The Canadian Business Owner’s Guide to Reconciliation

Alison Tedford Seaweed

Description

Reconciliation is for businesses, too.
From colonization through the Indian Act and residential schools, there is a lot of complicated history in the country we now call Canada. Between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people there is a disconnect, a fractured relationship we now need to make right. But what does Reconciliation mean, and specifically what does it mean for businesses?
'The Canadian Business Owner’s Guide to Reconciliation' is about how our history affects the present, and how we need to deal with the past so we can move into the future together. It’s about creating opportunities to include Indigenous voices in business, education around Indigenous history and best practices for businesses, and how we can reverse some of the unfair and unsustainable practices to create a better, more inclusive climate.
Author Alison Tedford brings her experience working with government, business, and nonprofits on Indigenous issues including reconciliation over the past two decades to this book.
If you're in business in Canada, you need to know how you can participate in reconciliation and transforming relations for a brighter future.
PREFACE vii
1 RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL ISSUES, YESTERDAY AND TODAY 1
An Overview of Why Residential Schools Were So Problematic 1
Apologies: Who Said Sorry and What Was Said 3
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission 6
Orange Shirt Day 7
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation 8
The 215 of Kamloops and Beyond 11
2 WHAT DOES RECONCILIATION MEAN? 14
Indigenous Perspectives 15
Government Perspective 16
More Community Perspectives 21
Reconciliation in Business: TRC Call to Action 92 22
Yoga Businesses Stretching toward Reconciliation 26
3 CREATING INDIGENOUS OPPORTUNITY 31
Looking Inward before Looking Outward 31
Learning to Think About Learning Differently 32
Broadening Your Horizons 33
Eliminating Systemic Barriers 34
Ripple Effects of Reconciliation 38
4 REAPING THE LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS 41
What Does Meaningful Engagement Look Like? 42
Be prepared 42
Do the heart work 42
Understand the history of colonization 43
Come in with the right attitude 43
5 BRIDGING KNOWLEDGE GAPS 47
Talking and Learning about Reconciliation 47
Besides talking to people, where to learn? 48
Soft Skills and Hard Conversations 49
Building intercultural competency 49
Training for conflict resolution 49
Educating your team on human rights 50
Anti-racism for the workplace 50
Values-Based Leadership toward Reconciliation 51
6 COMMUNICATING ABOUT AND WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE 54
Lack of or Poor Quality Representation 54
Misrepresentation 55
Exclusion 56
Residential school issues 57
Caring for Your Invited Guests 58
Trying to Use the Right Words 59
Planning for internal and external conversations about gravesite confirmations 60
Supporting Your Indigenous Staff in the Workplace 61
Addressing Denialism in the Workplace 62
7 REIMAGINING THE WORKPLACE WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN MIND 64
Resilience and Resistance 64
Decolonizing Wellness 65
Food for Thought 66
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 67
Bullying in the Workplace 69
Questions of Identity 70
On Going through the Motions and Being Performative 73
CONCLUSION: YOUR CALL TO ACTION 76
Where Do We Go from Here? 77
DOWNLOAD KIT 78

Sujets

• Indigenous Studies
• Workplace Culture
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Self-Counsel Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770405387
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Canadian Business Owner’s Guide to Reconciliation
Best practices for Indigenous inclusion
Alison Tedford Seaweed
Self-Counsel Press (a division of) International Self-Counsel Press Ltd. USA Canada

Copyright © 2023

International Self-Counsel Press All rights reserved.
Contents

Cover

Title Page

Preface

CHAPTER 1: Residential School Issues, Yesterday and Today

An Overview of Why Residential Schools Were So Problematic

Apologies: Who Said Sorry and What Was Said

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Orange Shirt Day

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

The 215 of Kamloops and Beyond

CHAPTER 2: What Does Reconciliation Mean?

Indigenous Perspectives

Government Perspective

More Community Perspectives

Reconciliation in Business: TRC Call to Action 92

Yoga Businesses Stretching toward Reconciliation

CHAPTER 3: Creating Indigenous Opportunity

Looking Inward before Looking Outward

Learning to Think About Learning Differently

Broadening Your Horizons

Eliminating Systemic Barriers

Ripple Effects of Reconciliation

CHAPTER 4: Reaping the Long-Term Sustainable Benefits of Economic Development Projects

What Does Meaningful Engagement Look Like?

CHAPTER 5: Bridging Knowledge Gaps

Talking and Learning about Reconciliation

Soft Skills and Hard Conversations

Values-Based Leadership toward Reconciliation

CHAPTER 6: Communicating About and with Indigenous People

Lack of or Poor Quality Representation

Misrepresentation

Exclusion

Caring for Your Invited Guests

Trying to Use the Right Words

Supporting Your Indigenous Staff in the Workplace

Addressing Denialism in the Workplace

CHAPTER 7: Reimagining the Workplace with Indigenous People in Mind

Resilience and Resistance

Decolonizing Wellness

Food for Thought

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Bullying in the Workplace

Questions of Identity

On Going through the Motions and Being Performative

Conclusion: Your Call to Action

Download Kit

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Notice to Readers

Self-Counsel Press thanks you for purchasing this ebook.
Preface

How This Book Came to Be, Why It’s Needed, and Why It’s Needed Now
I remember the day that the announcement came about the unmarked gravesites that were confirmed on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. I remember the crushing devastation I felt thinking about those kids. The idea of even one dead child is sad enough, let alone 215 of them. I thought about my grandpa who attended St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay, BC.
Soon after, business owners started to ask me questions about what they should do next. They asked because residential schools were something I had talked a lot about in personal essays and media interviews. They wanted to do the right thing but they didn’t know how. They didn’t want to leave things unacknowledged, but they didn’t know what to say. They wanted to help, but they weren’t sure what was the best way.
As for me, I first learned about residential schools in grade ten. It was in social studies and it was presented as if it was historical as part of social studies. It was 1998 and the last school had just closed two years prior. I didn’t hear about residential schools from my grandfather and I wasn’t raised in community to hear survivor stories.
My first official job with the Canadian government was with Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada in downtown Vancouver. There were a little over a dozen of us, plus many contracted researchers, who were charged with representing Canada in resolving residential school claims. I did administrative work, but some of that included recording the causes of action for each claim into the computer system, and categorizing damages, while feeling overwhelmed.
I worked with kind, smart, compassionate people who genuinely cared about residential school survivors and their families and about ensuring claims were handled fairly. By the time I left, the number of my colleagues had grown by eight times. I bought a house in Mission, got married, and transferred to Correctional Services of Canada. In my new organization I interacted with residential school survivors on a regular basis: inmates, contractors, elders, and staff members.
I didn’t grasp the full gravity of residential schools until I sent my own son to school for the first time, knowing he would be coming home and so many other Indigenous kids did not. It hit harder when he learned about residential schools in school, the sound of his voice wavering with incredulity, “They would have taken me away from you?” Imagining what that would have been like eviscerated my maternal heart.
I left government service for health reasons and moved into the private sector, working in marketing, and I thought I would have a general practice, write some sales pages, and help some people build their brands. I was pretty sure Indigenous services were behind me and I would walk in that world as an Indigenous business owner but not work on those subjects that haunted my heart. That’s not what happened though. I found myself taking on projects in the film, higher education, and banking industries that included creating content about the social history of Indigenous people, with a strong emphasis on residential schools. Some of my clients have been survivors.
In my freelance writing life, I wrote personal essays about the impacts of residential schools on my family and on Indigenous people generally. I interviewed many Indigenous people for articles and many shared stories of the impact of residential schools on their families. I have been entrusted with so many stories and that’s why business owners have trusted me to answer their questions. This book is intended to answer business owners’ questions around what happened, how to talk about it, and how they can be part of Reconciliation.
What Is Reconciliation?
It’s something this book will dig into, but Reconciliation is a process of repairing relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. It’s something that is often discussed in terms of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a body that provided opportunity for survivors of the residential school system to tell their stories, an investigation of what happened that resulted in volumes of reports and calls to action to chart a path forward to heal. That said, Reconciliation is about more than residential schools because there is more than that to heal from. It’s also about honouring treaties; resolving questions of land, rights, and resources (earthly gifts); and correcting ongoing injustices that harm Indigenous people, such as the Indian Act .
The reality is that Kamloops Indian Residential School is one of more than a 100 schools and confirmations of gravesites will be continuing over many years. Looking across the border, the United States operated a similar system and is just beginning their process to investigate what happened and locate their gravesites. They had significantly more similar schools, hundreds of them.
These stories will continue to appear in our news cycles and people will continue to talk about and be impacted by them. It’s time to learn about this so you can be prepared for the conversations that are coming and feel ready to take action, should you feel so moved (and I hope you do).
Residential schools are one piece of a bigger puzzle that reveals a complicated and difficult relationship between what we now call Canada and Indigenous people. It is important to understand what happened in context and what we can do about it now.
There are many schools of thought on these issues and many opinions on what should happen next. This book came from a collection of conversations, a professional career of learning, and a broken heart that has been contemplating the pain of survivors and those who never made it home. It’s also come from learning of the things that happened to my community, things I’m understanding more about every day as I learn more about where and who I come from.
You will notice that there are a number of statements included from the government and that is by design as so much of a relationship is based on what we say to each other, how we respond, and what we do about it. I include these words to give context to the relationship between the Crown and Indigenous people so that there is greater understanding of the interactions.
I hope this helps you on your journey toward Reconciliation in your life and your business.
Gilakas’la (thank you and welcome, in Kwak’wala).
CHAPTER 1
Residential School Issues, Yesterday and Today


An Overview of Why Residential Schools Were So Problematic
Within the residential schools’ active time period, starting in the 1880s and right up until 1997, Indigenous children attended residential schools. There were 129 schools in Canada, they operated in nearly all provinces, and reports estimated at least 4,100 children died. The legal requirement to attend was enforced by the police.
Parents of children who did not attend faced consequences. The pass system — a system whereby First Nations people were required to get permission to leave the reserve — kept parents of residential schools from visiting their children as frequently as they would have liked.
For generations, Indigenous kids attended residential schools. There was physical and sexual abuse. There was hunger. Siblings were separated and not allowed to talk. They were indoctrinated against their cultural practices and not allowed to speak their language. The schools were poorly funded, poorly maintained, and were hotbeds for diseases such as measles, influenza, and tuberculosis.
Children were experimented on and used as child labour. In one school, there was even an elect