Governor General David Johnston and Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be at Rideau Hall Wednesday as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission comes to its ceremonial close.
CBCNews.ca will carry the final events live at 12 p.m. ET.
The commission has hosted events over the past four days centred around the release of Tuesday’s landmark residential schools report — the work of six years and more than 6,000 interviews with witnesses.
It made 94 recommendations, including drafting new and revised legislation for education, child welfare and aboriginal languages and the implementation of the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Wednesday’s closing ceremonies at Rideau Hall include the planting of a heart garden, meant to symbolize the start of a reconciliation process. The hearts will be planted by children from the Ottawa area.
Former Northwest Territories premier Stephen Kakfwi, a residential school survivor, holds his granddaughter Sadeya Kakfwi-Scott while listening to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings on Tuesday. The commission wraps up Wednesday with a ceremonial closing at Rideau Hall. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The garden ceremony will follow a more formal event inside Rideau Hall, involving the governor general, prime minister, the three commissioners and residential school survivors.
Other political party leaders and dignitaries will also attend.
Harper is not expected to speak during Wednesday’s event.
Will action follow words?
Harper met with the commissioners at a closed door meeting on Tuesday. In a written statement about the meeting, Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair, said he was worried the government would not act on some of the report’s recommendations.
“He was open to listening to some of our concerns and inquired about some of our recommendations,” he said.
“I remain concerned with the Government’s resistance to the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.”
The report called on the government’s implementation of the declaration as the “framework for reconciliation.”
In Tuesday’s Question Period, Harper said he would not yet commit to any of the report’s recommendations.
