The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's statist legacy

National Post, 28 September 2025

It shifted the conversation from Indigenous self-government to increased dependency on the Canadian state

Prime Minister Mark Carney does not, as far I know, surf. So there should be no danger that he will spend his first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as prime minister splashing about in Tofino, B.C., as his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, did in 2021.

The current prime minister does gruelling trail runs, though, so I suppose he could slip out into the Gatineau Hills. But he won’t. Likely he will participate in solemn ceremonies and pledge more government action. It is not clear that the latter will do any good for Indigenous people, but I hope Carney will also be better than Trudeau on the ceremonial part.

Both men have paternal legacies on Indigenous matters. Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and his Indian affairs minister, Jean Chrétien, released a 1969 white paper calling for the assimilation of Canada’s First Nations. They had to withdraw it.

Robert J. Carney’s engagement was personal and professional, not political. In the 1960s, Mark Carney’s father was the principal of Joseph B. Tyrrell school in Fort Smith, N.W.T., which is why the prime minister was born there. It was an Indian day school.

Robert Carney was one of a great number, including both religious and lay people, who, motivated by faith in God and service to others, sacrificed generously to serve Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Their contributions were once widely acknowledged, including by Indigenous leaders, but are now officially ignored.

Perhaps Carney might restore a modicum of respect for those admirable, even heroic, teachers, like his father, who were not guilty of great crimes, but whose service has been unjustly denigrated by association with a flawed policy and criminal abusers.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report. No commission has ever had more impact on how we talk in Canada. Land acknowledgements are routine, even when offered by officials who have no idea of what land or what peoples they are acknowledging.

After the farrago of false claims arising from Kelowna, B.C., in 2021 created a global outrage, the TRC demand for a national holiday was quickly implemented, which will be observed on Tuesday.

Pope Francis gave into the demand for another papal apology — the first had been offered in 2009 in Rome, after numerous Catholic apologies dating back to 1991 — and came in his wheelchair to Canada to offer it. He did, to his credit, tell a fuller truth about residential schools than Catholic leaders in Canada are wont to do.

TRC-talk has now spread to clothing — schoolchildren are encouraged to wear orange shirts — and even the pavement — crosswalks are painted orange with Indigenous motifs. The TRC changed the way Canadians talk, which is a rather enormous achievement.

One gets the sense, over at the Truth and Reconciliation Week (yes, “week”) website, that there has been too much talk. The theme for this year is “Taking Truth to Action.” But what is proposed is, well, an entire week of more talking, across the country, in-person gatherings or lectures available online for classrooms.

Ten years after the TRC released its 94 “calls to action,” there is still a need to move from talk to action. Talk is easy but TRC-talk is definitely not cheap. It is difficult to keep up with the number of settlements, allocating tens of billions, in the years since Kamloops.

Canada is good at talk, and good at disbursements from the exchequer. Action has been the fatal flaw of the TRC from the beginning.

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