Report urges education funding, healing

Better funding for education and healing between Indian and non-Indian Canadians was among the recommendations in a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. The recommendations come from the commission's Canada-wide tour to investigate human-rights abuses in the Canadian Indian residential school system. Among the 20 recommendations in the report released Friday, the commission said federal, provincial and territorial governments should support healing by establishing and providing resources for centers that specialize in childhood trauma, long-term grief and culturally appropriate treatment, Postmedia News reported. It also recommended the Canadian government and churches set up a revival fund to help finance projects promoting the sharing and relearning of traditional knowledge that has been lost. The commission also recommended the government restore funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, a non-profit group that provides initiatives to address the legacy of the residential school system, Postmedia News said. The federal government discontinued funding in 2010. Reconciliation, the report said, means the damaged relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians must be repaired. "Canadians have generally been led to believe -- by what has been taught and not taught in schools -- that aboriginal people were and are uncivilized, primitive, and inferior, and continue to need to be civilized," the report said.