For Indigenous literature courses to be successful, Indigenous cultural safety must be centred, and commitment to teacher professional development is a must.
Members of the Assembly of First Nations perform in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on March 31, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis and the Catholic Church must make a plan with Indigenous Peoples, not for us, in order to walk the path of reconciliation. Some initial suggestions of what a plan might include.
People march in the streets in Ottawa during a rally to demand an independent investigation into Canada’s crimes against Indigenous Peoples, including those at Indian Residential Schools.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The aim of transitional justice is to usher in a peaceful society after mass atrocity, periods of systemic human rights violations and violent authoritarian regimes. It should be a Canadian priority.
Chief commissioner Marion Buller and commissioners Brian Eyolfson, Qajaq Robinson and Michele Audette prepare the final report to give to the government at the closing ceremony for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
The MMIWG Inquiry two years later: What’s changed and what still needs to be done?
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, documents the lynchings of more than 4,400 people between 1877 and 1950.
AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz
Research into how war-torn and fractured nations find justice and societal reconciliation finds ways to establish sustainable and lasting peace in divided societies.
The system of ‘birth alerts’ across Canada perpetuates the removal of children from Indigenous families begun by residential schools. Pictured here: a historical report on residential schools released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
To make meaningful progress on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, all provinces and territories should promptly follow B.C. and ban discriminatory ‘birth alerts.’
Pipeline pipes are seen at a Trans Mountain facility near Hope, B.C., on Aug. 22, 2019. Project Reconciliation is an Indigenous-led initiative that seeks to buy a stake in the pipeline.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Project Reconciliation is a direct response to one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls that Indigenous communities ‘gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects.’
Language is a complex structure. Here, Jeremy Dutcher performs during the Polaris Music Prize gala in Toronto on Sept. 17, 2018. Dutcher’s award-winning album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa is in the Wolastoqey language.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin
The presence of Indigenous peoples in conversations in Canada about the flourishing of Indigenous languages and critical Indigenous education is essential.
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for culturally relevant programming for sport officials as well as anti-racism awareness training. Here, former Chicago Blackhawks player Fred Sasakamoose is honoured at an Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks game in 2017.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
If hockey is to be a sport that brings people together and fosters what’s best about Canada, it needs to reckon with Canada’s – and hockey’s – history of racism and settler colonialism.
Many remote Indigenous communities are not connected to the electrical grid and produce their own electricity using diesel generators.
Ocean Networks Canada/Flickr
A new federal program aims to reduce diesel-dependency in remote Indigenous communities. But are these communities able to do this on their own terms?
In this October 1998 photo, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu dance after Tutu handed over the final report of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Pretoria.
(AP Photo/Zoe Selsky)
Wherever there is an ugly, unresolved injustice pulling at the fabric of a society, there is an opportunity to haul it out in public and deal with it through a truth commission.
Addressing Canada’s health inequities through the health-care system will only take us so far. Real change will require listening to Indigenous stories, which teach about our relationships to one another as human beings, and between us and our four-legged, winged, finned, rooted and non-rooted relations.
(Unsplash/jongsun lee)
To improve Indigenous health in Canada we need more Indigenous health professionals and more culturally competent health-care providers. We also need to listen properly to Indigenous stories.
At least 54 countries prohibit the corporal punishment of children. Canada has neither prohibited corporal punishment, nor said it will.
Shutterstock
Until Canadians challenge the normalization of violence against children, we will continue to support, or at least tacitly condone, something that by all accounts is harmful.
Concrete action steps are needed to help reconciliation, says a research team that offers 12 actionable ideas. Here Ben Paul, of the Musqueam First Nation, sings and plays a drum during the Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver, B.C., on Sept. 24, 2017, held to promote positive relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
It’s been three years since the TRC released its report on the lasting impact of residential schools in Canada but responses to the 94 Calls to Action have been slow. A new framework hopes to change that.
A statue of John A. Macdonald in Montreal has been repeatedly vandalized with red paint to symbolize blood. As the debate continues about removing statues, what specific actions are needed to promote reconciliation?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Removing statues of historical figures may be important symbolic statements when it comes to reconciliation, but action on important Indigenous issues like land claims and education are needed more.
Four hikers walk west, from the village of Val Marie in southern Saskatchewan, along a historical trail once used by Indigenous tribes and settlers. Giving Canadians the ‘right to roam’ might be a small step toward answering the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
James R. Page
A right-to-roam movement has never developed in Canada the way it has in the U.K. Here’s how it could benefit Canadian society as a whole, including reconciliation efforts with the Indigenous.
Bernie Williams, right, a women’s advocate in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, embraces Carmen Paterson while testifying at the final day of hearings at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Richmond, B.C., on April 8, 2018.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
University “Indigenization” efforts using Massive Open Online Courses promise to reach wide audiences. They also raise critical questions about how to embody Indigenous ways of knowing and relating.
Colten Boushie’s uncle, Alvin Baptiste, and his brother Jace Boushie address demonstrators gathered outside of the courthouse in North Battleford, Sask.,on Feb.10, 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Matt Smith
It’s time for an overhaul of the justice system in Canada: How juries are selected, how Indigenous victims are treated and to challenge embedded racism within police forces and courts.
Dr. Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, has called on the federal government to stop its chronic underfunding of services for Indigenous children.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
No project for reconciliation can succeed unless the federal and provincial governments roll back their power and create space for Indigenous control over their own self-determining futures.
The Trump administration recently reduced the size of Bears Ears in Utah, opening millions of acres to mining and other uses. This threatens Indigenous heritage and can be seen as a form of violence.