The response of the occupational therapy profession to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s health calls to action

Abstract

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Indigenous policies were to eliminate Indigenous governments, rights, and treaties, and through this process of assimilation cause the extinction of Indigenous Peoples (Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC], 2015). Residential schools were a central component of this assimilation process, which can best be described as “cultural genocide” (TRC, 2015). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) describes cultural genocide as the “destruction of those structures and practices that allow [a] group to continue as a group” (TRC, 2015, p. 1). The Canadian government worked to remove Indigenous children from their homes, sending them to residential schools with the main purpose of breaking the connections to their culture and identity. For residential school students, neglect, lack of supervision, and physical and sexual abuse were common within the schools, along with discouragement and prohibition of engaging in traditional practices and speaking their own languages (TRC, 2015). Canada further pursued and supported the goal of cultural genocide in relation to Indigenous Peoples to remove itself from legal and financial obligations and to gain control over land and resources (TRC, 2015). Due to policies under the Royal Proclamation of 1763, Indigenous Peoples reserved all land not ceded by or purchased from Indigenous Nations. Between 1871 and 1921, Canada negotiated 11 treaties with Indigenous Peoples which provided the Crown with land for industrial and settler development in exchange for various promises including special rights to treaty land and distribution of resources. [...]