Trudeau's government committed to reconciliation but didn't quite live up to promises, say experts

With the Liberal Party of Canada poised to choose its new leader this weekend, some say the party under Trudeau gave more attention to Indigenous issues than previous governments. 

"I don't think that there has been a prime minister that has committed more to Indigenous communities … since Confederation," said Hayden King, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, and a member of Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario. 

A few months after becoming prime minister in 2015, Trudeau spoke at a meeting of the Assembly of First Nations.

"I know that renewing our relationship is an ambitious goal, but I am equally certain that it is one we can, and will, achieve if we work together," Trudeau told the Assembly of First Nations in December 2015. 

"In the mandate letters given to government ministers, my expectations were clear. I told them that no relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with First Nations, the Métis Nation, and Inuit." 

Trudeau made big promises, including implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action, and launching an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. 

The party also promised sweeping fixes to justice, health care, and child welfare reform for Indigenous people. 

But King says, as the years went on, many of those commitments seemed to lose popularity in the party. 

"It was a long list of aspirations," King said. 

"I think as the years went on, those commitments dropped away."

Reconciliation a 2015 election issue

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its 94 calls to action in June 2015, a few months ahead of the federal election that saw Trudeau's Liberal Party win a majority government.

Both the federal Liberal and NDP parties commited to fully implementing the calls to action. The Conservative Party wouldn't commit, but said they would review the final report.

Ian Mosby, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, tracked progress on implementing the calls to action. 

"I was at the final TRC event in Ottawa … so I heard Trudeau and others speak quite eloquently about the importance of this," he said.  

"I genuinely believed them."

The biggest jump, he says, was in 2021 after the discovery of potential unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. 

But last year Mosby stopped monitoring progress on the calls to action, because progress had pretty much stopped. 

He said some calls to action, like changing the oath of citizenship to recognize Indigenous peoples and launching the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, were easier to implement because they didn't cost much. 

"But I think increasingly, they found that it was too expensive to spend money on Indigenous peoples," Mosby said.

'You're doing this for Indigenous children' 

Katherine Koostachin from Attawapiskat First Nation in Ontario served as a senior advisor of Indigenous policy and litigation in the Prime Minister's Office and said the policy she worked on that she is most proud of is was the child welfare reform settlement offer. 

"For me it was unimaginable that Canada actually offered $40 billion plus," said Koostachin.

"I can't believe we did it in terms of making that offer … because any previous government probably wouldn't have done that." 

That offer was rejected by chiefs at a special meeting of the Assembly of First Nations last year, but Koostachin said she hopes Canada remains committed to finding appropriate terms of settlement. 

Before leaving the Prime Minister's Office, Koostachin said she met with Trudeau and shared with him why she does the work she does. 

"I always saw it as my obligation for my people because I was doing it for the kids, so that was my message for him, it's like you're doing this for Indigenous children," said Koostachin. 

With an election on the horizon, there is worry is that Indigenous issues — and reconciliation — are not campaign priorities. 

"If you're going to access critical minerals, energy, you're going to have to go through Indigenous people and their land and resources, so ultimately [reconciliation] should be part of the driver of any political mandate," said Koostachin.