Museums and archives
Learn how the Government of Canada is responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action 67 to 70.
Based on data provided March 2023.
- Call to action 69 is based on data provided April 2024.
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.
What's happening?
Background
Canadian Heritage has provided funding to the Canadian Museums Association to support the implementation of Call to Action 67.
Recent budget
The Canadian Museums Association was provided a contribution of $680,948 for this multi-year project beginning in 2019.
Recent progress
With this funding, the Canadian Museums Association worked in collaboration with Indigenous peoples on 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
- make recommendations
The final report and recommendations: Moved to Action: Report and Standards on Activating UNDRIP in Canadian Museums was published on September 27, 2022.
Next steps
With the publication of the report, Call to Action 67 is complete.
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.
What's happening?
Through the Canada 150 Fund, over $3.6 million was invested in 5 signature projects that include a strong focus on Indigenous communities, including 2 that are specifically designed to promote reconciliation amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada:
- Reconciliation Canada events to discuss reconciliation and explore perceptions and actions across Canada
- Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum for youth in Nunavut to create community video montages in a multi-language exhibition
- 4Rs Youth Movement for national and local gatherings to reach Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth
- Indspire for a cross-Canada speaking tour to celebrate achievements of exceptional Indigenous youth
- Music Yukon for a pan-territorial celebration that brought together artists and athletes in workshops and performances
In addition, $28.6 million has been invested in 248 community projects that contribute to celebrating Indigenous communities or reconciliation amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada.
The Canada 150 fund is now closed.
69. We call upon Library and Archives Canada to:
- 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.
- Ensure that its record holdings related to residential schools are accessible to the public.
- Commit more resources to its public education materials and programming on residential schools.
What's happening?
In 2018, Library and Archives Canada convened an Indigenous Advisory Circle to advise the institution on various actions, protocols and projects, and the implementation of Indigenous documentary heritage initiatives. With new funding received in 2021, a second iteration of the Indigenous Advisory Circle has been established.
In April 2019, Library and Archives Canada launched the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan, a 5 year plan guided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action. Library and Archives Canada's plan was developed in consultation with the Indigenous Advisory Circle.
As stated in the principles and purpose section of its plan, Library and Archives Canada commits to respecting the rights defined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles:
- This includes International Indigenous rights, as defined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a declaration to which the Government of Canada is fully committed. Library and Archives Canada has an important role to play in ensuring Indigenous rights to culture and language preservation, and in managing information relating to Indigenous peoples.
- International rights extend to include victims and survivors of human rights violations, as set out by the United Nations Joinet-Orentlicher Principles. Through the preservation of information documenting human rights abuses, such as those that took place within the residential school system, Library and Archives Canada supports Indigenous peoples' "inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why."
The plan has 28 concrete actions that Library and Archives Canada will undertake between 2019 and 2024. Library and Archives Canada reports publicly on implementation of the plan through the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan Implementation Progress Report. A final report will be provided in 2024 to 2025.
In addition, Library and Archives Canada developed two Indigenous documentary heritage initiatives in 2017 that support the preservation and revitalization of Indigenous languages and culture in Canada: We Are Here: Sharing Stories and Listen, Hear Our Voices. These initiatives were renewed in 2021 for a duration of 3 years, and were subsequently reprofiled to 2025.
We Are Here: Sharing Stories
This initiative aims for the mass digitization, preservation, description, and appropriate access of records reflecting the history and experience, languages, and cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis in the collections at Library and Archives Canada.
Library and Archives Canada digitizes these records through consultations with Indigenous communities, and with relevant organizations such as the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
Listen, Hear Our Voices
This initiative is a funding program to support First Nations, Inuit, and Métis governments and organizations in digitizing their existing language and culture materials and building the skills, knowledge and resources required to carry out this work for their communities.
This is not an acquisition project and does not involve the transfer of any ownership, copyright or intellectual property to Library and Archives Canada. All rights remain with the Indigenous communities.
Recent budget investments
Library and Archives Canada received $14.9 million over four years, beginning in 2021 and ending in 2025, to fund the projects Listen, Hear Our Voices and We Are Here: Sharing Stories, and support access to First Nations, Inuit and Métis documentary heritage. Library and Archives Canada established its Indigenous Initiatives Division to continue the these initiatives and to ensure that they are led by Indigenous staff and are advised by its Indigenous Advisory Circle.
In its first 3 years of supporting community projects through the Listen, Hear Our Voices funding program, Library and Archives Canada provided:
- $2.3 million to 31 organizations in 2019 to 2020
- $739,000 to 19 organizations in 2020 to 2021
Library and Archives Canada will provide another $2.3 million from 2022 to 2025 to support community projects through the Listen, Hear Our Voices funding program.
Library and Archives Canada has received $25 million over three years through Budget 2022 to digitize and describe six million pages of records related to the Federal Indian Day School system. Through enhanced description and increased discoverability, this project seeks to ensure that survivors and Indigenous communities have improved access to the historical records that provide a source of truth for Canada's collective effort of reconciliation.
Recent progress
In 2021, a working group developed an initial draft of cultural guidelines to inform Library and Archives Canada's day-to-day actions and substantive directions. The document, entitled "Indigenous Initiatives Recommendations: Submitted by the Indigenous Cultural Guidelines Working Group and the Indigenous Initiatives Division" was presented to the Indigenous Advisory Circle in 2024 and will form part of the review of the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan.
Since 2019, Library and Archives Canada has been working with Indigenous librarians and Knowledge Keepers to amend the language used to describe First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation published heritage material.
The We Are Here: Sharing Stories initiative digitized and described Indigenous heritage content including over 590,000 images of archival and published materials related to First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation during the first phase of the project. With its most recent funding, the project's goal during the second phase was to digitize a further 450,000 images by 2024. The Initiative has surpassed this goal, digitizing 521,129 images as of the end of 2023 to 2024. We Are Here: Sharing Stories has increased digital access to the collection through online resources like Collection Search, enhanced records descriptions and coordinated transfers to specific Indigenous organizations and projects. It has uploaded 64,894 images to Library and Archives Canada's website in its second phase.
The Listen, Hear Our Voices initiative issued its fifth call in fall 2023 to identify projects that Library and Archives Canada can fund to support community-level digitization and preservation by First Nations, Inuit and Métis organizations. The applications are reviewed with advice and guidance from an external committee of First Nations, Inuit and Métis professionals with expertise in documentary heritage, language revitalization, digitization, and cultural expression. In 2023, the initiative received 64 applications and Library and Archives Canada was able to support 28 projects totaling $1.8 million in the fiscal year of 2023 to 2024.
The Indigenous Initiatives Division has worked to raise awareness among Library and Archives Canada archivists and librarians to find new ways of working that are more aligned with reconciliation and decolonization. For example, We Are Here: Sharing Stories organized and delivered a workshop that included decolonizing archival practices within the institution.
As part of Library and Archives Canada's fulfillment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action 69, subsections ii and iii, the Web and Social Media Preservation Program curated the following:
- In August 2023, Library and Archives Canada re-launched the Government of Canada Web Archive (GCWA), our public facing discovery and access portal for preserved web resources. For the launch, Library and Archives Canada moved the Truth and Reconciliation Web Archive collection into the GCWA, which provided considerable improvements in curation, discovery by topic, and added powerful full text search.
- While curating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collections, the program at Library and Archives Canada put added effort into documenting Indigenous cultural and historical events across Canada. This included the acquisition of Indigenous-owned web-based media, as well as the national media with respect to recent discoveries at Residential Schools. Together these Indigenous collections, independent of those for the TRC and MMIWG, comprise an additional 89 million assets and approximately two terabytes of data. These collections will be made available to the public on the Government of Canada Web Archive.
Next steps
We Are Here: Sharing Stories and Listen, Hear Our Voices are in their final year of operations. Thirteen projects from the fourth cycle of Listen, Hear Our Voices will continue and complete their work by summer 2024. In Spring 2024, applicants to the fifth funding call will be notified of the results and those selected will complete their projects within the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year. We Are Here: Sharing Stories will develop, in consultation with external Indigenous communities and experts, policy instruments to inform Library and Archives Canada activities on an ongoing basis for such considerations as digital access to sensitive Indigenous records and other issues.
The Day Schools Project is also underway. The process of digitizing records relating to the Federal Indian Day School System and its legacy as well as production of enhanced descriptions for these records has begun.
Library and Archives Canada will continue to report on progress publicly and periodically on Call to Action 69, through the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan Implementation Progress Report.
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:
- 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.
- Produce a report with recommendations for full implementation of these international mechanisms as a reconciliation framework for Canadian archives.
What's happening?
Library and Archives Canada is collaborating with the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives in fulfilling the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action 70.
In September 2015, the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives established the Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce with a mandate to address Call to Action 70. The taskforce is comprised of representatives from the archival community and Indigenous communities and organizations from across Canada.
The taskforce conducted an extensive review of archival policies and best practices, identifying potential barriers to reconciliation efforts between the Canadian archival community and Indigenous record keepers.
The taskforce then worked in collaboration with Indigenous communities, heritage professionals and organizations across Canada to develop an actionable response to this research, which will serve as the foundation for a reconciliation framework for Canadian archives.
To find out more on the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives response consult the Response to the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce.
Recent progress
In July 2020, the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives released the report required by Call to Action 70, subsection ii, under the title A Reconciliation Framework for Canadian Archives (PDF), for public consultation. Through the remainder of 2020 and in 2021, the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives worked to review the feedback received through public consultation and to refine the report to reflect this input.
The committee released its final report, the reconciliation framework, in February 2022. On March 10, 2022, the Board of Directors of the Association of Canadian Archivists voted unanimously to endorse the report.
Next steps
With A Reconciliation Framework for Canadian Archives published, this call to action is now completed.
Library and Archives Canada will continue to collaborate with the Steering Committee on Canada's Archives for the circulation and implementation of the reconciliation framework elements throughout the Canadian archival community.