Reconciliation
Experiences Canada has collaborated with Indigenous leaders, artists, lawyers, journalists, and land and water defenders to bring you Five webinars. The speakers in this series have generously offered their time and knowledge to engage youth in a dialogue on the contemporary issues and challenges that Indigenous people face.
Teaching Resources
For each topic, we have providing lesson plans and discussion guides to assist educators in integrating the various topics into their curriculum plans. Our aim is to encourage conversation and inquiry among Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth, while ensuring a brave space for youth to communicate.
We encourage you to view the webinars with your students, and continue the conversation in your virtual classrooms using our lesson plans and guides.
PROGRAM GUIDE
Program Question : What is Reconciliation ?
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Guidelines for engaging in meaningful and respectful Reconciliation Conversations.
LESSONS
Lessons and activities can be adapted to any course or community group activity and are flexible to different timelines to best suit the class or group.
Introduction to Reconciliation
- Activity: Where are the Children?
- Challenge: Project of Heart Tiles
Download the Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson slides
Watch the webinar
Language and Culture
- Activity: Stories, Songs and Sayings
- Challenge: Hello & Thank you
Download the Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson slides
Watch the webinar
Health & Wellbeing
- Activity: Holistic Health – The Medicine Wheel and Traditional Medicines
- Challenge: Medicine Wheel Bingo Card
Download the Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson slides
Watch the webinar
Environment & Relationship to the Land
- Activity: Whose Land?
- Challenge: Places to Protect
Download the Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson slides
Watch the Webinar
Education and Economic Opportunity
- Activity: What/who is missing?
- Challenge: Write a letter
Download the Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson slides
Watch the webinar
Partner Resources
As well as contributing to the Experiences Canada Youth Leadership Forum on Reconciliation, Experience Canada’s program partners are also offering additional resources as part of the Reconciliation Conversations webinar series. These resources aim to inform and address many of the same issues highlighted by the Reconciliation Conversation speakers, and provide still more ways for youth to take part in meaningful conversations and engage with their communities.
In conversation with Indigenous Senators in the Senate of Canada
As part of our Reconciliation Conversation online series, we invited some of the Indigenous Senators in the Senate of Canada to talk to us about their lived experiences, their vision for Reconciliation, and their advice for Indigenous and non-Indigenous young Canadians about the path forward.
Senators
SENATOR BRIAN FRANCIS
Province: Prince Edward IslandSenator Brian Francis is the first person of Mi'kmaq descent in Prince Edward Island to serve a role in the senate.
SENATOR PATTI LABOUCANE-BENSON
Province: AlbertaSenator Patti LaBoucane-Benson is a Métis from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta. Her 30-year career has been dedicated to serving her community
SENATOR YVONNE BOYER
Province: OntarioSenator Yvonne Boyer is a member of the Métis Nation of Ontario with her ancestral roots in the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and the Red River.
Former Senator Murray Sinclair
Province: ManitobaThe Honourable Sinclair is Anishinaabe and a member of the Peguis First Nation and served as chairman the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
SENATOR MARY JANE MCCALLUM
Province: ManitobaDr. Mary Jane McCallum is a First Nations woman of Cree heritage and an advocate for social justice
Background Introduction
An introduction to these 5 amazing Indigenous Senators. They share stories of their upbringing from various communities across Canada, including the challenges and choices they faced as indigenous youth.
Senate Career
The senators discuss their journey to becoming members of the senate and share some of their personal and professional achievements, and current issues they are passionate about tackling.
Truth & Reconciliation
The senators discuss what they feel are the main priorities in the path towards meaningful Reconciliation – both from their positions within the senate, to state, municipal, and local, opportunities and challenges.
Message to Youth
The senators provide messages of hope and guidance to young indigenous and non-ingenious youth as they transition into adulthood.
VIRTUAL FORUM ON RECONCILIATION – INSPIRATION GUIDE
This guide highlights the youth projects developed at the 2021 virtual youth leadership forum on reconciliation.
Our participants were able to take part in various speaker sessions, sharing circles, and Indigenous teachings over the course of the 5-day forum, which all worked to better educate the youth on the realities of reconciliation in Canada. Participants also worked in small groups to develop their own ideas and projects that address Reconciliation as a priority and/or answered a Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Thanks to our Canada Life Reconciliation in Action Micro-Grants, at the end of the forum, each participant received funding to get their project started—allowing them to become active agents of Reconciliation in their community.
We hope this book will be an inspiration to youth and show how to be a difference-maker, that every action has an impact, and the first step is making the decision to get involved.
Webinars
Introduction to Reconciliation
Reconciliation means different things to different people, understanding the breadth of perspectives is an important first step in fostering more meaningful dialogue. Our introduction to Reconciliation will inform about the treaty rights and obligations that were agreed upon, the historic injustices that have affected Indigenous populations over the past century and a half, and some of the priority themes related to Reconciliation today.
Speakers: Perry Bellegarde, Max Fine Day, and Crystal Martin-Lapenskie.
Language and Culture
Language is critical to sharing traditional knowledge, family and community history, and cultural worldview. Sadly, years of colonial systems and structures, most notably the imposition of Residential Schools, severed these connections, meaning that for many generations, knowledge and understanding about their communities and their cultural identities was lost
Speakers: Susan Aglukark, Zoey Roy, and Sage Paul.
Health & Wellbeing
The underlying issues for the health crises facing Indigenous communities are well documented: unsafe drinking water; lack of adequate housing and affordable food supplies; lack of adequate health care and emergency services; lower income levels and lack of access to education and economic opportunity.
Speakers: Pam Palmater, and Michael Redhead Champagne
Environment and Relationship to the Land
Industrial development over the past century and a half has negatively impacted the quality of the environment through pollutants, contaminants, urbanization. Large scale industrial projects such as the construction of pipelines, forestry, and water waste management have often led to conflicts with Indigenous communities concerned over the potential long-term degradation to the natural resources and their traditional ways of life.
Speakers: Geoff Green, Larissa Crawford, and Kluane Adamek.
Education & Economic Opportunity
Better education is the cornerstone for a stronger path forward for everyone: fueling understanding and awareness; and providing greater opportunities for economic well-being. Indigenous people are the fastest growing population in Canada. Investing in their future economic outcomes will strengthen prosperity and sustainability for all of Canada.
Speakers: Arlen Dumas, and Autumn Larose-Smith.
Integrating First Nations Perspectives
Allen Sutherland will discuss the spirit and the intent of the numbered-treaties in Canada. Specifically, the spirit they represent and the intent behind them. Through a thoughtfully put-together presentation and open-dialogue session, Allen will walk us through what it means to be Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous in today’s Canadian society.
Speaker: Allen Sutherland, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR)
Inuit Perspectives
An in-depth discussion will be led by Martha Peet. This discussion will guide youth participants through a series of subjects Martha has deemed crucial to considering the positive aspects of Reconciliation. Through her experiences as an Inuk in Canada, Martha wields her identity with wisdom to inform the youth participants of the need to consider other people’s perspectives.
Speaker: Martha Peet, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR)
Introduction to Land Acknowledgements
Moe Clark will awaken students’ awareness of the land we are all living on by helping them form their own personal territorial acknowledgements. Moe will begin with a short introduction and land acknowledgement. She will then move to her spoken-word performance of one of her poems which will be followed by the playing of a short video discussing the significance of Treaty 7.
Speaker: Moe Clark, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR)
Thanks to Our Sponsor
Experiences Canada is proud to partner with RBC`s Future Launch initiative – a commitment to help young Canadians prepare for a drastically changing workforce.
You can find out more about the many youth initiatives RBC supports here.
