Legacy

Education

Recommendation 10: We call on the federal government to draft new Aboriginal education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples. The new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:

1. Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.
2. Improving education attainment levels and success rates.
3. Developing culturally appropriate curricula.
4. Protecting the right to Aboriginal languages, including the teaching of Aboriginal languages as credit courses.
5. Enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what parents enjoy in public school systems.
6. Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children.
7. Respecting and honouring Treaty relationships.

Legacy

Health

Recommendation 23: We call upon all levels of government to:

1. Increase the number of Aboriginal professionals working in the health-care field.
2. Ensure the retention of Aboriginal health-care providers in Aboriginal communities.
3. Provide cultural competency training for all healthcare professionals.

Legacy

Health

Recommendation 24: We call upon medical and nursing schools in Canada to require all students to take a course dealing with Aboriginal health issues, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.

Legacy

Justice

Recommendation 29: We call upon the parties and, in particular, the federal government, to work collaboratively with plaintiffs not included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to have disputed legal issues determined expeditiously on an agreed set of facts.

Reconciliation

Royal Proclamation and Covenant of Reconciliation

Recommendation 46: We call upon the parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to develop and sign a Covenant of Reconciliation that would identify principles for working collaboratively to advance reconciliation in Canadian society, and that would include, but not be limited to:

1. Reaffirmation of the parties’ commitment to reconciliation.
2. Repudiation of concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, and the reformation of laws, governance structures, and policies within their respective institutions that continue to rely on such concepts.
3. Full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.
4. Support for the renewal or establishment of Treaty relationships based on principles of mutual recognition, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for maintaining those relationships into the future.
5. Enabling those excluded from the Settlement Agreement to sign onto the Covenant of Reconciliation.
6. Enabling additional parties to sign onto the Covenant of Reconciliation.

Reconciliation

Settlement agreement parties and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Recommendation 48: We call upon the church parties to the Settlement Agreement, and all other faith groups and interfaith social justice groups in Canada who have not already done so, to formally adopt and comply with the principles, norms, and standards of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation. This would include, but not be limited to, the following commitments:

1. Ensuring that their institutions, policies, programs, and practices comply with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
2. Respecting Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination in spiritual matters, including the right to practise, develop, and teach their own spiritual and religious traditions, customs, and ceremonies, consistent with Article 12:1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
3. Engaging in ongoing public dialogue and actions to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
4. Issuing a statement no later than March 31, 2016, from all religious denominations and faith groups, as to how they will implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Reconciliation

Settlement agreement parties and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Recommendation 49: We call upon all religious denominations and faith groups who have not already done so to repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius.

Reconciliation

Church apologies and reconciliation

Recommendation 58: We call upon the Pope to issue an apology to Survivors, their families, and communities for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools. We call for that apology to be similar to the 2010 apology issued to Irish victims of abuse and to occur within one year of the issuing of this Report and to be delivered by the Pope in Canada.

Reconciliation

Church apologies and reconciliation

Recommendation 59: We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement to develop ongoing education strategies to ensure that their respective congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization, the history and legacy of residential schools, and why apologies to former residential school students, their families, and communities were necessary.

Reconciliation

Church apologies and reconciliation

Recommendation 60: We call upon leaders of the church parties to the Settlement Agreement and all other faiths, in collaboration with Indigenous spiritual leaders, Survivors, schools of theology, seminaries, and other religious training centres, to develop and teach curriculum for all student clergy, and all clergy and staff who work in Aboriginal communities, on the need to respect Indigenous spirituality in its own right, the history and legacy of residential schools and the roles of the church parties in that system, the history and legacy of religious conflict in Aboriginal families and communities, and the responsibility that churches have to mitigate such conflicts and prevent spiritual violence.