Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity today to both present a few ideas and answer questions with respect to this bill.
I have only a few points to make.
First of all, following from what I think Mitch was saying earlier, reconciliation is not something that we derived just from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think it's safe to say that we've been actively engaged with some form of reconciliation in this country for 50 years, going back to maybe the Hawthorn report of 1966 and the policy work done by the National Indian Brotherhood and a variety of different parliamentary committees. There was also the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996 and, more lately, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is not a new idea and it's not a new process, but it has not to this point had a structure.
Most of the time when we establish a program or project to help indigenous people, it doesn't come with a structure. The programs and projects are time limited. Investments are made and objectives are set, but they often sunset quickly and there is no lasting legacy for a structure that drives this forward. This is not the way it is with the rest of Canadian society, and you will find, for that reason, that there is very little in the way of indigenous-specific civil society in Canada. Structures are critically important.
We should also note that reconciliation is not a political process. Certainly it involves politics, but it is not solely a political process. It's a way to engage both indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians in a dialogue around going forward in a good way.
The final thing I'd like to say is that there's a sense this organization, this structure, would be established for the purpose of an audit function, whether that's for government or whatever else is happening with respect to reconciliation more broadly in Canadian society. We're not auditors. We are champions. We are people who are looking to find organizations, entities, individuals and corporations that are doing excellent work on reconciliation—and there are lots of them—and to point out what is going well and why it is going well so that all of us can benefit from that.
Those are the points I'd like to make.
I'll close with saying that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, of which I was a part, was established in 1998, and there are great similarities between this establishment and the establishment of the foundation some 20-odd years ago. It should be noted that most of the heavy lifting, most of the engagement with Canadians and indigenous communities, was done after the organization was established, so we are asking here today for the solid establishment of an organization that has staying power, that will last and that will allow us to do reconciliation and honour reconciliation into the future.
Thank you.