Reconciliation

• This initiative is designed to launch more than 6,000 job-seekers across Canada into meaningful careers in tech.
• NPower Canada announces the continued co-investment of DIGITAL, Microsoft and the CIBC Foundation, of $2 million.
• To date, the CTTA has enabled over 3,300 diverse job-seekers to enroll in NPower Canada's workforce development program nationwide, with an impressive 80% of program graduates securing meaningful and sustainable employment within six months.
• - Sandy Sharman, Group Head, People, Culture and Brand, CIBC, and Co-Chair, CIBC Foundation.

• Under the leadership of the KHP Indigenous Advisory Council , the Kids Help Phone Indigenous Initiatives team will implement the 2023-2026 Finding Hope Action Plan.
• Through focused outreach strategies, Kids Help Phone will expand trust and public awareness of its services among Indigenous communities.
• In 2019, KHP developed its first action plan to support Inuit, First Nations and Métis young people.
• On average, 89 per cent of young Indigenous people say their conversation with Kids Help Phone was helpful.

• The Government of Saskatchewan announced its revised framework for consultation with First Nation and Métis communities in August 2023.
• This framework sets out the provincial government’s latest approach to fulfilling its constitutional duty to consult and accommodate Indigenous Peoples.
• Some Canadian jurisdictions are making efforts to break away from colonial mentalities by developing policies in true partnership with Indigenous Peoples.

Sticking with the status quo

• Timelines have been tweaked, a new chart has been added and a central role for the Ministry of Government Relations has been clarified.
• Yet stepping back from the minutiae, the provincial government’s approach to Indigenous consultation largely preserves the status quo — a standard that is out-of-step with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and broader trends in Canadian and international law.
• It also fails to acknowledge or make any concessions to the distinct perspectives of the Indigenous Peoples of this land.

Leaving it up to the courts

• But the framework purports to serve a more ambitious goal: facilitating “mutually beneficial relationships” with Indigenous Peoples.
• Case law and legal precedent reflect specific disputes based on the specific facts that give rise to them.
• When it comes to the duty to consult and accommodate, the courts define the minimum legal standards within which other branches of government must operate.
• Courts cannot and will not design the laws and policies that are required for a positive, just political relationship.
• It is up to the federal and provincial governments to work with Indigenous Peoples to build a harmonious relationship or miyo-wîcêhtowin.

Implementing UNDRIP

• The case law it relies on shifts and the policy itself can be challenged before the courts.
• For example, the Métis Nation—Saskatchewan is actively challenging the policy’s restriction against consultation on Aboriginal title claims.
• Saskatchewan can follow B.C.’s lead by negotiating nation-specific, consent-based processes in line with UNDRIP.
• UNDRIP reflects key principles of customary international law, which are directly binding in Canadian courts and therefore highly relevant to Canadian policymaking.

• OTTAWA, ON, Sept. 30, 2023 /CNW/ - The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a time to reflect.
• In ways both big and small, Canadians are making reconciliation a part of their daily lives.
• Learn from the mistakes of the past, and build relationships based on respect and understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.
• On this day and every day, let us commit to action that will further our collective journey of reconciliation.