We Are All Treaty People

Why are we measuring reconciliation in Saskatchewan?

The Office of the Treaty Commissioner's efforts to create a framework and tools for measuring truth and reconciliation aim to inspire action, inform learning, and increase our collective impact.

Together with hundreds of partner organizations, we believe that, in order to advance truth and reconciliation in Saskatchewan, we must create a better future by:

  • Connecting the people in our communities who want to pursue truth and reconciliation and providing them with tools and space to learn, build relationships, and engage in collective action; 
  • Pursuing a shared vision for success, and an understanding of why reconciliation is essential for us all
  • Inspiring action, measuring impact, and learning from our efforts

How are we measuring reconciliation in Saskatchewan?

The Truth and Reconciliation through Treaty Implementation (TRTI) framework strives to include the voices of Survivors and Knowledge Keepers and to stay rooted in the Treaty relationship, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Pursuing a shared vision for success: To be able to measure progress, we first needed to ask what successful truth and reconciliation looked like. This process was guided by ceremony and led to the public release in September 2019 of a Vision for Truth and Reconciliation through Treaty Implementation. This Vision and its four overlapping elements act as our guiding principles for the TRTI measurement and evaluation framework.

Indicators: We created indicators, or specific ways we can measure progress to help guide us on what authentic change would look like in our province. Our team has found more than 1,000 ways that we can measure progress that are based on foundational documents such as the TRC Calls to ActionMMIWG Calls for JusticeUnited Nations Sustainable Development GoalsUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, locally sourced indicators, and more.

Outcomes and Reconciliation Logic Model: With over 1,000 ways to measure reconciliation, we started organizing and grouping indicators to show what a potential path towards reconciliation for Saskatchewan might look like. We spent a large portion of 2019 on the creation of a logic model that highlights outcomes based on all indicators that we collected and charts a complex, circular journey of reconciliation growth for individuals, communities, organizations, and governments.  

Truth and Reconciliation through Treaty Implementation (TRTI) Action Plans: In early 2020, we created the first version of the TRTI Growth Model, which summarizes the logic model into six stages of growth to truly advance truth and reconciliation. From there, we worked with partners in 2020 and 2021 to pilot a process of creating tailored Reconciliation Action Plans. These plans utilize the TRTI vision, outcomes, indicators, and Growth Model to help individuals, communities, organizations and businesses advance their journey. Over a series of meetings, organizations or communities are able to map their reconciliation activities to date, identify concrete next steps, and begin to find ways to measure if what they’re doing is working.

How will we know if change is happening in Saskatchewan?

Our aim is to report regularly on the progress of reconciliation in Saskatchewan, utilizing the TRTI framework as a shared measuring stick, and working with partners to collect data on what they’re doing.

To know if change is happening in the future, we first need to know where we're starting from. We collect data to create a starting point for measuring Saskatchewan's reconciliation progress. Specifically, we have:

Surveyed the attitudes of Saskatchewan residents in regard to truth and reconciliation in 2019.  We conducted a telephone survey with over 3,000 Saskatchewan residents and found that most respondents have a sense of hope in our collective journey towards reconciliation. Roughly 9 out of 10 Saskatchewan residents agree that reconciliation is important and that it is possible. However, this hope is tempered by recognition of the significant problems we face in Saskatchewan including the presence of racism, inequities in our systems and the reported negative relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous People. We created a main summary report, Saskatchewan's Public Opinion on Reconciliation and a technical report with all the data, 2019 General Population Survey: Results from a Saskatchewan-Based Survey on Attitudes Toward Reconciliation. 

Mapping the current reconciliation efforts of partners and creating TRTI Action Plans. More and more organizations, businesses or communities are using the TRTI framework to track their reconciliation actives and inspire thinking on ways to do more. 

Working with partners: The Office of the Treaty Commissioner is working closely with partners, Knowledge Keepers, and Survivors to guide, create, and help us in this journey. We have had multiple meetings with multiple partners from multiple sectors to help us at every step of our evaluation goals. We are hoping to have more conversations, and partners join us in 2020 and beyond.

We are happy to share more information. Feel free to reach out to our team by email with any questions, or for additional information about the framework.