[Music] I was a survivor of the Indian residential school. I was put on a plane at the age of five and sent off to Brantford for a whole year. And then I ended up in La Tuque Residential School for nine years. That really separated me from my parents, from my culture, from the land. I had to go back and relearn my language, my culture, my ways. It does affect the people. It does affect the families and it takes years for healing. [Music] [Singing] For reconciliation to work, and for our relationship to be renewed, there must be awareness, acceptance, apology, atonement and action. If you notice on the TRC logo, at least what I perceive there, is a circle of fire. In the analogy of that fire, ring of fire, you are the fire and I am the fire. And together we make the circle. We have an extremely distinguished list of guests here today and it's an absolute honour to be in the same room. Today's Health Talks is about helping us all gain a better understanding of reconciliation, and how as Canadians and public servants we can live and work in ways that honour its intent. This is of course just one conversation in a dialogue that is underway, a dialogue that I have to say is very, very long overdue. We have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve reconciliation between Canada and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. Now is the time to challenge previously held beliefs, and to invest in strong relationships. I think it's going to be a very important conversation. I'm really looking forward to the dialogue to hear how we're going to continue to act on health and ensure that our Indigenous communities are put first. I'm so excited for this event. First of all I'm a First Nations public servant and it means a lot to me to see that the Health Portfolio is beginning to have these types of talks to discuss reconciliation. It's been a long time coming. Abel Bosum, Grand Chief of the Cree Nation, and Chairman of the Cree Regional Government. For me, reconciliation is about resetting the button. For me, it's about looking at the past, acknowledging that we made mistakes in the past in all the different sectors, and then resetting that button and starting to work together. You know, working on what the new government institutions should be, what the economic development partnership should be. So it's a new approach to going forward. My name is Brenda Reynolds, and I'm the former TRC health support liaison. One first girl came forward and spoke her truth about being sexually abused, the constable and I would be interviewing and finding out what had happened. Seventeen times that happened that one night. Seventeen girls disclosed. And I was a young social worker. My name is Cindy Blackstock. I am a member of the Gitxsan First Nation and Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. You know reconciliation at its centre is really about, for me, fundamentally two things. It is about respect and it is about love. My name is Natan Obed, I'm President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. Reconciliation is a really difficult concept for a lot of Canadians and it's also a difficult concept for us as Indigenous Peoples as well. Because reconciliation isn't just about the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Peoples in this country. It's also between generations of Indigenous Peoples. It's between families of Indigenous Peoples. There's a lot of things that have happened in the last 100 years that have driven us apart, things that we need to overcome. Listening alone is not enough. And I think that we need to take action and there are different forms of action, individual, professionally and so forth. I would love to see political leaders give the public service not only permission but support and protection for being insubordinate to bad ideas. We need to stop dehumanizing the impacts through either the creation of acronyms, files, that type of thing. And we need to recalibrate our relationship so it's out of that "savage" and "civilized" dichotomy. Reconciliation doesn't happen when we're all the same colour at the table. It happens when there's different cultures and the diversity within the Indigenous People. As speakers sitting here we all come from different tribes and different parts of Canada. And that should be reflective when you're looking at developing policies. This is an ulu. This is an Inuit woman's knife. This item is Inuit specific, but it is also evidence-based. It's also globally informed. But the idea is that you don't question it. This is ours and we've made it and it is a symbol of Inuit culture today in 2018. So I want to make a deal with you. The same principle that you've blindly given me for this, that you could also apply to your work, that when you work with Inuit, you accept that when we come to the table with positions, they're Inuit-specific, they're evidence-based, and they're globally informed. Today we have the capability, and we have the leadership and God help us we have the money to say to First Nations kids, you are worth the money, you are worth the sacrifice, you're worth us taking down whatever red tape gets in the way of you having a proper childhood because... we can't say sorry again. I've seen lots of governments come and go but you all stay around, and if you're able to entrench that spirit of reconciliation by respecting us and falling in love with our kids and making sure that you're really standing up for the public, that reason that you got into the public service in the first place, then a lot of these mistakes in the past won't keep happening, and a lot of kids will grow up to have a healthy and happy childhood for the first time in the history of this country because of you. Most important, love and compassion. ...to remember as a public servant that reconciliation just isn't about the legal piece and the briefing notes, but it's also about putting a human lens on things. To me I guess the message that I learned today— we all have a role to play when it comes to reconciliation. Our employees are the ones that prepare briefs and provide us with information and it's important that they provide us with that proper information and also play that challenge function role that I think is really important to empower our public service to be able to do that. Part of this is this new partnership, and trying to figure out how to speak the same language and what we're all trying to achieve together. [Music]