After 10 years, why the TRC’s promise still demands action

Ten years ago this week, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its final report, a landmark document that laid bare truths that First Nations have known for generations: residential schools as institutions of assimilation and genocide, the systemic discrimination against First Nations and Indigenous Peoples and the urgent need for Canada to rebuild nation-to-nation relationships based on respect, justice and our inherent and Treaty rights. The TRC’s 94 calls to action set the pathway towards reconciliation and healing.

And yet the calls to action remain largely unfulfilled, despite being urgent priorities for First Nations and Canada. This year alone has shown both the perils of neglect and the potential of reconciliation.

A week ago, sacred First Nations artifacts were repatriated from the Vatican Museum, thanks to decades of advocacy by First Nations and Knowledge Keepers. There’s more work to do, but these ancestors are home.

Since March, more than $267 million has been paid in compensation to families harmed by the underfunding and discrimination in First Nations Child and Family Services. While no amount of money can ever make up for the harms experienced, this is long overdue accountability.

In March 2025, Indigenous leaders and the federal government committed to creating a permanent Indigenous space within the parliamentary precinct. For too long, First Nations voices were sidelined; this space offers a step to ensuring we have a seat at the heart of Canada’s democracy.

There have been victories in the courts and at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. First Nations will continue to fight and we will continue to win. But reconciliation should be about willing partners, not court orders.

This is why it’s encouraging that, at our December AFN assembly, the prime minister committed to a first ministers meeting with First Nations in 2026, stating that First Nations “will set the agenda.”

This is an opportunity to advance long-outstanding issues. Because 2025 has also been a year of frustration, a reminder that words and agreements are empty absent action.

The push to “fast-track” development projects and the potential to bypass free, prior and informed consent is alarming to First Nations. Canada enshrined the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law but the AFN’s recent report on its implementation finds Canada is falling far short in fully aligning its laws, policies and mandates with the declaration.

Budget 2025 was a missed opportunity to invest in housing, clean water, education and community supports that First Nations need now.

Reconciliation requires that we not only learn our shared history, but that we learn from it. This means working together so that First Nations families can raise their children in healthy homes. It means supporting First Nation-led approaches to revitalizing the languages and cultures that the residential schools aimed to destroy. It means addressing the infrastructure gap so our people live in safe communities.

The Assembly of First Nations annually assesses progress towards the full implementation of the TRC’s calls to action. To date, only about 13 have been completed, and only two in the past five years. While assessing “completion” is challenging, it’s clear that progress is too slow. This is not good for First Nations. It is not good for Canada. We have the potential and opportunity to create a stronger country and prosperity for all.

The late justice Murray Sinclair asked, “Have we been good relatives to future generations?”

Today, I pose this question to every member of every government across the land: How will you honour the promises Canada made — not just in the TRC report, but throughout the last decade? Support reforms in child welfare, policing, education, housing, water. Make a permanent First Nations presence in Ottawa more than a symbolic space — make it a foundation for shared decision-making.

To Canadians, we say that reconciliation must be a living commitment to how we build our shared future. I urge you to read the calls to action and find your place in them. There is a role for everyone — what is yours? Stand with First Nations when our dignity, self-determination, or histories are denied. Demand your elected representatives deliver on the promise of reconciliation.

We still believe in reconciliation. But belief alone is not enough. This 10th anniversary is a time to commit to action — real, timely, justice-driven action. For our children. For our lands. For our future.

The TRC final report showed us a path to the top of the mountain. It is our responsibility to make that climb.

We will get there if we travel together.

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak is the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.