Latest news with #TruthandReconciliationCommission
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Conversations That Matter: Understanding Indigenous rights and reconciliation
'Over the 27 years since the Delgamuukw decision, the relationship between First Nations and the government of Canada has changed — in some ways significantly. In others, not so much,' says Bruce McIvor, the author of 'Indigenous Rights in One Minute.' The legal relationship took another step forward following the Haida decision in 2004. That decision led to changes in the way resource and infrastructure projects are approved and built. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was another milestone: first as a healing journey and second in establishing a record of Indigenous history in Canada. It recorded the mistreatment and trampling of rights of First Nations people and shared those stories with the entire country. The Commission heard testimony from 6,500 witnesses, which culminated in a call for 94 actions to further facilitate reconciliation. Understanding and appreciating the unique legal and societal circumstances Indigenous people lived under and endured for more than 150 years is challenging, McIvor says. 'A big part of reconciliation is calling out misinformation and lies, getting to the truth so that we can have honest conversations. That was my motivation to write the book.' McIvor joined a Conversation That Matters about what we all need to know in order to talk about reconciliation. See the video at Learn More about our guests career at
Vancouver Sun
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Conversations That Matter: Understanding Indigenous rights and reconciliation
'Over the 27 years since the Delgamuukw decision, the relationship between First Nations and the government of Canada has changed — in some ways significantly. In others, not so much,' says Bruce McIvor, the author of 'Indigenous Rights in One Minute.' The legal relationship took another step forward following the Haida decision in 2004. That decision led to changes in the way resource and infrastructure projects are approved and built. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was another milestone: first as a healing journey and second in establishing a record of Indigenous history in Canada. It recorded the mistreatment and trampling of rights of First Nations people and shared those stories with the entire country. The Commission heard testimony from 6,500 witnesses, which culminated in a call for 94 actions to further facilitate reconciliation. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Understanding and appreciating the unique legal and societal circumstances Indigenous people lived under and endured for more than 150 years is challenging, McIvor says. 'A big part of reconciliation is calling out misinformation and lies, getting to the truth so that we can have honest conversations. That was my motivation to write the book.' McIvor joined a Conversation That Matters about what we all need to know in order to talk about reconciliation. See the video at Learn More about our guests career at
Canada Standard
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Canada Standard
Catholic school board's regressive flag policy sets back reconciliation in a post-Papal visit Canada
Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action in 2015, some Catholic school boards have made commitments to reconciliation in education. These boards include the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB). However, the DPCDSB - located in the Greater Toronto area - has also introduced a flag policy that raises serious questions about a commitment to the wider progress being made in welcoming all students and promoting reconciliation. On Jan. 28, 2025 - following advocacy in different parts of Ontario and the country against the presence of the Pride flag - the board's trustees voted in nine to one to add more restrictions to its flag policies. These restrictions stipulated that only flags representing Canada, the provinces, territories and the school board can be be displayed inside schools or other DPCDSB facilities. The developments in Peel Region follow earlier policy changes to restrict the presence of the Pride flag and other flags at schools. Advocates from the board defending flag restrictions have said that in Catholic schools, the icon of the cross is the only symbol that should be promoted and that this represents inclusion and acceptance of all. However, members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and opponents of restrictive flag policies argue that the Pride flag is needed to signal a welcoming environment. They say its removal is an act of erasure and that it calls into question how the board affirms the rights, dignity and visibility of 2SLGBTQI+ people and how it fosters their safety. The board says, and believes, its practices and policies comply with the Ontario human rights code, adding that supports are available for students who identify as 2SLGBTQI. The erasure of the Pride flag has the simultaneous effect of banning other important flags, such as Every Child Matters flags, Indigenous Nation flags and MMIWG2S flags (drawing attention to ending violence, disappearance and murder of First Nations women, girls and two-spirit people). In our analysis, this restrictive flag policy expresses colonial violence. We rely on the work of Sandra Styres, researcher of Iethi'nihstenha Ohwentsia'kekha (Land), Resurgence, Reconciliation and the Politics of Education, who examines how colonial violence is expressed in academic settings through "micro-aggressions, purposeful ignorance, structural racism, lateral violence, isolation" and also in "representations and spaces." Our concern is informed by our combined research and personal engagement focused around reconciliatory education in elementary Catholic schools (Erenna) and Anishinaabe Catholic expressions of self-determination in the Church (Noah). Erenna is a settler and Noah is a member of Michipicoten First Nation. We are married writing partners who travelled to Quebec City in July 2022 to witness the long-awaited penitential pilgrimage of the late Pope Francis. We left with an awareness that this is a critical time for the righting of relationships that have been severely fractured by a Church complicit in genocide. The DPCDSB flag policy speaks to an unwillingness of many to sever emotional attachments to the white imperialism that preserves a western way of thinking, doing and being, in the name of faith. When a major Catholic entity like the DPCDSB introduces policies that may cause harm, concerned people, regardless of creed, must pay attention to such injustices. Delegate Melanie Cormier, representing the DPCSB's Indigenous Education Network, shared a statement relaying that the board's restrictive flag policy fails to acknowledge the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation whose traditional and treaty territory where the board resides. She states: "Your flag policy is in violation of our jurisdiction. To say that any of our flags can not be flown in our own territories is unacceptable." Brea Corbet, the only trustee with voting power who did not vote to restrict the Pride flag, told an earlier bylaw policies meeting: "When we remove rainbow flags and heritage flags, we are not protecting our Catholic identity; we are revealing institutional fragility. The Pride flag does not threaten Catholic education, policies of exclusion do." Three student trustees also opposed the restrictive policy, but their votes unfortunately aren't counted. We argue this too speaks to the suppression of student voice within the board. This fragility disproportionately threatens the safety of Indigenous, 2SLGBTQI+ and marginalized students and staff as they are overlooked and dismissed by the flag policy. Read more: New Brunswick's LGBTQ+ safe schools debate makes false opponents of parents and teachers Kanienkeha:ka (Mohawk) education professor Frank Deer speaks of educational programming "that is congruent with the identity of the local community." This programming, he writes, must go beyond curricula to address the school environment as well. Student safety, inclusion and identity affirmation must be prioritized in all aspects of school life. Jennifer Brant, a Kanienkeh:ka interdisciplinary scholar, speaks in depth about how silence during times like these equates to complicity in accepting injustices that are taking place within "the communities in which we live, the broader society and global communities." Inaction in response to this policy is negligent. Detrimental ramifications may also extend to reconciliation efforts in religious spaces more generally. This regressive policy poses lingering questions about the longevity of Catholic schools if they fail to protect and nurture all students. The primary target of the DPCDSB's sweeping flag policy is the 2SLGBTQI+ community. In addition, the flag ban attacks Indigenous sovereignty and Anishinaabek nationhood, perpetuating attitudes tied to the Doctrine of Discovery still present in the Catholic ethos. Read more: The Vatican just renounced a 500-year-old doctrine that justified colonial land theft ... Now what? - Podcast Flying the flags of First Nations (at their request) is not only a matter of inclusion, it is a matter of respect - respect for the land, the people and the treaties that connect us. In denying this step towards relationality, this governing body of a Catholic school board sets back the Church's reconciliation efforts riding on the momentum of the papal visit. Read more: Pope Francis showed in deeds and words he wanted to face the truth in Canada The board's ignorance of how this policy risks damaging relationships with students, families and staff at the board, as well as the broader public, partly reflects an indifference that Pope Francis warned Catholics about during his visit: "I trust and pray that Christians and civil society in this land may grow in the ability to accept and respect the identity and the experience of the Indigenous Peoples. It is my hope that concrete ways can be found to make those peoples better known and esteemed, so that all may learn to walk together." As we write this piece, we can see through the window a local Toronto Catholic Distric School Board elementary school, where an Every Child Matters flag is flown alongside a Pride and Canadian flag. Catholic education, despite its sordid history and contested perspectives about interpreting and practising Church doctrine, can be a tool to drive reconciliation. Catholics cannot let a narrow vision overshadow Pope Francis's pilgrimage and the global Church movement he, the Church's bishops and Catholic lay people have participated in - via a global synod - to respond to the call to walk together in solidarity with Indigenous, 2SLGBTQI+ and other marginalized people. We wish to continue to hear counter-narratives of hope and possibility for Catholic education. We wish to see active changes that move the DPCDSB, as scholar Sheila Cote-Meek of the Teme-Augama Anishinabai, writes, "to a drastically different way of being, doing and working." As other Catholic boards in Ontario initiate flag debates of their own, we are left with the lingering question. What is the future of Catholic education if it's not intended to support the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of all those entrusted to its care?
Canada News.Net
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Canada News.Net
Catholic school board's regressive flag policy sets back reconciliation in a post-Papal visit Canada
Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action in 2015, some Catholic school boards have made commitments to reconciliation in education. These boards include the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB). However, the DPCDSB - located in the Greater Toronto area - has also introduced a flag policy that raises serious questions about a commitment to the wider progress being made in welcoming all students and promoting reconciliation. On Jan. 28, 2025 - following advocacy in different parts of Ontario and the country against the presence of the Pride flag - the board's trustees voted in nine to one to add more restrictions to its flag policies. These restrictions stipulated that only flags representing Canada, the provinces, territories and the school board can be be displayed inside schools or other DPCDSB facilities. The developments in Peel Region follow earlier policy changes to restrict the presence of the Pride flag and other flags at schools. Advocates from the board defending flag restrictions have said that in Catholic schools, the icon of the cross is the only symbol that should be promoted and that this represents inclusion and acceptance of all. However, members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and opponents of restrictive flag policies argue that the Pride flag is needed to signal a welcoming environment. They say its removal is an act of erasure and that it calls into question how the board affirms the rights, dignity and visibility of 2SLGBTQI+ people and how it fosters their safety. The board says, and believes, its practices and policies comply with the Ontario human rights code, adding that supports are available for students who identify as 2SLGBTQI. The erasure of the Pride flag has the simultaneous effect of banning other important flags, such as Every Child Matters flags, Indigenous Nation flags and MMIWG2S flags (drawing attention to ending violence, disappearance and murder of First Nations women, girls and two-spirit people). In our analysis, this restrictive flag policy expresses colonial violence. We rely on the work of Sandra Styres, researcher of Iethi'nihstenha Ohwentsia'kekha (Land), Resurgence, Reconciliation and the Politics of Education, who examines how colonial violence is expressed in academic settings through "micro-aggressions, purposeful ignorance, structural racism, lateral violence, isolation" and also in "representations and spaces." Our concern is informed by our combined research and personal engagement focused around reconciliatory education in elementary Catholic schools (Erenna) and Anishinaabe Catholic expressions of self-determination in the Church (Noah). Erenna is a settler and Noah is a member of Michipicoten First Nation. We are married writing partners who travelled to Quebec City in July 2022 to witness the long-awaited penitential pilgrimage of the late Pope Francis. We left with an awareness that this is a critical time for the righting of relationships that have been severely fractured by a Church complicit in genocide. The DPCDSB flag policy speaks to an unwillingness of many to sever emotional attachments to the white imperialism that preserves a western way of thinking, doing and being, in the name of faith. When a major Catholic entity like the DPCDSB introduces policies that may cause harm, concerned people, regardless of creed, must pay attention to such injustices. Delegate Melanie Cormier, representing the DPCSB's Indigenous Education Network, shared a statement relaying that the board's restrictive flag policy fails to acknowledge the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation whose traditional and treaty territory where the board resides. She states: " Your flag policy is in violation of our jurisdiction. To say that any of our flags can not be flown in our own territories is unacceptable." Brea Corbet, the only trustee with voting power who did not vote to restrict the Pride flag, told an earlier bylaw policies meeting: "When we remove rainbow flags and heritage flags, we are not protecting our Catholic identity; we are revealing institutional fragility. The Pride flag does not threaten Catholic education, policies of exclusion do." Three student trustees also opposed the restrictive policy, but their votes unfortunately aren't counted. We argue this too speaks to the suppression of student voice within the board. This fragility disproportionately threatens the safety of Indigenous, 2SLGBTQI+ and marginalized students and staff as they are overlooked and dismissed by the flag policy. Kanienkeha:ka (Mohawk) education professor Frank Deer speaks of educational programming " that is congruent with the identity of the local community." This programming, he writes, must go beyond curricula to address the school environment as well. Student safety, inclusion and identity affirmation must be prioritized in all aspects of school life. Jennifer Brant, a Kanienkeh:ka interdisciplinary scholar, speaks in depth about how silence during times like these equates to complicity in accepting injustices that are taking place within "the communities in which we live, the broader society and global communities." Inaction in response to this policy is negligent. Detrimental ramifications may also extend to reconciliation efforts in religious spaces more generally. This regressive policy poses lingering questions about the longevity of Catholic schools if they fail to protect and nurture all students. The primary target of the DPCDSB's sweeping flag policy is the 2SLGBTQI+ community. In addition, the flag ban attacks Indigenous sovereignty and Anishinaabek nationhood, perpetuating attitudes tied to the Doctrine of Discovery still present in the Catholic ethos. Flying the flags of First Nations (at their request) is not only a matter of inclusion, it is a matter of respect - respect for the land, the people and the treaties that connect us. In denying this step towards relationality, this governing body of a Catholic school board sets back the Church's reconciliation efforts riding on the momentum of the papal visit. The board's ignorance of how this policy risks damaging relationships with students, families and staff at the board, as well as the broader public, partly reflects an indifference that Pope Francis warned Catholics about during his visit: "I trust and pray that Christians and civil society in this land may grow in the ability to accept and respect the identity and the experience of the Indigenous Peoples. It is my hope that concrete ways can be found to make those peoples better known and esteemed, so that all may learn to walk together." As we write this piece, we can see through the window a local Toronto Catholic Distric School Board elementary school, where an Every Child Matters flag is flown alongside a Pride and Canadian flag. Catholic education, despite its sordid history and contested perspectives about interpreting and practising Church doctrine, can be a tool to drive reconciliation. Catholics cannot let a narrow vision overshadow Pope Francis's pilgrimage and the global Church movement he, the Church's bishops and Catholic lay people have participated in - via a global synod - to respond to the call to walk together in solidarity with Indigenous, 2SLGBTQI+ and other marginalized people. We wish to continue to hear counter-narratives of hope and possibility for Catholic education. We wish to see active changes that move the DPCDSB, as scholar Sheila Cote-Meek of the Teme-Augama Anishinabai, writes, " to a drastically different way of being, doing and working."
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
South Africa opens a new inquiry into apartheid-era killings known as Cradock Four
JOHANNESBURG — When Nombuyiselo Mhlauli was given her husband's body back for burial, he had more than 25 stab wounds in his chest and seven in his back, with a gash across his throat. His right hand was missing. Sicelo Mhlauli was one of four Black men abducted, tortured and killed 40 years ago this month by apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. No one has been held accountable for their deaths. But a new judge-led inquiry into the killings of the anti-apartheid activists who became known as the Cradock Four — and who became a rallying cry for those denied justice — opened this month. It is part of a renewed push for the truth by relatives of some of the thousands of people killed by police and others during the years of white minority rule and enforced racial segregation. Mhlauli described the state of her husband's body during testimony she gave at the start of the inquiry in the city of Gqeberha, near where the Cradock Four were abducted in June 1985. Relatives of some of the three other men also testified. Thumani Calata never got to know her father, Fort Calata, who had been a teacher. She was born two weeks after the funerals of the Cradock Four, which drew huge crowds and galvanized resistance to apartheid. 'I don't know how it feels, and I will never know how it feels, to be hugged by my dad,' Thumani Calata, now 39, told the inquiry as she wept. Two previous inquiries were held during apartheid. A two-year inquest that started in 1987 found the men were killed by unknown people. Another in 1993 said they were killed by unnamed policemen. Relatives of the Cradock Four likely will never see justice. The six former police officers directly implicated in the abductions and killings have died, the last one in 2023. None was prosecuted despite the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission identifying them and denying them amnesty in the late 1990s. That commission, set up by then-President Nelson Mandela, attempted to confront the atrocities of apartheid in the years after the system officially ended in 1994. While some killers were granted amnesty, more than 5,000 applications were refused and recommended for criminal investigation. Hardly any made it to court. Oscar van Heerden, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg, said the bitter emotion of relatives at the Cradock Four inquiry showed wounds have not healed. 'Where it was felt that truth was not spoken and there wasn't sufficient evidence to warrant forgiveness, those were cases that were supposed to be formally charged, prosecuted and justice should have prevailed,' van Heerden said. 'None of that happened.' The failure by post-apartheid governments for 25 years to pursue cases is now being scrutinized. Frustrated, the families of the Cradock Four finally forced authorities to rule last year that there would be a new inquiry into the killings. They also joined with a group of relatives of other apartheid-era victims to take the South African government to court this year over the failure to investigate so many crimes. As part of the settlement in that case, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered a national inquiry led by a retired judge into why apartheid-era killers were not brought to justice. The inquiry, which has not opened yet, threatens to expose further uncomfortable moments for South Africa. While the majority of victims of political violence during apartheid were Black and other people of color, some were white, and families have come together across racial lines. A group of survivors and relatives from the 1993 Highgate Hotel massacre, where unknown men opened fire in a bar full of white customers, joined with the Cradock Four families and others in the case against the government. They allege that post-apartheid authorities deliberately blocked investigations. Other inquests have been reopened, including one into the 1967 death of Albert Luthuli, who was president of the banned anti-apartheid African National Congress movement when he was hit by a train. Luthuli's death has been viewed with suspicion for more than 50 years. At the Cradock Four inquiry, which is expected to resume in October for more testimony, Howard Varney, a lawyer for the families, said this is their last chance to know the truth. The new inquiry has attempted to retrace the killings, from the moment of the men's abduction at a nighttime police roadblock to the time their bodies were discovered, burned and with signs of torture. The families also want a former military commander and ex-police officers who may have knowledge of the killings to testify. Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, said he accepted it was unlikely anyone would ever be prosecuted over the death of his father and his friends Mhlauli, Matthew Goniwe and Sparrow Mkonto. But he said he wants official records to finally show who killed them. 'Justice now can really only come in the form of truth,' Lukhanyo Calata told The Associated Press. 'They may not have been prosecuted, they may not have been convicted, but according to court records, this is the truth around the murders of the Cradock Four.' Gumede writes for the Associated Press.
