It has been 25 years since the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was introduced in Canada, but despite years of consultations and research, the federal government has yet to accomplish most of the recommendations outlined in the report.

Established in 1991, the Royal Commission was created to help repair broken relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous communities.

To create the report, the federal government completed hundreds of studies and gathered testimony from over 2000 individuals to see how indigenous communities were hindered by Canada’s social, political and economic climates. The Commission’s results were revealed in 1996 through a report which made over 440 recommendations to be implemented over a 20-year period.

A portion of Volume 5 of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples annotated in DocumentCloud:

(Click inside the annotation to see the entire document and other annotations)

Source: Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 

The main conclusion of the report was that Canada needed to overhaul its relationship with indigenous people in order to show respect for their history, culture and right to self-determination.

“In the final report, it made sense to recommend that the government establish a nation-to-nation relationship,” said Paul Chartrand, one of the commissioners for the Royal Commission.

The “nation-to-nation” relationship would allow indigenous communities to govern under their traditional structures and work alongside the Canadian government to improve access to things like education, infrastructure and healthcare.

The nation-to-nation concept had not been employed by previous governments in power , but in December 2015, Justin Trudeau announced that they would be forming this relationship with indigenous communities.

“The Trudeau government from early on has identified Aboriginal issues as a priority,” said Linc Kesler, an associate professor at the University of British Colombia that specializes in indigenous studies.

“They also have at least begun discussions about the inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women, so I think a lot of people were happy to see that.”

The government’s announcement was promising for some, but Chartrand remains skeptical of the Liberal government in terms of what its specific plans are.

“At the moment, it’s pure rhetoric. We now have a government that says it will have a nation-to-nation relationship. Well you should be looking at Royal Commission for inspiration on what that might mean. But nobody’s mentioning it,” said Chartrand.

“The government can do anything in the first year, and by the third year, no one remembers. Public amnesia is a constant feature of our country.”

Looking back at the actions of previous governments, Kesler agrees that political leaders continue to make the same promises, but fail to provide indigenous communities with tangible results.

“What people have shared with me is that they have not seen movement on the recommendations in the Royal Commission,” said Kesler.

“If you were to look at the recommendations that the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] included in the final report, you would see many of the same items identified as in the Royal Commission.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the latest government initiative which attempts to repair damage caused to indigenous communities, but according to Chartrand, it is not entirely comprehensive.

“The merits of the Truth and Reconciliation report stand on its own, but you cannot replace the foundation that was set by the Royal Commission’s broader mandate,” said Chartrand.

If the government’s past actions are an indication of future behaviour, Kesler believes it’s appropriate for indigenous people to be “cautiously optimistic” about Trudeau’s enthusiasm for indigenous issues.

“I think people have not seen the kind of actions on the whole that they had really been hoping would be the result of Royal Commission,” said Kesler.

“That’s not however, to say that there hasn’t been change, but it’s not the kind of change that the Royal Commission called for.”

Volume 5 of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples is the main document which I reflect on in my story. I found Volume 5 of the commission to be particularly relevant to the ideas discussed in my article because it outlines the main objectives of the report which were supposed to be implemented over a twenty year period. I found a PDF version of the document through Queen’s University online library catalogue and converted the sections of the report using DocumentCloud.

Summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is one of the most recent initiatives completed by the federal government which deals with indigenous relations, I thought it was important to include this document in my research as a tool for comparison. Both of my interview subjects made comparisons between the Royal Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission so I included a hyperlink to this document so that readers could compare the two documents side-by-side if they wished. Looking at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report provided evidence for my argument that the newer report essentially repeats made of the recommendations made previously in the Royal Commission. This helped to illustrate the point that these commissions are heavy on rhetoric, but light on concrete results. I found a PDF version of a summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by visiting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s website.