The Pope said he's sorry. So what's next for reconciliation?
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details
The Pope's visit to Canada and apology for the role of many church members in Canada's residential school system has sparked intense discussion over the extent of that apology, its impact for Indigenous peoples and the question: what should be the next priority in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action?
An apology from the Pope was call 58 by the TRC. But many felt what was actually said this week didn't go far enough, and one of those people is Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In a conversation between Sinclair and his son, Niigaan Sinclair, guest host of a special episode of CBC Radio's The House, the former judge and senator said the apology had not gone far enough in acknowledging the church's role in residential schools, including "the fact that it practiced its faith and its doctrines in a way that undermined the very existence of Indigenous people."
"The Pope's apology, as good as it was — and I want to acknowledge that it did go a long way … But the pope's apology failed to take into account that the church itself probably didn't live up to its own doctrines of respect, kindness and love when it came to how it supported the treatment and encouraged the mistreatment of Indigenous people, not only here in Canada but throughout the world," Murray Sinclair said.
LISTEN | Find out what Murray Sinclair, former TRC chair, thinks of the Pope's apology:
Pope Francis said this week that he was apologizing for "the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous people."
On his flight departing Canada on Saturday, the Pope said what took place in residential schools qualified as genocide.
The final TRC report referred to what transpired as "cultural genocide," though some have argued that the discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools means it goes beyond that term.
Murray Sinclair said this week has been a significant moment for reconciliation because of the attention it has received from the broader Canadian public.
The call for an apology by the Pope is just one of the 94 calls to action put forward by the TRC in 2015. Before this week, just 11 calls had been fulfilled according to Eva Jewell, research director of the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led research and education centre at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Jewell said that rather than simply educating Canadians, more attention needs to be focused on calls to action aimed at righting inequities faced by Indigenous people in Canada on issues including child welfare, language and culture, education, health and justice.
"These are areas that there needs to be significant movement in, in order to impact the quality of life for Indigenous peoples and to bring us to a point of equity with Canadians, which I think is the bare minimum for reconciliation."
On the issue of child welfare, which makes up the first five calls to action, Raven Sinclair, a professor at the University of Regina and herself a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, told The House she's optimistic about the progress being made.
