While Canada is on its path towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, we are witness to the hope of a new relationship in the work that we do every day. When we brought together industry, community and government to dialogue around resource extraction and energy issues, that was reconciliation in action. When we sat with the City of Kingston’s citizens and its leadership to help strengthen their relationship with Indigenous communities, that was reconciliation in action. And when we teach our hallmark Indigenous Awareness courses to public servants and industry professionals, we get to witness hundreds of participants making personal commitments to reconciliation year after year.
Our work is informed by decades of experience through actions such as:
- leading the process to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC)
- helping to design nationally recognized programs like Aboriginal Head Start
- managing people and projects in the public service and the corporate world
- being trusted advisors to National and Regional leaders
- participating in ceremony and learning from the teachings of Elders.
The natural next step is to take these individual actions and turn them into collective movement forward. We must look at Canada differently. At First Peoples Group, we believe that Canada needs to begin the process to move from reconciliation towards what we are calling [re]Confederation.
We need to come together to build a new Canada–a better, more complete Canada. One that builds on our treaties as well as the dreams of our children. Manifesting reconciliation can help us re-imagine and modernize confederation. One where everyone lives up to our responsibilities to foster and maintain healthy and respectful relationships in ways that honour all of us and perhaps more importantly, all the planet.
If there is one thing that can unite us it is the dream of a better world for our children and for future generations.