Summary:
Legislation to create the National Council for Reconciliation was tabled in June 2022. Funding was pledged to establish the council in the 2020-21 fiscal year but it was not multi-year.
The Call to Action:
We call upon the Government of Canada to provide multi-year funding for the National Council for Reconciliation to ensure that it has the financial, human and technical resources required to conduct its work, including the endowment of a National Reconciliation Trust to advance the cause of reconciliation.
Analysis:
The 2019 federal budget pledged to provide $126.5 million in 2020–21 to establish the National Council for Reconciliation and endow it with initial operating capital.
Legislation to create the National Council for Reconciliation was tabled in June 2022.
But the funding pledged in 2019 is not multi-year. The funding is also less than the $1 billion endowment fund recommended in a 2018 report by a government-appointed interim board of directors.
In June 2018, the interim board presented its final report to then-minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Caro lynBennett in which it laid out its proposed model for the National Council for Reconciliation. It called for an initial five years of funding and the creation of a National Reconciliation Endowment Fund in the amount of $1 billion to provide ongoing operational funds, and not a trust.
The report said “While Call to Action 54 recommends the creation of a trust, we believe this structure is not necessary to ensure the capital is properly managed. The NCR would be held publicly accountable for the National Reconciliation Endowment Fund by reporting on the fund’s performance and an accounting of its expenditures in the annual report to Parliament. The establishment of a trust would add an unnecessary layer to the legal structure that would require its own separate governance and could hinder efficient operations of the NCR.”