National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: first listen, then act
« Les survivants sont des “grands brûlés de l’âme.” »
"Survivors are 'victims whose souls have been burned'."
Richard Kistabish, former resident at Saint-Marc-de-Figuery, in an interview with Radio-Canada, June 1st, 2021
« … à partir de ce moment où j’ai pris conscience des violences perpétrées sur les enfants autochtones envoyés dans les pensionnats religieux, entre les années 1920 et 1990, tout s’est expliqué. Toute cette misère humaine dont j’étais la spectatrice et dont je devenais tranquillement la victime indirecte, ayant hérité de façon inconsciente des blessures infligées aux miens sur plus d’une génération.
Aussitôt, j’ai tout pardonné. Pardonné à mon grand-père alcoolique, à ma grand-mère alcoolique, à ma mère difficile, à mon père absent. Mes années d’adolescence où je ne comprenais pas pourquoi je m’étais enfermée en moi-même avec des chaînes imaginaires qui, avec le temps, étaient devenues inoxydables. Pourquoi tant de misère, pourquoi tant de douleur, pourquoi tant le besoin de crier, de pleurer, de se mettre en colère. Le besoin de blesser les autres. De se blesser entre nous.
Tout était là. »[1]
Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Kuei, je te salue : conversation sur le racisme, Les Éditions Écosociété, 2020
Tomorrow, Canada marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Because healing requires the freedom of speech and the recognition of the truth, because we have a duty to remember, because knowledge of the past can help us avoid repeating its tragic mistakes, we will once again be invited to listen to the stories and testimonies of generations of First Nations people who still bear the scars of Indigenous residential schools.
The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is also a fitting reminder that companies, and therefore investors, have a role to play in reconciliation. In its 92nd Call to Action, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada declares:
“We call upon the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework and to apply its principles, norms, and standards to corporate policy and core operational activities involving Indigenous peoples and their lands and resources. This would include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Commit to meaningful consultation, building respectful relationships, and obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before proceeding with economic development projects.
- Ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training, and education opportunities in the corporate sector, and that Aboriginal communities gain long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects.
- Provide education for management and staff on the history of Aboriginal peoples, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism. In particular, competency-based training in intercultural skills, dispute resolution, human rights and anti-racism will be required."
Over the past year, some investors and companies have taken a few steps along the road to reconciliation. For example, the British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU), with the support of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, has asked the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to revise its human rights statement to indicate that, as part of measures to reduce adverse human rights impacts directly related to its business relationships with customers (as described in the UN Guiding Principles), it will inquire whether, and how, customers have obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of indigenous peoples affected by such business relationships.
At RBC's Annual General Meeting, over 26% of shareholders supported this proposal. In doing so, they have made it clear that the company must be more vigilant in ensuring that these rights are respected in its project financing activities, which is actually to its advantage. Indeed, respecting Indigenous rights increases the legitimacy and social acceptability of projects, while reducing the risks of conflict, delays, and disruption, or even cancellation of projects, as well as damage to the reputation of promoters and their financial partners.
Meanwhile, investors represented by the Shareholder Association for Research and Education (SHARE) have urged major Canadian banks to conduct an independent racial equity audit to analyze their negative impacts on non-white stakeholders and communities of colour, including Indigenous communities. According to a study by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada into the retail practices of major Canadian banks, customers who identified themselves as visible minorities or Indigenous were more likely to be recommended unsuitable products, to receive less clear information, and to be offered optional products such as overdraft protection. In addition, an academic study found that being unbanked or underbanked has a disproportionate effect on Indigenous people and that access to financial services is an endemic problem in "low-income communities of colour."
The investors' efforts were successful, as CIBC and National Bank of Canada announced last spring that they would be conducting such an audit and disclosing the results. They are following in the footsteps of TD Bank, which made a similar commitment in April 2022. As for Bank of Montreal and RBC, their proposals on this issue received high approval rates of respectively 37% and 44%, testifying to the importance of racial equity in the eyes of a large number of investors.
Finally, the number of companies committed to building positive relationships with Indigenous businesses and communities increased again this year. On September 14, 2023, the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB) announced that 24 companies have obtained new certification in Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR), compared with a dozen in 2022. Among them are BMO Financial Group, Cameco and Hydro One, who achieved Gold certification, while Aecon Nucléaire, Ernst & Young, Fortis BC Énergie and WSP Canada received Silver certification. More than 200 companies participate in the PAR certification program, which confirms their commitment to building solid working relationships and creating wealth for Indigenous businesses and communities.
Sources: Conseil canadien pour l’entreprise autochtone, CCCB announces 2023 PAR Certified Companies, September 14, 2023, ref. September 15, 2023, CCCB announces 2023 PAR Certified Companies ; SHARE, BMO shareholders join RBC voters in support of Racial Equity Audits, April 18, 2023, ref. September 15, 2023, Shareholders at BMO ask for a third-party racial equity audit | SHARE ; SHARE, Shareholders call RBC and BMO to action on racial equity; CIBC and National Bank commit to third-party audits, March 3, 2023, ref. September 15, 2023, Shareholders call RBC and BMO to action on racial equity; CIBC and National Bank commit to third-party audits ; Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada, Appels à l’action, 2012, ref. September 15, 2023, 4-Appels_a_l-Action_French.pdf (exactdn.com)
[1] "... from the moment I became aware of the violence perpetrated on native children sent to religious residential schools, between the 1920s and the 1990s, everything began to make sense. All this human misery that I had witnessed and of which I had quietly become the indirect victim, having unconsciously inherited the wounds inflicted on my own people over more than a generation.
I immediately forgave everything. I forgave my alcoholic grandfather, my alcoholic grandmother, my difficult mother and my absent father. My teenage years, when I couldn't understand why I'd locked myself up in imaginary chains that, over time, had become unbreakable. Why so much misery, why so much pain, why so much need to scream, to cry, to get angry. The need to hurt others. To hurt each other.
It was all there." (Traduction libre)
