PVTA

Our Saskatoon Public Schools community was saddened to learn of Murray Sinclair’s passing. Murray Sinclair's accomplishments were many. A large part of his legacy is his time spent as Chair of the Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. The Commission produced the Truth and Reconciliation 94 Calls to Action—widely regarded as the blueprint for reconciliation in Canada. Today we pay our respects to the Honourable Murray Sinclair and his contributions to healing our country and bringing its people together. “It was the educational system that has contributed to this problem in this country. And it is the educational system, we believe, that is going to help us to get away from this. We need to look at the way we educate children, we need to look at the way we educate ourselves, we need to look at what it is our textbooks say about Aboriginal people. We need to look at what it is that Aboriginal people themselves are allowed to say within the educational system about their own histories.” “We cannot look for quick and easy solutions (to reconciliation) because there are none … If we can agree on what the relationship needs to look like in the future, then what we need to think about is what can we do today that will contribute to that objective. Reconciliation will be about ensuring everything that we do today is aimed at that high standard of restoring that balance to (the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in this country).” —Hon. Murray Sinclair