The Indigenous and Metis people across the nation pretty much unanimously agree that the relations between the government/state and the Indigenous people has been (to put it mildly) not successful. The First People of the nation that peacefully accepted and/or agreed to share the land with the new arrivals. Those who live in the nation whose ancestral roots are from somewhere other than North America owe a debt of gratitude and respect that has yet to be shown properly. Furthermore, the community represents about 5% of the population of the country. That percentage is higher on the prairies and British Columbia and less in the eastern half of the country.
Creative Humanism views the issue through the context of the clash of civilizations. The European civilization emphasizes conquest, domination, established authority, the nation state and stratification of humanity, with the European based nations at the epitome of the competition. It is extremely successful as measured by its own parameters. The North American culture sees the world through the belief in the sovereignty and equality of all individuals and their inherent responsibility to community and nature. There were certainly wars in pre-contact North America but there was no concept of the nation state, entrenched authority, or obliged servitude of the people.
Creative Humanism does not refer to the Indigenous people as First Nations. They were not a nation state in the European context of the words. They were something more important; they were (and are) a people. When the British bestowed nation status on the Indigenous people in 1763 it was a political move to stymy the expansion of the United States in its revolutionary form. Conquering a nation is something that British soldiers did all over the world. Destroying a people, is a harder thing to do.
Reconciliation is also not a word that is respected in Creative Humanism. It implies a continuation of the arrogance of European thinking that the Indigenous people have nothing to offer, that there is nothing that the mainstream community can learn from them. The essence of the word is that the two communities will continue to be distinct and separate and that we will just get along better. The intransigent belief in the superiority of the European based country continues. We will just try to be nicer and help the Indigenous get along better in our society.
All of this is rejected by Creative Humanism. Instead, the belief is that the communities have much to learn from each other and that we can be stronger and better together. The Indigenous people have an incredible gift to offer the rest of the country, the world view of the natural sovereignty, dignity and equality of each person and the supremacy of humanity over the institutions of mankind.
This is a new relationship that starts with respect. It is not about reconciliation of two distinct parties. It is about having respect for the traditional North American world view that can help us overcome what have become the apparent negative implications that we are discovering related to unwavering adherence to the philosophies of western thinking.
Seeing the world through the traditional North American lens changes everything. It is a change in the foundation upon which everything else is built. It introduces the concept of a nation of people rather than a nation state that possesses the people, as we have now. New Nation Congress takes these new insights of an old way applied to our current complex world to its logical conclusion.
Once the transition is completed and all people become truly free and respected, toiling within a system of their design intended to support them, we all will have a sense of gratitude to the First People of North America that will have shared that gift with everyone.