It has been 10 years since the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Indigenous Justice Murray Sinclair, issued its 94 Calls to Action, and many of those calls to action have either not been started, or have stalled.
The Calls to Action were aimed at reconciling Canada’s history with the Indian Residential School system. Residential Schools were designed to destroy Indigenous identity and culture and many Indigenous children experienced abuse and others died at those schools.
A report released at the beginning of September by the non-profit group Indigenous Watchdog shows that 40 per cent of the 94 Calls to Action are either stalled or have not even been started.
Some of the calls to action that have not been started are significant, like the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, a policy adopted by European nations hundreds of years ago to justify colonisation. This call to action has been adopted however by all denominations of different religious faiths, according to Indigenous Watchdog.
Another call to action that has not been started by the federal government is a commitment to issue annual reports on progress towards reconciliation and developing a Royal Proclamation on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
What has stalled
While there are 16 calls to action that have not been started, even more, 22, have stalled or have seen little progress.
This includes calls to action like allowing residential school survivors to reclaim the Indigenous names that were taken from them, when they themselves were taken from their families.
The federal government has also not enacted an Indigenous Languages Act to protect Indigenous languages.
Indigenous language was one of the main cultural connections for Indigenous children that those running Indian Residential Schools sought to destroy.
What has been completed
While only a handful of the calls to action have actually been completed, many remain in progress.
Those that the federal government has completed include the appointment of an Indigenous Language Commissioner, and replacing the Oath of Citizenship with one that makes reference to Canada’s Indigenous peoples.
Even though the call to action to create a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation as a statutory holiday has been completed, Indigenous Watchdog notes that only those working for the federal government receive September 30 as a holiday, excluding many, including many Indigenous people.
Why it continues to be important
The last Indian Residential School closed in the 1990s. There are still many Indigenous people who are living with the legacy of the residential school system and colonialism continues to persist in many forms in Canada’s federal, provincial, and municipal governments.
Just four days before National Day of Truth and Reconciliation on September 30, the orange Truth and Reconciliation flag was raised in front of the provincial legislature in British Columbia.
After the flag was raised, a BC Conservative Party staffer made a post on the social media platform X attacking the ideas of truth and reconciliation.
“It is a disgrace that this fake flag flies in front of the provincial parliament buildings, and it is a disgrace to see the shirt of lies framed prominently and permanently beside the coat of arms so that locals and tourists cannot view our insignia without having their eye drawn and redirected to the Orange Shirt,” Lindsay Shepherd wrote on X.
The post has since been deleted but highlights why efforts to ensure that all of the 94 Calls to Action are completed remain important.
Justice Murray Sinclair passed away in 2024, but on the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in 2021, Sinclair, then Chancellor of Queen’s University, explained why this process of healing would be a long, but important one.
“We may not achieve reconciliation within my lifetime, or within the lifetime of my children, but we will be able to achieve it if we all commit to working towards it properly. Part of that commitment is that every year [on September 30] we will stand up together and we will say never again. What we did in this country was wrong, and we will never allow that to happen again,” he said.
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