Federal council will track progress on calls to action

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This article was published 29/08/2022 (1144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The federal government says it’s hoping to enshrine an accountability mechanism this fall to track progress on reforms called for by the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“We’ll be looking into the fall to actually give it the teeth that it needs legislatively to fulfil (these) calls to action,” Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said Monday.

The commission on residential schools dissolved itself in late 2015, with the announcement of 94 calls to action.

Four of them involve setting up an arms-length body that monitors all the work Ottawa, the provinces and the Roman Catholic Church are doing to respond to the other recommendations.

The council would gather data and provide expert analyses of what needs to be done to achieve the calls to action, with a legal requirement for Ottawa to respond to the council.

Former lead commissioner Murray Sinclair has lamented the absence of the council, saying such a body is crucial to making sure the reports borne out of work by survivors doesn’t end up gathering dust.

He warned in 2020 that without such a body, it’s unclear to tell whether police are doing enough to prevent violence against Indigenous people, or whether government reforms of child welfare and language preservation are bearing fruit.

The Liberals earmarked $126.5 million in 2019 to set up such a council, but Miller said the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the project. He tabled a bill in June, on the eve of Parliament taking its summer break, to create the council as a non-profit.

An advisory board is effectively doing the initial work, Miller said, noting his bill will turn that board into an official, public-facing council, and that Ottawa hopes to accelerate its launch.

“It will go through the internal digestive system of both houses and, hopefully, I would like to see it passed in the fall and continue the great work (the board) is doing,” he said.

“At that point, it will sit as a mechanism for accountability to hold us, notably, to account, but also to show Canadians what is going on. “

The head of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said the council is sorely needed, since her Winnipeg-based centre has had to focus on historical research over tracking existing policy.

“It’s extremely important (for this) to be actioned fast… so the government can be held accountable,” Stephanie Scott said at an unrelated news conference on Parliament Hill.

“Every day we find new names of children that died or passed away in residential school or went missing, and that’s really been our focus.”

— Dylan Robertson