When I was a young boy, my grandfather, father and I travelled some distance from our home community to go fishing at a spot known only to my grandfather.

The year was 1939. The place, Vancouver. The occasion, England’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Canada. A year earlier, the Lion’s Gate Bridge, joining Stanley Park to West Vancouver, had opened. The King and Queen and their entourage were to drive over the bridge to “honour it.”

Read the TRC’s report to understand the devastating consequences of the IRS and the recommended Calls to Action.

I was eight or nine years old the day I just came out and asked my dad if there was something wrong with Indians. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me for a few seconds and then said, “Now why on earth would you ask that question?”

It’s time to face the harsh reality. Canada has a racism problem as great as our neighbour to the south.

The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change.

This is in response to one of the clarion calls from the TRC – that churches and mission groups engage in recognition, understanding, peer learning and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Indigenous people value land foremost. Land is identity. We are not defined by our jobs, but by the land. Find out on whose traditional land your home, church or school resides and begin to confront the place of privilege you enjoy as a result of these lands.

The following is the collective response of the Canadian Interfaith Conversation of which CBM is one of 39 participating faith communities and faith-based organizations.

As I write this, I’m sitting in my room in my community, Nadleh Whut’en First Nation, at my late Grandpa Alec George’s house. Growing up, I spent many summers here and weekends in the winter. Grandpa’s house was our house and we were always welcome.