Conclusion and Calls to Action

The Métis experience of residential schooling has been overlooked for too long. It is important to recognize that Métis children attended residential schools both in southern and northern Canada. Federal government policy on Métis attendance was never consistent or consistently applied. Even during those periods in which the federal government sought to ban Métis children from the schools, church leaders continued to recruit Métis students. Because provincial governments and school boards were often unwilling to build schools in Métis communities or to allow Métis students to attend public schools, Métis parents who wished to have their children educated often had no choice but to send them to residential school. In northern Canada, the hostel system that was established in the mid-1950s placed no restrictions on the admittance of Métis children. From the 1950s onwards, many Métis children attended residential schools that were operated by provincial governments in northern and remote areas. The student experience would have varied according to time and place, as it did for all students who attended the schools. There is no denying that the harm done to the children, their parents, and the Métis community was substantial. It is an ongoing shame that this damage has not been addressed and rectified. To address these issues, the Commission has issued the following two Calls to Action in its Summary Report.

29) We call upon the parties and, in particular, the federal government, to work collaboratively with plaintiffs not included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to have disputed legal issues determined expeditiously on an agreed upon set of facts.

46) We call upon the parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to develop and sign a Covenant of Reconciliation that would identify principles for working collaboratively to advance reconciliation in Canadian society, and that would include, but not be limited to:

i.Reaffirmation of the parties’ commitment to reconciliation.

ii.Repudiation of concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and peoples, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, and the reformation of laws, governance structures, and policies within their respective institutions that continue to rely on such concepts.

iii.Full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.

iv.Support for the renewal or establishment of Treaty relationships based on principles of mutual recognition, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for maintaining those relationships into the future.

v.Enabling those excluded from the Settlement Agreement to sign onto the Covenant of Reconciliation.

vi.Enabling additional parties to sign onto the Covenant of Reconciliation.