I was somewhere in the middle of Québec on highway 20 on my way to Nova Scotia to bring my daughter back to Ottawa when I heard the news of the discovery of 215 children buried on the former Kamloops (Tk’emlups) Indian Residential School grounds. I had to pull over for a few minutes before getting back on the road. My daughter, who is six and a half, wanted to spend time with her grandparents while doing online school. Over the four weeks at my parents house, my daughter heard stories from my parents’ childhood, she gardened with them, she prayed with them and learned our traditions, she helped prepare delicious south Indian meals, she danced to Indian music, and she got to practice Telugu (my mother tongue) every day. 

I was on my way to pick up my daughter who was being enriched by her heritage and by her elders. This is my privilege. This is the settler privilege. 

I debated if I should share the news with my daughter. Given the enriching and privileged experience she just had with her elders, my partner and I decided it was important for her to know. And so we did. For over a hundred years, thousands of children, including ones her age, were not allowed to do what she just did with her grandparents, we emphasized. She cried — and so did we. She said, “Tell me more. I want to know.” She then said, “That’s the meanest thing you can do.” And she’s right. Genocide is the meanest thing one can do.

This month is Indigenous History Month. Six years ago last week, I was sitting in the hotel room in Ottawa on June 2, 2015, both a heart-breaking and empowering day at the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report of its findings and 94 Calls to Action to “redress the legacy of the residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” The mood in the room was one of truth, hope, solidarity and resilience. 

The extraordinarily difficult work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began about six years prior to the release of the report. The work was triggered by sustained and ground-breaking activism, and the apology issued by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. There is one line in his apology that we should all remember: “The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today.” 

But let’s also not forget that one of the biggest intergenerational harms in Canada wasn’t carried out by the private sector, which is typically where heads would go. In that room back on June 2, 2015, I still remember the echoes of people seated around me saying that these harms and atrocities weren’t carried out by big companies, but by charitable and community organizations, and they remain shocked that such social mission organizations could inflict such harm. 

So, why haven’t charitable and philanthropic sector leaders apologized yet?

The Indian Residential Schools system was implemented through a partnership between the federal government and Canadian charitable institutions (including the United, Anglican and Catholic Churches). As Imagine Canada noted, this system lasted for over 100 years and, in addition to the tremendous suffering and trauma of thousands of children and youth, it had the effect of dismantling Indigenous traditions and families as well as neutralizing resistance to the colonial occupation of the land. 

Sector leaders’ gestures to the news about the former Kamloops Residential School — the likes, hearts, sadness, and reflections are not enough. They barely amount to anything but making settlers and sector leaders feel good about their own solidarity. Reflections don’t commit you to anything and reflections don’t cost anything. 

It is easy to say that this is about legacy, that this is about the past and reflect on it — but make no mistake, this is very much about the present. The country’s many charitable and philanthropic institutions that operate today were built on the same foundations of white supremacy, colonialism, and paternalism that built the residential school system. Even the United Nations Human Rights Office called on Canada, the country that invented peacekeeping, to investigate the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools across the country and to intensify efforts to find those who are missing. Moreover, the last residential school closed in 1996; charitable and philanthropic sector leaders had many decades to rally together to stop the system from continuing — but the schools went on and I can’t find any trace of sector mobilization to put an end to the atrocities.

On the first National Reconciliation Day, this coming September 30, I call for a joint apology from Canada’s charitable and philanthropic sector leaders on the role these institutions played in systemic anti-Indigenous racism, and for a commitment to concrete steps they will take in the next 12 months to implement the TRC’s calls to action. 

Six years after the release of the TRC report, it’s time for charitable and philanthropic sector leaders to bear responsibility, and it’s time to acknowledge the role these institutions have played and continue to play in colonial violence. 

There is ample evidence of how racism, dehumanization and negligence continues today in social purpose institutions — in social services, education, disabilities, child welfare, hospitals, policing, housing, employment, and much more. These are the uncomfortable truths. Even though Indigenous peoples are about 4.9 percent of the population, Indigenous groups receive just over half a percent of grants and funds. Indigenous groups are getting about $1 for every $178 given to non-Indigenous groups. It’s easy to place all of this — residential schools, racism, white supremacy, colonialism, paternalism, and negligence — on Prime Minister Trudeau’s shoulders. But this is not just on him. It’s on all of us.

As former Senator and TRC Chair Murray Sinclair notably said, “Reconciliation is about atonement. It’s about making amends. It’s about apology. It’s about recognizing responsibility. It’s about accounting for what has gone on. But ultimately, it’s about commitment to maintaining that mutually respectful relationship throughout, recognizing that, even when you establish it, there will be challenges to it.” 

Vinod Rajasekaran

Publisher & CEO

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