Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

200 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionEarly childhood education programsAboriginal families continue to suffer from a general lack of early childhood educationprograms. The Assembly of First Nations reported that, according to 2011 data,78% of children up to the age of five have no access to licensed daycare, let alone tointensive early childhood programs. 75 Such programs are vital to support the developmentof young children and, by extension, address some of the deficit in parentingskills that is the legacy of residential schools.Call to Action12) We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governmentsto develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs forAboriginal families.To close the education and income gaps, there needs to be stable and adequatefunding of Aboriginal education that takes into account the challenges of the legacyof residential schools as well as other challenges faced by Aboriginal people. In additionto fair and adequate funding, there is also a need to maximize Aboriginal controlover Aboriginal education, and to facilitate instruction in Aboriginal cultures and languages.These educational measures will offer a realistic prospect of reconciliation onthe basis of equality and respect.Language and cultureIn a study of the impact of residential schools, the Assembly of First Nations notedin 1994 thatlanguage is necessary to define and maintain a world view. For this reason,some First Nation elders to this day will say that knowing or learning the nativelanguage is basic to any deep understanding of a First Nation way of life, to beinga First Nation person. For them, a First Nation world is quite simply not possiblewithout its own language. For them, the impact of residential school silencingtheir language is equivalent to a residential school silencing their world. 76The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples similarly noted the connectionbetween Aboriginal languages and what it called a “distinctive world view, rootedin the stories of ancestors and the environment.” The Royal Commission added thatAboriginal languages are a “tangible emblem of group identity” that can provide “theindividual a sense of security and continuity with the past ... maintenance of the languageand group identity has both a social-emotional and a spiritual purpose.” 77