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The exact number of deaths that occurred from decades of inhumane practices at Canada’s Indian residential school system may never be known, but they are estimated to be around 6,000. This is according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s study of the government and church run schools, which operated from the 1870s until the last one closed in 1996.

Approximately 150,000 native children were sent to the federally funded and Christian church administered schools during their tenure, the direct purpose being assimilation of indigenous children to a white Christian Canadian culture.

Undoubtedly these schools operated with gross negligence and severely mistreated students, with confirmed reports of commonplace sexual and physical abuse. But a recent report released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada titled What We Have Learned aims to make known the scale of the suffering and look into the reality that these schools were part of a federal campaign of cultural genocide. It also offers 94 practical recommendations for justice.

The report recalls an incident particularly revealing of the Canadian government’s First Nation policies. In 1920 when the federal government amended the Indian Act to allow forced removal of Aboriginal people’s status as Indian, the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott said before a parliamentary committee that “our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.”

University of Saskatchewan’s new president Peter Stoicheff has taken the lead among Canadian universities to set a tone and model of restitution. "We must become the best place we possibly can be for Aboriginal students and their communities in this province and beyond it. That is a crucial role for the modern university, to respond to the most urgent issue of our time in this country, and in so doing to play a role in re-imagining Canada," he said at an invocation ceremony.

The University of Saskatchewan will host a national forum on November 18 and 19 in order to expand on the TRC’s directives and develop a model for universities across Canada. The forum will take place in conjunction with Perry Bellegarde, the Assembly of First Nations Chief.

Since the release of the TRC report in June, pressure has particularly mounted on Canadian politicians to act on recommendations. Stephen Harper’s outgoing rightwing government is looked upon with malaise at best and hostility at worst by First Nations people, who according to Elections Canada showed up to the polls in record numbers on 19 October.

This trend was mirrored by the larger population, with more than 17 million Canadians casting a ballot, the highest voter turnout since 1993.

The Liberal Party lead by Justin Trudeau won 184 seats in Parliament, allowing them to form a majority government, and Trudeau will be sworn in as Prime Minister on 4 November.

But despite pledged support for First Nation peoples by the Liberal Party, Trudeau has to make good on campaign promises like $2.6 billion for on-reserve schooling and delivery of clean water within 5 years to all of the approximately 200 reserve communities in Canada.

In a letter sent to candidates by the indigenous-led organization Reconciliation Canada in the lead up to the election, the group asked candidates questions like “What steps will your party take to create a deeper understanding of the current realities of the residential school legacy for all Canadians?”

The Liberal Party responded with a stated commitment to making the history of the residential school system part of curricula in schools across the country, but the party stopped short of supporting a federal recognition of the schools as a means of cultural genocide.

Indigenous communities across Canada still have their hopes set high. Liberal Party politician and former regional chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Jody Wilson-Raybould said, “Our country needs to be dealing with these issues in a substantive way. They’re some of the most pressing issues we face. Mr. Trudeau recognizes that something needs to be done, that we need to take a huge step forward.”

Wilson-Raybould is a certainty in Trudeau’s cabinet and is expected to become the country’s first Aboriginal minister of Aboriginal Affairs when he is sworn in.

"There's a tremendous amount to do, but our approach is to do it in partnership and to embrace aboriginal people and support the successes that they've already accomplished,” stated Wilson-Raybould, “and what they can continue to accomplish in the future."