July 31, 2015 - Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action Begin Implementation

On July 31, 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its 94 Calls to Action after six years of testimony from over 6,000 survivors. You'll find these calls divided into two categories: Legacy (Calls 1–42) and Reconciliation (Calls 43–94). They cover everything from child welfare and language preservation to justice reform and public education. Canada accepted all 94 calls in December 2015—but understanding what's actually been achieved since then tells a very different story.

Key Takeaways

The TRC released its Final Report and 94 Calls to Action in 2015 after six years of testimony from over 6,000 survivors.
The 94 Calls to Action are divided into Legacy (1–42) and Reconciliation (43–94) categories addressing systemic colonial impacts.
Canada formally accepted all 94 Calls to Action in December 2015, signaling federal commitment to implementation.
The Calls target multiple sectors including healthcare, education, justice, language preservation, media, and sports for systemic reform.
The TRC's Final Report concluded residential school policies constituted cultural genocide within a broader colonial dispossession project.

What Triggered the TRC Calls to Action?

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action didn't emerge from thin air—they're the product of over a century of deliberate harm. Canada's residential school system forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families, suppressing languages, cultures, and rights across First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.

Residential activism in the 1980s transformed survivor pain into legal power. Survivors launched lawsuits against the government and churches, culminating in legal settlements that reshaped Canadian history. The 1996 Alberni Residential School case, resolved in 2005, helped trigger the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history—approximately $2 billion distributed among survivors.

That settlement mandated the TRC's creation, giving it authority to document the system's full scope. The Commission heard from over 6,000 survivors before releasing its Final Report and Calls to Action in 2015. The Calls to Action were directed at governments, schools, universities, the private sector, and individuals, reflecting the breadth of change required to address the lasting harms of the residential school system.

The Final Report situated residential schools within a broader colonial project aimed at the dispossession of land, culture, and identity, with the Commission ultimately concluding that these policies amounted to cultural genocide. Many organizations across the country have since published regular updates tracking the implementation of the Calls to Action, revealing both notable progress and significant gaps between public commitments and measurable legislative change.

The 94 Calls to Action: How They're Organized

Ninety-four Calls to Action form the TRC's blueprint for change, divided into two main categories: Legacy (Calls 1–42) and Reconciliation (Calls 43–94).

Legacy addresses the ongoing impacts of residential schools across child welfare, education, language preservation, health, and justice. It pushes you to recognize how these systems failed Indigenous peoples and demands measurable reform.

Reconciliation shifts your focus forward, covering public education, business practices, churches, law, media, and sports. It calls on you, your institutions, and your communities to build equitable relationships with Indigenous peoples. The sports and reconciliation calls specifically urge sports organizations to adopt anti-racism policies and to celebrate the contributions of Indigenous athletes in Canadian sport.

These calls aren't isolated checkboxes. They form an interconnected framework where cultural revitalization, justice reform, and corporate accountability reinforce one another. Together, they create a thorough roadmap demanding action at every level of Canadian society. The TRC's Final Report and 94 Calls to Action were released in 2015 following six years of testimony and thousands of hours of evidence gathered from Survivors across the country.

Among the Legacy calls, language preservation holds particular urgency, with the TRC calling for the enactment of an Aboriginal Languages Act and the appointment of an Aboriginal Languages Commissioner to promote Indigenous languages and report on the adequacy of federal funding.

Which Governments Lead Which Calls to Action?

Knowing how the 94 Calls to Action are organized is only half the picture — you also need to understand who's responsible for making them happen.

Federal leadership covers over 85% of the 76 Calls requiring federal sole or shared responsibility, with most completed or underway since 2015.

The federal government leads critical Calls like #25, #41, #43, and #44, while completing #53 through Bill C-29.

Provincial collaboration strengthens efforts on Calls like #30, targeting Aboriginal overrepresentation in custody, and #43-44, requiring all government levels to adopt the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous organizations, church bodies, and multiple government levels share responsibility across Legacy Calls 1-42 and Reconciliation Calls 43-94, ensuring no single party carries the full weight alone. Much like James Baldwin's seminal work, which predicted consequences of unaddressed injustice through prophetic and moral urgency, the Calls to Action warn of the costs of continued inaction on reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gathered testimonies from 6,500 Survivors and witnesses over six years before releasing the Final Report and 94 Calls to Action in 2015.

The Calls to Action span multiple sectors, including healthcare, media, and sports, reflecting the breadth of systemic change required for reconciliation across Canadian society.

What the Calls to Action Want to Change About the Justice System

When it comes to the justice system, the Calls to Action push for concrete structural reforms that address how Indigenous people are sentenced, disciplined, and rejected under Canadian law. They challenge systems that disproportionately imprison Indigenous people while offering little meaningful change.

Key reforms include:

Repealing Section 43, ending corporal punishment tied to residential school practices
Reforming Indigenous sentencing by letting judges depart from mandatory minimums
Eliminating restrictions on conditional sentences for Indigenous offenders
Funding community-based alternatives that address root causes of offending
Aligning legal reforms with the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples

You can see these aren't surface-level fixes. They're structural changes designed to dismantle inequity and replace incarceration-first approaches with justice that actually serves Indigenous communities. Research shows that incarceration correlates with higher re-arrest rates even after short stays, reinforcing why community-based alternatives are essential rather than optional. Just as Afghanistan's 1975 agreement recognized that reaching underserved regions required expanding infrastructure access, meaningful justice reform requires reaching communities long excluded from equitable systems. The United States offers a cautionary example, where the highest incarceration rate in the world has proven costly for families, communities, and state budgets without producing proportional gains in public safety.

How Much Progress Has the Federal Government Actually Made?

Progress on the Calls to Action depends heavily on who you ask. The federal government claims over 85% of its 76 relevant calls are completed or well underway, suggesting strong federal accountability and steady implementation timelines. But the Assembly of First Nations tells a different story.

Their September 2025 report card confirms only about 13 calls fully completed since 2015, with just two finished in the past five years and none in the 2024–2025 reporting year. Critics argue the government's numbers reflect box-ticking rather than meaningful change. With 2025 marking the TRC's 10th anniversary, Indigenous organizations are demanding far more than incremental progress—they're pushing for urgent, measurable action before another decade slips by. Among the most foundational demands is that Canada fully adopt and implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the overarching framework for reconciliation across all levels of government.

The State of TRC Reconciliation Calls: Gaps and Progress

While the federal government's self-reported progress sounds encouraging, the full picture of TRC implementation is far more uneven. Community healing remains incomplete, and policy timelines suggest you won't see full implementation until 2082.

Consider these critical realities:

Only 14 of 94 calls are fully completed since 2015
40% of justice-related calls remain stalled
Indigenous children still represent 52% of foster care
Incarceration rates remain 5 times higher than non-Indigenous rates
22 call categories show zero completed actions

You're witnessing a pattern where federal announcements outpace actual structural change. Progress exists in education and UNDRIP adoption, but systemic gaps in child welfare and justice reform reveal that reconciliation remains largely aspirational rather than realized. Despite Jordan's Principle approvals exceeding 813,000 requests since 2016, systemic barriers continue to prevent equitable access to essential services for Indigenous children and families. The government committed to full implementation of all 94 Calls to Action when Prime Minister Trudeau accepted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Final Report in December 2015, yet decades of evidence suggest that commitment has not translated into timely structural reform.