Addressing Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Indigenous Peoples through Religious Literacy and Spirituality: Unexpected pathways to peace education

Abstract

In 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) documented 94 calls-to-action in relation to the institutional and debilitating legacy of the Indian Residential School System towards Indigenous culture, language, identity, and knowledge in order to actualize reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and Canada. In it, Justice Murray Sinclair explained that education caused much of the problem but is also part of the solution. Concurrently, the Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC) updated its policy on preventing discrimination based on creed that includes religious and non-religious systems that influence a person’s identity, worldview, and lifestyle. In accordance, drawing on a framework of peace education, we present religious literacy and spirituality as pedagogy as potential responses to concerns raised by the TRC and OHRC, and as a means to inform and dialogue about Indigenous cultures and spirituality that have been silenced from public education for centuries. Thus, we reflect on further opportunities towards reconciliation and pathways to peace education in Ontario.