Indigenous Studies

Theme Four of the MSVU Strategic Plan is Truth and Reconciliation.

MSVU is committed to Truth and Reconciliation and to promoting Indigenous world views in the work of the institution. A focus on women and girls is critically important to this work.

Objectives

• Ensure our policies, practices and procedures align with the principles of Truth and Reconciliation.
• Recruit and retain Indigenous faculty, staff and students and provide a welcoming, supportive and safe campus environment for Indigenous peoples.
• Be a national leader in providing education and awareness about Truth and Reconciliation, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, 2SLGBTQIA+, and about the issues and root causes of the violence they experience

Visit the Indigenous Initiatives at MSVU website for comprehensive information and links to resources. 

67. We call upon the federal government to provide funding to the Canadian Museums Association to undertake, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, a national review of museum policies and best practices to determine the level of compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to make recommendations.

68. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, and the Canadian Museums Association to mark the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation in 2017 by establishing a dedicated national funding program for commemoration projects on the theme of reconciliation.

69. We call upon Library and Archives Canada to:

i. Fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles, as related to Aboriginal peoples’ inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why, with regard to human rights violations committed against them in the residential schools.

ii. Ensure that its record holdings related to residential schools are accessible to the public.

iii. Commit more resources to its public education materials and programming on residential schools.

70. We call upon the federal government to provide funding to the Canadian Association of Archivists to undertake, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, a national review of archival policies and best practices to:

i. Determine the level of compliance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles, as related to Aboriginal peoples’ inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why, with regard to human rights violations committed against them in the residential schools.

ii. Produce a report with recommendations for full implementation of these international mechanisms as a reconciliation framework for Canadian archives.