On behalf of LIRR (the Living into Right Relations Circle), we would like to recommend to the Regional Council that Canada Day be a time of reflection and to read the following as they contemplate the history of Canada and what is needed to begin reconciliation with the First Peoples of Turtle Island.
We would ask people to engage in the three following documents:
- Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf - MMIWG Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls:
https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/ - Calls to the Church:
https://united-church.ca/community-and-faith/being-community/indigenous-ministries/calls-church
This has been a difficult month with the remains of the children found on residential school sites across the nation. But this is not news, elders and communities have been telling their stories and truths for years but many have not listened.
Indigenous communities continue to be impacted and re-impacted by the trauma of systemic racism, colonialism whose effects continue today in all our systems… yes, including the church.
I have been journeying with a group of indigenous ecumenical First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples who are asking us, as people of faith, to walk with them and that begins with acknowledging the harm and the pain caused by our churches. In order to do so, we need to listen and hear what these documents are calling us to do both as individuals, people within communities of faith and as part of the dominant culture.
Lisa Byer-de Wever
Rev. Read Sherman
Co-chairs, LIRR
Learn more: https://nakonhakaucc.ca/programs/living-into-right-relations-lirr/