May 31, 2021 – It is with a heavy heart and many tears that we add our voice to those across Turtle Island who mourn for the 215 young spirits finally located last week in Kamloops, British Columbia. We grieve with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation and the families of the lost children.
The truly devastating reality of what happened at these Indian Residential Schools is all too real today for many Indigenous peoples. We ourselves, or our family members and friends, have experienced the intergenerational trauma firsthand. Some will show the physical scars from where they were hit for speaking their own language, others have tried to hide the pain and suffered along with their family members. The resulting losses of lives, culture, and languages have impacted our communities greatly.
The Reconciliation and Responsible Investment Initiative is motivated to be a positive movement amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous investors for the meaningful inclusion and full participation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada’s capital markets.
We invite investors, companies, and all Canadians to revisit the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report and Calls to Action.
RRII will continue to centre our work upon the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Principles of Reconciliation and Call to Action 92,[i] which calls upon the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as a reconciliation framework. Call to Action 92 also calls upon the corporate sector to provide education for management and staff on the history of Aboriginal peoples, including the history and legacy of residential schools, UNDRIP, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations.
[i] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Calls to Action. https://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf