Truth and Reconciliation: “Fake News”

Blood is in the water.

Despite the fact that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission compiled its “Blueprint for Change” over three years ago, the Canadian federal government has failed to meet many of the TRC’s calls to action.

I was flabbergasted at the discovery that a mere 10 of the 94 calls to action have been successfully completed.

I find it all the more disturbing for a few reasons:

1. One of the winning aspects of Justin Trudeau’s bid for Prime Minister was the fact that he was going to make most (if not all) of the 94 calls to action a reality. Instead, he’s been tied up in some missteps with regards to the environment and a country-wide legalization of marijuana.
2. The implication here is that the Canadian government may not have any intention of quashing systemic racism anytime soon.
3. What does this mean for all the missing and murdered indigenous women? The teenagers found in the McIntyre and Kaministiquia Rivers in Thunder Bay?

The government is sending mixed messages.

Trudeau says one thing but does another… and tensions (rightfully) continue to flare.

Just a week ago, MP Romeo Saganash took the floor in the House of Commons to comment on Prime Minister Trudeau’s lack of action. To say he got right to the point would be an understatement…

Of course, this raises the question: does Trudeau “give a f@*!” about indigenous people and their rights?

But that brings us right back to the lack of action, coupled with words, words, words…

Not to mention the hundreds of undocumented residential schools that still go without any sort of formal recognition from the Canadian government.

The trauma inflicted by decades of abuse in residential schools has not simply disappeared; the scars left within the indigenous population echo across the country and serve as a haunting reminder of the horrifying realities of colonization.

“There’s probably a thousand other boarding schools that indigenous children were sent to and at those schools abuse took place and children died.”

– Justice Murray Sinclair, 2015

source: Death toll in residential schools

Politics and bureaucratic measures remain a necessary evil, sure. After all, the political hierarchy is as much a tool of resistance as it is of oppression.

Perhaps the system can be changed – rebuilt, even – from within.

But the issues that continue to arise when it comes to Truth and Reconciliation are always of the “one step forward, two steps back” variety.

Just this year, Doug Ford was elected Premier of Ontario. One of the first cost-cutting measures his regime implemented was to do away with boosting indigenous content in the Ontario educational curriculum.

Ford and his provincial government’s actions speak louder than their words.

To appropriate the unsettling misnomer coined by none other than Donald Trump (Ford’s clear inspiration), all of this talk about ‘truth and reconciliation’ has amounted to little more than “fake news” on the part of the Canadian government.

Blood is in the water… and the sharks show no signs of slowing down.

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