Reconciliation, Foreign Policy, and Global Affairs Canada: A Mismatch Between Rhetoric and Practice in GAC’s Action Plan on Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples

Following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 2015 report and 94 calls to action, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) published an Action Plan on Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, 2021–2022. Consisting of 24 actions, this Plan seeks to guide GAC’s efforts in advancing the rights, perspectives, and prosperity of Indigenous peoples in Canada and globally. While laudable in its intent, this chapter argues that the Plan’s change in language has not necessarily led to the policy and structural shifts that proponents of reconciliation have envisioned in contributing to the peacebuilding project. We identify two key issues with the Action Plan that work against its stated goals of reconciliation and renewed relationships. First, GAC uses the language of reconciliation to ultimately focus on a strategy of increased Indigenous inclusion. This reflects an attempt to accommodate Indigenous peoples into an existing structure, which was established by imperial assumptions about Indigenous-Canada political relationships, rather than working to transform its foundations. Second, the manner in which Indigenous peoples are included or accommodated in this structure are largely determined by GAC not by Indigenous peoples, or as two equal parties entering into a political partnership. Thus, despite its reconciliatory rhetoric, we contend that this document will not change the structure of GAC, and, as a result, largely fails in its goals of achieving a renewed and reconciled relationship with Indigenous nations. To truly speak of partnership and advancement of Indigenous rights, we conclude that GAC—and more generally Canada—would need to commit to the challenging, albeit necessary, task of reshaping Canadian public institutions’ structures and relationships in accordance with self-determination and nation-to-nation engagement rooted in treaty principles.