It is quite within the mark to say that fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein." 1914
Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent, INAC
Peter Bryce visited 35 residential schools on the Prairies while writing his report. One of his findings was inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

8. Understanding the historical and ongoing impacts of the Indian Act and other laws and policies is a key component for reconciliation

9. Laws & Policies Targeting Indigenous People
Loss of economic &
political power
Loss of parenting skills
Loss of language & transmission of culture
Lower determinants of health
High rates of children in care
High rates of violence
High rates of incarceration
Starvation Policy
Indian Act
White Paper
Residential
Schools
60’s
Scoop
Child Welfare System
Forced Sterilization

10. From Truth to Reconciliation
To address the elephant, the TRC created a reconciliation roadmap with 94 Calls-to-Action
Credit: Anishnawbe Health Authority

11. 94 TRC Calls-to-Action (#’s 1-42)
LEGACY
Child Welfare
Education
Language & Culture
Health
Justice

12. TRC 94 Calls-to-Action (#’s 43-94)
RECONCILIATION
Governments & UNDRIP
Royal Proclamation & Covenant of Reconciliation
Legal System
National Council for Reconciliation
Professional Development & Public Servants Training
Church Apologies
Education for Reconciliation
Youth Programs
Museums & Archives
Missing Children & Burials
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
Commemoration
Sports & Reconciliation
Business & Reconciliation
Newcomers to Canada

13. Reconciliation Principles
In the Short Term:
Learn, Lead, Lend a hand
In the Long Term:
Recognize that the way you do business may have to change
Be aware of the imagery you use
Be aware of the products and services you provide
Be aware of the projects you undertake
Be open to partnership with Indigenous communities
Support and advocate for reconciliation however you understand it

14. Getting To Reconciliation Is Much Harder Than Getting To The Truth
It Will Require Deliberate, Thoughtful, Sustained Action From Everyone