10 Years of the TRC Calls to Action

“Reconciliation is about forging and maintaining respectful relationships. There are no shortcuts.” 

- The Honourable Murray Sinclair.

In 2015, the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action started a national journey of learning and reckoning with our past. Ten years later, it remains clear that the systemic oppression revealed in that report is not just a matter of history, but that it continues to this day. This is manifested in many ways, including the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in incarceration and disproportionate exposures to environmental harm.

As individuals and church communities, we have a responsibility to do more. Christ has given us the ministry of reconciliation, a calling to work for right relationships that includes our relationships with Indigenous peoples, both as individuals and as a society.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;” 

To be able to work toward right relationships, we need to learn about and sit with the uncomfortable truth of our country’s history. The effects of colonialism, including the residential school system, continue to have an impact in Canada. In countless families and communities, children were forcibly removed from their homes, denied their languages, cultures, and the love and guidance of their families. 

These wounds are not confined to the past; they shape the present too, manifesting in intergenerational trauma, loss of culture and language, and educational and economic disparity. For every Canadian, no matter how long our families have been on this land, we have a shared responsibility to learn and acknowledge this history, and understand its ongoing impacts, so that we can actively participate in reconciliation. 

In our conversations with elected officials, we are asking that they work in collaboration with Indigenous peoples to implement the TRC Calls to Action. We must not replicate the colonial mistakes of the past, where Indigenous people were excluded from the decision-making process.

That is why we encourage you to join us and send a letter to your MP and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations calling on them to work in partnership with Indigenous leaders to implement the TRC Calls to Action.

Additional Resources: TRC Calls to Action | MCC and Indigenous Neighbours

Support: Indigenous-led initiatives like the Indian Residential School Survivors Society