Empty words and promises not a serious attempt at reconciliation

The Trudeau government was given a mandate in both its 2015 and 2019 election victories. It promised improvements for Indigenous peoples, but it continues to fall short.

Recently, Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller admitted the government will not meet its promise of ending all boil-water advisories by March 2021, a goal announced in 2015. No new deadline has been set. While Miller has noted the pandemic and climate change have created further delays, this excuse illustrates the short-sightedness and continued systemic discrimination perpetuated by the Liberal government.

The government is deserving of criticism for failing to keep promises to achieve reconciliation. NDP MP Charlie Angus noted, “this is another in a long, long, long list of broken promises to First Nation communities,” with federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh calling it “disgusting” and “inexcusable,” while Conservative MP Gary Vidal stated it a “national embarrassment.”

It is not just the government that is worthy of criticism, but also Conservative leaders, such as Erin O’Toole, who made comments to Ryerson Conservatives that residential schools were a tool to “provide education” to Indigenous children, but became “horrible.” While an example of revisionist-based history, it comes as no surprise and portrays typical attitudes of many Conservative leaders.

O’Toole, like his predecessors Scheer and Harper, offers nothing more than just platitudes while his office claims he is a “champion for reconciliation” and “takes the horrific history of residential schools very seriously.” Yet, O’Toole contends reconciliation means “Indigenous participation in the economy to the fullest extent.” What about other colonial mandates? This call for action is like expropriating land as opposed to dealing with intergenerational trauma and the lasting effects of colonialism. It seems that this goal reflects the interests of the Conservatives and their Trans Mountain pipeline plans.

The federal Liberal government delayed its promise to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples within the first year of its new mandate. With the Liberal government recently introducing Bill C-15 to pass UNDRIP, following the footsteps of the provincial NDP government in 2019, how can this government’s goal of reconciliation be faithful when it initially postponed this promise due to the railway protests against the Coastal GasLink pipeline project?

Any further obstruction to UNDRIP now has become a partisan issue, with Indigenous-relations ministers from provinces under Conservative leadership calling for further delay.

In 2018, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki apologized to Indigenous families during the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry and promised the agency will improve its treatment and service for Indigenous people. However, events at Wet’suwet’en First Nation and more recently police inaction against attacks on the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, contradict that promise.

During the pandemic, the federal government has allotted funding to Indigenous communities for health, education and food insecurity. Yet, these actions are insufficient.

If reconciliation is merely a symbolic, convenient goal that serves the purposes of those in power, what value do these promises have, especially if leaders refuse to combat perpetual cycles of discrimination?