Kathleen Wynne met with Ontario’s Indigenous communities after making her statement on Monday. Photo courtesy @Kathleen_Wynne, Twitter.
The Saskatchewan Party is facing pressure to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations.
This week, the Ontario government issued a lengthy response and action plan related to the TRC.
Premier Kathleen Wynne spoke after issuing an apology for the colonial policies placed upon indigenous people, which included violence and suffering.
“There is no excuse for any government not to take action,” she said, adding that action is needed on all levels “to correct those relationships that have been so damaging to hundreds of thousands of people in an intergenerational way.”
For Saskatchewan opposition deputy minister and aboriginal MLA, Buckley Belanger, the apology was the right thing to do.
“When you have the apology, it recognizes that there was a wrong. For governments to admit there was a wrong, that is one of the hardest, most difficult things for governments to do first of all but it’s necessary for the rebuilding and rebirth of our aboriginal people right throughout the province,” he said.
Saskatchewan has had the chance to do the same and is still sitting idle, Belanger said. Last June, Premier Brad Wall said the province will issue an apology for its role in the 60’s Scoop.
“We’ve had over a year where the premier said he would, and to date there’s been no apology whatsoever,” Belanger said.
In Saskatchewan Legislature’s Question Period this week, he touched on that while asking what the province’s multi-ministry team has done to fully examine the TRC report.
In Minister of Government Relations Jim Reiter’s response, he said that 34 of the TRC recommendations pertain directly or indirectly to the province.
“Of those 34, 22 of those are already been addressed either in whole or in part by the province of Saskatchewan,” Reiter said, adding that the rest of the recommendations would be addressed in consultation with groups like FSIN.
Belanger says the NDP is taking a point-by point approach to ask the province about its response to the TRC’s provincial recommendations. This week’s question period sessions have included some harsh critiques of the Sask. party on issues like disparate unemployment, literacy rates, and graduate rates between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people.
To a question on the province’s goal to increase aboriginal graduation rates to 85 per cent by 2020, education minister Don Morgan didn’t shy away from giving a frank response.
He said the province is on track to meet that goal on graduation rates, and will make new goals once that is met.
“We’re going to continue until the First Nations and Metis people in our province are able to share fully in the wealth, prosperity and growth in our province. These are people that we owe a debt of gratitude for letting us share our province with them,” he said.
Also this week, Ontario committed $250 million over three years to help understand the legacy of residential schools and to create what Wynne calls a culturally relevant and responsible justice system.
The province will find out in the budget on Wednesday afternoon if anything like that is in the cards for Saskatchewan.
– with files from the Canadian Press