Recognition and tangible actions

Steps toward historical reconciliation

Here are some of the actions the city has taken in recent years:

2017

• June: Inauguration of the Tiohtià:ke Otsirà’kéhne park on the Sommet d’Outremont in the Parc du Mont-Royal.
• August: City council unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as its guide to reconciliation.
• September: Celebration of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

2018

• February: First Commissioner of Indigenous Relations, Marie-Ève Bordeleau, Esq., appointed.
• May: Consultations on Montréal’s strategy for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples began.

2019

• June: Online training about the history of residential schools and Indigenous peoples in Canada offered to all city employees.
• June: Rue Amherst is renamed Rue Atateken, meaning “brothers and sisters,” a unanimous choice of Montréal’s Indigenous toponymy committee.

2020 

• March: Funding contribution to the Réseau de la communauté autochtone à Montréal (RÉSEAU) to launch the the project to collect data by and for Indigenous peoples.
• June: Name of the “Sentier des Sauvages,” (Trail of the Savages) changed to to “Sentier des Messages” (Trail of the Messengers), or Tetewaianón:ni Iakoiánaka’weh in Mohawk.
• November: Montréal adopts its 2020-2025 Reconciliation Strategy.

2021

• February:  Projection of an illuminated work on the outside facade of the organization Open Door/Porte ouverte to honour the resilience of unhoused Indigenous people and in tribute to Raphaël Napa André.
• February:  Support for Montréal Indigenous women by putting up a temporary warming station at Square Cabot in memory of Raphaël Napa André.
• February: Restitution of a valuable beaded hood that was in the Musée de Lachine’s collection to the Cree nation (video).
• September: Translation of the Elector’s Guide into Cree, Kanien’kéha – Mohawk and Inuktitut