Reconciliation: more action, less talk

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2023 (659 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This week, my colleagues at the University of Manitoba, alongside researchers from the University of Victoria and Toronto Metropolitan University, released the second annual “Canadian Reconciliation Barometer” report, which is designed to study public perceptions of reconciliation in Canada.

After polling more than 3,000 Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens in 2022, the report found the entire country is more aware than ever about harm experienced by Indigenous people, but “this awareness has not spurred non-Indigenous respondents to engage with Indigenous causes and communities.”

For example, the report found that nine out of every 10 non-Indigenous Canadians know about residential schools (up from 65 per cent in 2021), but this did not spur them to take further interest in child welfare or justice, or support cultural events.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Indigenous people overwhelmingly thought institutions and governments could “do more” when it comes to reconciliation. Non-Indigenous respondents, however, thought that many “have done enough.”

In other words, conversations about reconciliation are on the increase but some might not think actions are as important.

This conclusion was evident this week, as reconciliation continued its one-step-forward, one-step-back journey since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission completed it’s final on Dec. 15, 2015.

While reconciliation gets perhaps more attention than ever, Canada is just at the beginning of a very long journey.

The website Indigenous Watchdog, which tracks Canada’s progress on the TRC’s 94 calls to action, says only 13 had been completed as of this week. Forty-seven, or nearly half, are “in progress” while 34 have “stalled” or had no action.

Of the 13 completed, according to the Indigenous think-tank Yellowhead Institute, virtually all are “focused on symbols and not structures” – meaning Canada is more interested in reconciliation as a conversation piece and less as an instrument of justice, change and equity.

The problem is that if reconciliation is just a talking piece, real-life harm happens.

That was the message delivered by the 12-person Indigenous advisory council to CN Rail. The members resigned this week after announcing the 104-year-old company has demonstrated no commitment to acknowledge the harms it perpetrated against Indigenous communities or implement changes to build better relationships with them.

Advisory council co-chairs Murray Sinclair, former senator and head of the TRC (and my father), and Roberta Jamieson, former CEO of Indspire and the first female First Nations lawyer in Canada, authored the statement announcing the mass resignation.

When the council started, “we were received with great enthusiasm and positive intent by CN,” they wrote.

After the council wrote a report that included recommendations for change, reconciliation didn’t seem so enthusiastic and positive.

“After the release of the report,” Sinclair and Jamieson state, “it became clear to us that CN had no intention of acknowledging and accepting their role in the historical and ongoing impact on Indigenous peoples.”

In response, CN Rail thanked the advisory council, accepted their resignations, and announced it is “committed to its journey towards reconciliation.”

But without the participation of Indigenous people, apparently.

“It became clear to us that CN had no intention of acknowledging and accepting their role in the historical and ongoing impact on Indigenous peoples.”–Murray Sinclair and Roberta Jamieson

A day after that step backward for reconciliation, came a step forward when True North Real Estate Development and the Southern Chiefs’ Organization announced a partnership “to shift the current spiral of Winnipeg’s downtown” by working together on their projects to redevelop Portage Place and the Hudson Bay building.

Each group desperately needed each another: True North gets a willing Indigenous partner to help it re-build the core of Winnipeg and SCO gets access to one of the most savvy business developers in the province.

Nearly two-million square feet downtown will be transformed into sites of tangible acts of economic, social and physical reconciliation.

In another example this week, the Archdiocese of Toronto announced $2.7 million for eight projects invested in reconciliation, which fulfills almost half of their share ($6 million) of the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund. It was created by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, who have been heavily criticized for failing to pay its legal obligations in the 2006 Residential School Settlement Agreement.

Some of the money will come to Manitoba. Nearly one-fifth ($450,000) was gifted to Teach for Canada, an organization that supports teachers in some of Manitoba’s northern First Nations communities.

Then on Friday, there was another step backwards as news emerged the Correctional Services of Canada built a new wing on a jail in Quebec “in the shape of a soaring eagle” to “support Indigenous inmates on their rehabilitation journey.”

While some parts of the building are good, like its spaces for ceremonies, the fact that soaring eagles are not supposed to be locked up seems lost in this act of “reconciliation.”

In the uneven and complicated barometers of reconciliation, conversations may win over actions now — but actions should win over conversations. So, here’s to more.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca