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Canadian Government Rejects Historic Step for Indigenous Rights

  • Drummers lead the Walk for Reconciliation in Ottawa May 31, 2015, as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission events accompanying the release of the report.

    Drummers lead the Walk for Reconciliation in Ottawa May 31, 2015, as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission events accompanying the release of the report. | Photo: Reuters

Published 3 June 2015
Opinion

Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to support the conclusion that Canada committed cultural genocide against indigenous people.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reacted with indifference to the release of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report Tuesday, which concluded the government committed cultural genocide against indigenous people through its residential school policy that lasted more than a century.

The report includes 94 recommendations for improving relations with indigenous people and embarking on a nationwide process of reconciliation. Harper has not committed to implementing the recommendations, despite meeting with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's chair and commissioner after the release of the report and being directly questioned on the matter.

The 94 recommendations focus on raising awareness on the suffering inflicted on indigenous people and shifting the national consciousness with respect to indigenous history. Recommendations focus on establishing the conditions for reconciliation and touch on issues of child welfare, education, indigenous language and culture, health, legal equity, media, commemoration, among others.

Notably, the recommendations call on the Canadian government to launch a national inquiry into the 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women in the country and to fully adopt the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a “framework for reconciliation.”

RELATED: Canada’s Disappeared Indigenous Women

Speaking in Parliament's House of Commons Tuesday after the release of the TRC report, Harper said “Canada is one of the very few countries in the world where aboriginal and treat rights are recognized” and that the government has already accepted the U.N. Declaration as an “aspirational document.”

Harper's government has been criticized for “flip-flopping” on its position on the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, revealing it is not truly committed to respecting the rights it is intended to enshrined.

Canada was one of just four countries that voted against the adoption of the declaration by the U.N. in 2007. Though the government stated its support of the declaration in 2010, it went back on its position in 2014 when it again expressed opposition to the declaration during its fifth anniversary renewal, rejecting the wording that indigenous peoples have a right to “free and prior consent.”

RELATED: UN Slams Canada over Violence against Indigenous Women

Despite numerous calls to conduct a national inquiry into the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, including from the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People, Canada has repeatedly refused to do so. When the crowd at the release of the report gave a standing ovation for the announcement of the call for a national inquiry, Harper's Aboriginal Affairs minister remained conspicuously seated.

When questioned whether he endorsed the TRC conclusion that the Canadian government committed cultural genocide against indigenous people, Harper did not comment. Instead, he defended government's work, referencing his official 2008 apology for residential schools.

"It was this government that for the first time in Canadian history recognized the full extent of the damage done by residential schools, not just the destruction of communities and families, and the abuse, but also the loss of life in many cases,” said Harper in the House of Commons question period.

But Truth and Reconciliation Commission chair Murray Sinclair explicitly said that apologies are not enough and that pursuing true reconciliation calls for moving from “words to action.”

"The one thing I am confident of is that the cost of doing nothing is worse of doing something," said the TRC's Sinclair.

RELATED: Canada Committed Genocide Against Indigenous People

Official opposition New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair has said his party is “determined to act upon the report” in consultation with indigenous people to “establish which of the recommendations require the most pressing attention.” Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau said his party will adopt and implement all 94 recommendations.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission held its ceremonial closing in Ottawa Wednesday.

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