Truth and Reconciliation Commission Gives Municipalities the Opportunity to Defy their Status as "Creatures of the Province"

Abstract

This paper analyses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) inclusion, or lack thereof, of Municipalities as a critical power structure in the process of decolonization and resurgence across settler-colonial Canada. The TRC only called upon Municipalities five times, suggesting that they have little importance to the process. This indicates that it is up to the Federal and Provincial governments to address the calls to action, to which they would only be able to apply a top-down and “one size fits all” approach. This approach is insufficient because many diverse subgroups of Indigenous people live across Canada. So, who will effectively help develop policies, resources, and urban planning for the local Indigenous communities? That would have to be municipalities, unlike what the TRC is suggesting. Municipalities are more capable of providing a grass-roots approach to urban planning and policymaking when addressing the calls to action, something the other levels of government can not do, therefore, defying the ideology of being known as “Creatures of the Province” and signifying their importance to the process. Throughout this paper, I identify how municipalities can effectively take on the calls to action by recognizing and including the unique Indigenous identities within urban spaces, a requirement in accomplishing true reconciliation, decolonization, and Indigenous resurgence.