“In December 2016, the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples (the Committee) agreed to undertake an ambitious three-part study to identify concrete steps that the
federal government could take to move towards a new relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. For more than 150 years, Canadian policies and legislation attempted to
control Indigenous Peoples and decimate their cultures, ways of life and governance structures. The intergenerational legacy of these policies continues to have long-lasting impacts on the lives of Indigenous Peoples, families and communities, and has led to
significant gaps in wellbeing between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples.
Understanding this history is important to avoid making the same mistakes, and to provide us with an opportunity to chart a path for a more equitable relationship in the future. For these reasons, the Committee believed that it was necessary to begin the first phase of the study by exploring the past. This interim report provides a non-exhaustive account of the history of the relationship between First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples and Canada based primarily on witness testimony from a diverse group of over 50 witnesses.”