Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

Introduction • 7Survivors’ Sharing Circle at Truth and Reconciliation Commission Manitoba National Event, June 2010.acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, andaction to change behaviour.We are not there yet. The relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoplesis not a mutually respectful one. But, we believe we can get there, and we believewe can maintain it. Our ambition is to show how we can do that.In 1996, the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples urged Canadiansto begin a national process of reconciliation that would have set the country on a boldnew path, fundamentally changing the very foundations of Canada’s relationship withAboriginal peoples. Much of what the Royal Commission had to say has been ignoredby government; a majority of its recommendations were never implemented. But thereport and its findings opened people’s eyes and changed the conversation about thereality for Aboriginal people in this country.In 2015, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada wraps up its work,the country has a rare second chance to seize a lost opportunity for reconciliation. Welive in a twenty-first-century global world. At stake is Canada’s place as a prosperous,just, and inclusive democracy within that global world. At the trc’s first National Eventin Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2010, residential school Survivor Alma Mann Scott said,The healing is happening—the reconciliation.… I feel that there’s some hope forus not just as Canadians, but for the world, because I know I’m not the only one.I know that Anishinaabe people across Canada, First Nations, are not the onlyones. My brothers and sisters in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland—there’s differ-