CHANGE TAKES PARTNERSHIP

Top heavy with 94 recommendations, the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission threatens to sink under a load of non- essential remedies for the Indian residential school legacy.

Among those are such non- starters as amending Canada’s citizenship oath to read, “I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including Treaties with Indigenous peoples.” Individual citizens don’t interact with aboriginals according to treaties; the treaties were made with the federal government.

Then there’s “All levels of government should increase the number of aboriginal health- care professionals.” An excellent idea, but aboriginals themselves must come forward and choose health- care careers. If they don’t, the numbers can’t increase.

These sorts of things will contribute to inertia in implementing the report’s recommendations, many of which are valuable. For example, the report recommends that aboriginal history be mandated in kindergarten to Grade 12. Canadian history itself should be taught every year from K- 12, and that should include aboriginal history; the latter should not stand alone.

Legislation preserving aboriginal languages is another good idea, for the death of a language is a terrible loss; however, much of the work in restoring culture and language must be done by the people to whom those cultures and languages belong. Outsiders cannot come in and do it.

The most sordid story is the residential schools’ brutalization of aboriginal children, who were punished for speaking their languages, often sexually and physically abused, poorly fed and kept in appalling sanitary conditions. Contagious diseases swept through the schools and many of the children who died of tuberculosis, meningitis, diphtheria and other maladies suffered the posthumous indignity of being interred in unmarked graves. The report wants government co- operation in locating and identifying these children’s remains — something absolutely crucial which would go far toward remediating the wrongs done to these children and their families.

The report says “the legacy from the schools” includes the gulf in educational, health, social and financial outcomes between aboriginals and the rest of Canada. Fair enough. But the federal Aboriginal Affairs department’s website already abounds with educational and career programs, for example.

It is up to individuals to take advantage of them.

Change must be a partnership, and reconciliation must restore equality, not perpetuate the lopsided relationships of history.

Both sides have a lot of heavy lifting to do.