Out of the 94 Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, #17 stood out to me the most.
“We call upon all levels of government to enable residential school survivors and their families to reclaim names changed by the residential school system by waiving administrative costs for a period of five years for the name-change process and the revision of official identity documents, such as birth certificates, passports, driver’s licences, health cards, status cards, and social insurance numbers.”
Personally, I had always known of the horrific reality of residential schools on the indigenous population. However, I did not realize that the consequences of residential schools were still so strongly effecting indigenous peoples. The erasure of ones name is a denial of ones identity, and I am quite dumbfounded that they still have to fight to reclaim their identities that were stripped through residential schooling.
As a biracial/multiracial (whatever denomination I fall in) person, I can only truly see this from my own lens of multitudes of identity issues. I can only imagine how it would feel to know your own history but having it be actively denied.
As of January 2020, only Ontario, the North West Territories, and Nova Scotia have to waive fees for name changes and identity documents of those who were affected by residential schooling. Even though these steps in the right direction, I feel that it is not good enough as this is an issue that should have been resolved ubiquitously and unanimously a long time ago.
My goal with this project is to raise awareness of the erasure of indigenous names (and possibly language if I can fit that in there) to people like me. People who are aware that indigenous problems exist but not quite realizing the severity and how, in my opinion, poorly it is being handled.
Research Links
- https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1524495846286/1557513199083
- https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2019/12/17/calls-to-action-accountability-a-status-update-on-reconciliation/
- https://ualbertalaw.typepad.com/faculty/2020/10/reclaiming-our-names-trc-call-to-action-17.html
- https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/assault-on-residential-school-students-identities-began-the-moment-they-stepped-inside
- https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-single/beyond-94?&cta=17