Lyndon George, Indigenous justice co-ordinator with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, said: “Indigenous people have spent a lifetime learning settlers’ way of life ... It’s time for non-Indigenous folks and Canadians to start learning about Indigenous ways of being.”
Lyndon George, Indigenous justice co-ordinator with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, said: “Indigenous people have spent a lifetime learning settlers’ way of life ... It’s time for non-Indigenous folks and Canadians to start learning about Indigenous ways of being.”
Editor’s note: The creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada was established in 2008 as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The TRC’s purpose was to give those affected by the legacy of the residential school system an opportunity to share stories and experiences.
After hearing from more than 6,500 witnesses, the TRC recommended 94 calls to action in 2015.
Ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Metroland Media reached out to local municipalities to ask about No. 57, a call to educate public servants about the history of Indigenous peoples.
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Last week, an Anishinaabe elder provided a ceremonial opening to an education forum about Indigenous history for around 600 City of Hamilton supervisors, managers and senior directors.
The cultural competency training had a lot of ground to cover — including an overview of Indigenous-settler history, the legacy of residential schools and a discussion around what “reconciliation” means. “It was a starting point,” said Jessica Chase, Hamilton’s community services director. “This sort of learning is an ongoing journey.”
The training is part of the city’s effort to fulfil commitments under its urban Indigenous strategy — which in turn form part of the municipal response to 94 “calls to action” that flowed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report in 2015.
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One of those calls to action — No. 57 — urges all levels of government to educate civil servants on the history of Canada’s Indigenous peoples.
That’s an important goal — and one that cannot be realized in a single seminar or day of training, said Lyndon George, Indigenous justice co-ordinator with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic.
“It has to be an ongoing educational experience,” said George, an Ojibwa member of the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation. “Indigenous people have spent a lifetime learning settlers’ way of life ... It’s time for non-Indigenous folks and Canadians to start learning about Indigenous ways of being.”
The city’s urban Indigenous strategy outlines an eventual goal of providing education to all city staff — that’s 8,000 or so people. City councillors were offered “cultural competency” training in April, but Chase said the city is still working on a plan to roll out training “more broadly” to all staff.
Ideally, a new Indigenous relations director — a position the city is now recruiting for — will oversee that program, said Chase.
George, a member of a consultative “Circle of Beads” offering Indigenous feedback on the recruitment process, suggested civil servants — “but also all Canadians” — would benefit from such training. “No matter what the job is that we do, we have a responsibility to educate ourselves about the populations we serve,” George said.
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Treaty rights and the duty to consult with Indigenous nations are increasingly in the news in Hamilton, as the city grapples with land development issues — and even sewage cleanups — in areas considered part of the traditional territories of Indigenous nations like the Mississaugas, Six Nations and Huron-Wendat.
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