Indigenous communities are coming together to speak on reconciliation and changing the narrative in Sudbury

The Indigenous community, students and staff have been gathering this week at Laurentian University in Sudbury for a three-day forum on reconciliation.

The National Building Reconciliation Forum is a Universities Canada initiative. It aims to support Indigenous education. It will also focus on implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls To Action, Canada's attempt to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.

Roxanne Recollet, a Wikwemikong band member and student at Laurentian University, says the conference reminds her of her parents who both attended residential schools. 

"I needed to learn the harsh truth so I can forgive, so I can move forward and so I don't pass on that trauma to the next generation."

She says it's important now more than ever to put action behind discussions of reconciliation.

"We practice that by changing ourselves because we can't change anybody else… I'm not going to have those same barriers for my child, for my teenager. So when they get to adult age, they're going to go out in society and be proud of Anishinaabe people."

This year's theme is Indigenous Education and Mapping Out Institutional Spaces. The attendees will discuss, share best practices and explore issues around education. It includes panel discussions, oral histories, workshops, lectures and performing arts. 

Kyla Martin, a member of Moose Cree First Nation and a third year student in the Indigenous Social Work program, agrees.

"I didn't learn a lot of it until I was older. I think it's important for our youth to be educated in reconciliation and our histories. It's also an acknowledgement to us and what we have to go through and how resilient we are."

Renée Lemoyne is originally from Kebaowek First Nation in Kipawa and is now pursuing a masters in Indigenous relations at Laurentian University. She says the event is about "good change."

"When I was an undergrad, there were different articles that I would read with language that wasn't very good. It wasn't very kind towards Indigenous people, was very outdated and the articles were new. They were from 2016 to 2018, so they should have known better, but they didn't," says Lemoyne. 

"This whole conference, to me, means we're noticing that there's things that are wrong and we're going to work towards making them better, not only in education, but in everything, because the research we do in education goes forward."

A new path forward

As a part of that, the university has announced the development of a four-year degree program on Indigenous studies. Currently, there is no set date on when the university will begin to offer the program.

"We need to bring back a few more Indigenous courses, a few more Indigenous related degrees because with the closure of University of Sudbury, we lost a lot of that," said Martin Bayer, the Laurentian University native education council chair, explaining the new development.

In 2021, multiple Indigenous studies programs were cut after Laurentian University filed for insolvency. It resulted in changes to one of the oldest Indigenous studies programs in Canada as Laurentian University terminated ties with the University of Sudbury. Currently, the university only offers minors in Indigenous Interdisciplinary Studies, Indigenous Storytelling and Anishnaabemowin Land-Based Immersion.

Bayer says the school is also looking to make an Indigenous studies course mandatory for all students.

"Every graduate of Laurentian University has to graduate with an Indigenous or First Nations perspectives course."

Dominic Beaudry, the associate vice-president academic of Indigenous programs, explains the university is changing the narrative between the old courses and the one in development.

"The previous Indigenous studies program focused a lot on trauma. Our new Indigenous studies program is going to be interdisciplinary, so it's also going to focus on, Indigenous contribution to the modern world that we live in. It's going to include Indigenous narratives in a meaningful way."