West Hill launches Truth and Reconciliation Project

First Nations' drummers entertain along One Walk route, 2015Beginning the first Sunday in September, 2015, West Hill's Sunday gatherings began with two things: an acknowledgement that we gather on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation and the reading of one of the recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 

There were ninety-four recommendations made when the TRC presented its final report. After six years of hearings that brought to the fore the realities of what many have called cultural genocide, shared by some 6,000 Residential School survivors, the recommendations were met with cautious optimism from the Canadian public. The caution, as an Angus Reid poll indicated, lay in the fact that many Canadians have doubts that the recommendations will receive any response from their government, the party that acts on the behalf of Canadians when it comes to our obligations under the treaties signed with First Nations.

West Hill believes that we need to do more than shrug our shoulders and hope for the best. For this reason, we will highlight one of the recommendations each Sunday until all of them have been read. We hope that, by doing so, we will remain engaged and bring conversation with friends, family members, community leaders, and political representatives back to the many important issues highlighted by the TRC.

We are all treaty people.