| Prior to 1969 the Anglican Church of Canada's Indigenous policy was assimilation governed by paternalistic attitudes. In 1967 the Anglican Church commissioned sociologist Charles E. Hendry to examine its relationship with Indigenous people. In 1969, Hendry published his findings in Beyond Traplines: Does the Church Really Care? Towards an Assessment of the Work of the Anglican Church of Canada and Canada's Native Peoples. The Hendry Report, as it came to be known, called for a radical change in the Anglican Church's Indigenous policies. From then onwards the Anglican Church, having to accept its harmful role in its assimilative practices, sought to implement Hendry's recommendations to create a relationship based on equality. This thesis examines how the Anglican Church came to reform its policies and its struggle to implement change. This can be seen in four distinct policy phases that coincide with specific time periods: 1) end of assimilative policies (1946-1969), 2) Aboriginal Rights support (1970-1989), 3) acceptance of the residential school legacy (1990-1999), and 4) response to litigation and the development of the 2007 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. I conclude by arguing that the Anglican Church, in 2011, is in a new phase in which the Anglican Church and Indigenous people are walking together to - reconcile and heal. |
