One History, One Reckoning
Why Truth and Reconciliation Must Be a Canadian Project
Nearly four in ten Canadians now say this country belongs “first and foremost” to Indigenous Peoples, according to a recent Leger poll. Among younger Canadians aged 18–24, that support climbs to nearly 60%. In Ontario, almost half agree. This is not a fringe position — it’s the beginning of a generational shift in how Canada understands itself.
But the question that follows is harder: if we accept that truth, what does it mean?
For too long, Canada has lived with two histories: one for the mainstream, where Confederation, railways, and wars build a nation; and one for Indigenous Peoples, where land is seized, treaties bent, children stolen, and women disappeared. The problem with two histories is that they never reconcile. They fracture identity and allow people to opt out: “That’s their history, not mine.”
The reality is simpler, and harder: there is only one Canadian history. And it is a history where the state has repeatedly decided who belongs, who is excluded, and who can be stripped of rights.
The Unfinished Contracts of Canada
Indigenous land was not freely given. In some regions, treaties were signed but interpreted in bad faith. In others — like much of British Columbia — no treaties exist at all. Where agreements were made, they were often presented as partnerships but enforced as surrenders. Promises of education, health, and shared prosperity were broken almost as soon as the ink dried.
This is not an abstraction. Ottawa’s own financial books now carry $76 billion in liabilities tied to Indigenous rights and historical wrongs — up from just $11 billion in 2016. The courts keep confirming what Indigenous nations have always known: the contracts remain unfinished, and the obligations are real.
A Broader Pattern of Exclusion
To think of this as “just an Indigenous issue” is to miss the wider Canadian pattern. During the First World War, 8,500 Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were interned as “enemy aliens.” In the Second World War, 22,000 Japanese Canadians were uprooted, their property seized. Italians, Germans, even Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism were confined in camps. Africville in Nova Scotia was bulldozed in the name of “progress.” The Komagata Maru was turned away at Vancouver’s shore.
Different groups, different decades — but the same logic: in moments of fear or expedience, Canada stripped rights from those deemed outside the Anglo-French settler mold.
Through the lens of Truth and Reconciliation, these aren’t separate tragedies. They’re branches from the same trunk: a state that defined belonging by exclusion.
The Harm is Not Generations Away
Critics of reparations say trauma cannot ripple across eight generations. That might be true — but in Canada, we don’t need to go back eight. We only need to go back one.
The last residential school closed in 1996. Survivors are alive today, raising grandchildren still dealing with cycles of abuse, shame, and language loss. Peer-reviewed research shows that children whose parents or grandparents attended these schools are more likely to experience poor health, mental distress, and involvement with child welfare systems. This is not distant history — it is the recent past pressing into the present.
The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) is equally present-tense. Indigenous women are twelve times more likely to be murdered or go missing than non-Indigenous women. Families still beg police to investigate ignored cases. The National Inquiry called it genocide. That word was chosen for a reason.
Acknowledgment Is Not Enough
So what does it mean to say, “We live on stolen land”? At best, it’s a symbolic acknowledgment. It validates Indigenous truth, but on its own, it changes nothing. Real reconciliation begins when acknowledgment is paired with repair.
Repair is not guilt. It is not a cheque written by descendants to descendants. It is the work of fixing ongoing, systemic damage:
Implementing the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action with measurable timelines.
Funding and following through on the Reparations Framework for missing children and unmarked burials.
Completing the $47.8 billion overhaul of child welfare so First Nations children can grow up in their own communities.
Returning Crown lands and revenue-sharing authority where treaties have been broken or never signed.
Supporting Indigenous-led health, language, and cultural programs that address trauma at its root.
One History, Shared Responsibility
Truth and Reconciliation cannot succeed as a siloed Indigenous project. It must be a Canadian project. The railways and the residential schools, the victory at Vimy and the internment camps, the Charter and the MMIWG inquiry — they all belong in one timeline. One history. One reckoning.
We don’t bear personal guilt for what was stolen a century ago. But we do inherit the systems built on that theft. We live in the house our ancestors built — and the foundation is cracked. We didn’t cause the cracks, but we do face the choice: repair them, or watch the house keep leaning.
The Path Forward
You can’t force people to learn; they have to want to come to the table. The challenge for Canada is not to compel guilt but to invite agency. To show Canadians that reconciliation is not about endless apology, but about building a fairer, more united country.
That means moving from symbolism to substance, from separate histories to one history, from guilt to shared responsibility.
Because in the end, reconciliation is not about re-litigating the past. It’s about deciding the future.