Reconciliation. It's a word you often hear, especially when discussing the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. But in light of recent events, some aren't sure they even want to talk about reconciliation anymore.
When a 15-year-old Anishinaabe girl was found dead, dumped in a river and no one was held responsible, and a young Cree man was shot dead, and the shooter was acquitted. Both of these recent cases have re-exposed. A deep rift between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. It's a divide that goes back hundreds of years.
When Europeans arrived in North America and began settling the land, they didn't stop at just taking land from Indigenous peoples. They brought with them a policy to snuff out the so-called Indian problem. The first Indian residential schools started opening in the 1870s.
It's the beginning of what some have called the darkest chapter in Canadian history. What took place in residential schools amounts to nothing short of cultural genocide. By 1920, the Indian Act was amended to make it mandatory for status Indian children to attend residential school.
When their parents refused to send them away, police showed up and forcibly took them. It's estimated that 150,000 children were taken from their families and placed in these schools, where they were stripped of their culture and their language. The goal was assimilation.
Kill the Indian in the child. Thousands of children died, with some estimates saying the mortality rate was as high as 60% in some of the schools. Those who survived have shared horrific stories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
The last residential school closed in 1996. The impacts of those institutions are still palpable today. Indigenous communities have shown incredible progress. Incredible resilience in the century since Europeans arrived. But the impacts of intergenerational trauma and colonization still run deep. In 2007, the largest class action settlement in Canadian history recognized the damage inflicted by residential schools.
Canada formally apologized the following year. These objectives were based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs are inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as was infamously said, to kill the Indian in the child.
Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. The Residential School Settlement Agreement established a multi-billion dollar fund to support survivors in their recovery. One of the outcomes of this agreement was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission traveled across the country and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
In 2015, the Commission produced its final report. It included 94 calls to action, calls meant to redress the legacy of the residential school system, and hopefully lead to reconciliation. So what's changed since then? Some ask if this country has even grasped the truth of our shared history. What actions have been taken?
How far have we come? Indigenous people currently account for roughly 5% of the population, and yet nearly half of all the children in care in this country are Indigenous. More than a quarter of the adults locked up in prisons are Indigenous. The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls may be well underway, but the deaths and disappearances continue today. It's time to take a hard look.
This country's progress on reconciliation.