"Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future" looks to both the past and the future as it examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission?s influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.
RCAP?s five-year examination of the relationships of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples to Canada and to non-Indigenous Canadians resulted in a new vision for Canada and provided 440 specific recommendations, many of which informed the subsequent work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Considered too radical and difficult to
implement, RCAP?s recommendations were largely ignored, but the TRC reiterates that longstanding inequalities and imbalances in Canada?s relationship with Indigenous peoples remain and quite literally calls us to action.
With reflections on RCAP?s legacy by its co-chairs, leaders of national Indigenous organizations and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, and leading academics and activists, this collection refocuses our attention on the groundbreaking work already performed by RCAP. Organized thematically, it explores avenues by which we may establish a new relationship, build healthy and powerful communities, engage citizens, and move to action.
Chapter 1: Completing Confederation: The Necessary Foundation
Chapter 2: Twenty Years Later: The RCAP Legacy in Indigenous Health System Governance?What about the Next Twenty?
Chapter 3: Address by René Dussault, Co-Chair, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
Chapter 4: Video Address by Georges Erasmus, Co-Chair, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
Chapter 5: Address by Perry Bellegarde, National Chief, Assembly of First Nations
Chapter 6: Address by Natan Obed, President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Chapter 7: Address by Clément Chartier, President, Metis National Council
Chapter 8: Address by Robert Bertrand, National Chief, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples
Chapter 9: Address by Francyne Joe, President, Native Women?s Association of Canada
Chapter 10: Address by Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada
Chapter 11: Thunderbird Is Rising: Indigenizing Education in Canada
Chapter 12: Insights into Community Development in First Nations: A Poverty Action Research
Chapter 13: Indigenous Economic Development with Tenacity
Chapter 14: Powerful Communities, Healthy Communities: A Twenty-Five Year Journey of Healing and Wellness
Chapter 15: Cultural Safety
Chapter 16: What Will It Take? Ending the Canadian Government?s Chronic Failure to Do Better for First Nations Children and Families
Chapter 17: The Art of Healing and Reconciliation: From Time Immemorial through RCAP, the TRC, and Beyond
Chapter 18: Engaging Citizens in Indigenous-Non-Indigenous Relations
Chapter 19: SSHRC and the Conscientious Community: Reflecting and Acting on Indigenous Research and Reconciliation in Response to CTA
Chapter 20: Canada?s Aboriginal Policy and the Politics of Ambivalence: A Policy Tools Perspective
Chapter 21: Executive Summary, Canadian Public Opinion on Aboriginal Peoples
Conclusion: What?s the Way Forward?
