Good morning. My name is Stephanie Scott, and I'm the acting director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. I am joined today by Stephen Kakfwi, who is a member of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation governing circle.
First, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking to you from the original lands of the Anishinabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis nation.
I want to thank the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for the invitation to appear in view of your study of Bill C-5.
At the outset, I would also like to note that we owe a debt of gratitude to Georgina Jolibois, who first introduced Bill C-369, in October 2017, to create a national day for truth and reconciliation. Although Bill C-369 died in the Senate, it provided an important opportunity for dialogue and reflection. As Georgina said, “After 151 years of pain and suffering inflicted on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people, there will now be a time to reflect and to build relationships to strengthen the Canadian society.”
I could not agree more. I spent five years at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and almost five years at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. As the manager of statement gathering at the commission, I had a unique opportunity to hear directly from survivors about their pain and suffering. My birth mother, who is in her sixties, says that she will never be the same because of the assimilation policies that took her away from the people she loved and the ones who loved her. May she find peace while she is still alive. To me, that's what reconciliation is all about.
My colleague Ry Moran appeared in front of this committee in 2018. At the time, Ry spoke about the TRC's examination of the place of residential schools in the history of this country, and he stated that “the TRC was forced to conclude that there are no words for it other than 'cultural genocide'.”
In 2019, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls also concluded that there has been “a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples [that] has been empowered by colonial structures evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools and breaches of human and Indigenous rights”.
I too am a Sixties Scoop survivor.
The international human rights legal framework requires Canada to provide redress for past harms caused to indigenous peoples, such as those described by the commission and the national inquiry. Redress can be individual or collective and may have material as well as symbolic components. Symbolic components, such as commemoration, are powerful medicine to bring comfort to survivors and keep the truth of their experiences in front of the nation.
This is why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action 80 for a national day for truth and reconciliation is so important. Survivors and their families, and others affected by the residential school system, need a day for Canadians to acknowledge them and the history of human rights violations they have endured, while they are still living. The time to act is now.
In addition, we believe that the government must also implement the TRC's calls to action 81 and 82, which call for the federal, provincial and territorial governments, in collaboration with survivors, to establish monuments in capital cities across the country “to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities.”
Canadians need to know the truth and understand what happened in order to foster true reconciliation and healing. Commemoration and education are critical to understand the complicated and difficult history that we share as indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. We have seen time and time again what a difference education can make to the journey we are now all on together to reconcile our past and create a bright future for all of the generations to follow.
I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Kakfwi.