Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
I am very grateful to be along for the ride with this unique and talented team of writers as we take on a five-year overview of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s Calls to Action.[1] I am a third-year law student who grew up in Calgary; my family background is of mixed-European heritage who settled predominately in Southern Ontario.
Attending law school was a decision that I made in part by a desire to better understand reconciliation and the legal frameworks in which Treaty relations are based. When I was 19 years-old I first started living and working for a Cree community in Treaty 8 territory – during the years in which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was active. This initial experience was my first crash-course in how colonial systems of education, justice and health blatantly fail and undermine communities - a gut-punch which began to redefine what my understanding of Canada is.
In the years since, while working for and learning from communities and organizations across the country, I have sought to learn and to attribute meaning to ‘reconciliation’. As I currently see it, ‘reconciliation’ is a uniquely malleable word – it holds immense and beautiful meaning in some contexts, while being used to provide a feel-good substitution for damaging inaction in others. This is a central theme that I hope to delve into over the coming months.
I am truly optimistic about the power that dialogue and discussion holds in actualizing the values that Canadians purport to hold, and I look forward to and welcome all feedback and discussion. I would like to thank the Co-Leads of this project for inviting me to write this year.
Until next time,
Tyler Godard
1Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Ottawa, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015).
