Resolution No 96/2018 – Support for TRC Call to Action #79 (iii)

1. Direct the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) to support the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Call to Action #79 (iii) – a national heritage strategy to commemorate all Residential School sites.
2. Direct the AFN to support the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) bringing forward a survivor and community focused submission to the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board (NHSMB) calling for Canada to officially designate all Residential Schools sites as National Historical Sites.
3. Direct the AFN to support the NCTR making a submission to the NHSMB based on the following principles:
   • communities be in control of any monuments erected on the sites of residential schools
   • communities have full agency over determining the scope, form and content of any monuments including having agency to decline a monument
   • communities be empowered to develop community narratives supportive of this work in accordance with TRC Call to Action #78, which calls upon the Government of Canada to commit to making a funding contribution of $10 million over 7 years to the NCTR, plus an additional amount to assist communities to research and produce histories of their own Residential Schools experience and their involvement in truth, healing, and reconciliation
   • there is an ongoing need to honour and acknowledge the children that never returned home from the schools
   • there remains the continued existence of hundreds of unmarked burial sites associated with Residential School sites
4. Direct the AFN to call upon the National Historical Sites and Monuments Board to recognize Residential School sites as national historic sites.
5. Direct the AFN to call upon the Government of Canada to encourage the NCTR to develop a fulsome response and plan for responding to TRC Calls to Action #72-76 and the realization of community narratives outlined in Call to Action #78.