Justin Trudeau vows action towards justice for children forcibly removed

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises to respond to recommendations towards justice for Aboriginal children taken from their families.

Justin Trudeau (second right) said he was honoured to accept the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Source: Twitter

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised Tuesday to respond to recommendations from a commission tasked with shedding light on the experience of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families.

Mr Trudeau said his administration would "design a national engagement strategy for developing and implementing a national reconciliation framework," that was “informed" by recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He made the commitment at the launch of the commission's final report in Ottawa.

"Our goal as we move forward together is clear: it is to lift this burden from your shoulders, from those of your families, and communities," he said. 

"It is to accept fully our responsibilities and our failings as a government and as a country."

The commission, formed by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2008, made a total 94 "calls to action" in its final report.

Recommendation to the government include reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care as a result of the trauma inflicted, eliminating educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, and multi-year funding for the National Council for Reconciliation.

About 150,000 Indian, Inuit and Metis children were taken from their families into 139 residential schools with the purpose of weakening family ties and culture for over a century from 1874. Children also reported being abused at these institutions, according to the commission investigating the policy.

Trudeau renewed Canada's previous administration's apology to the children and families of those affected by the residential school policy, made by former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2008.

The residential education system in Canada is akin to Australia’s assimilation policy that removed Indigenous children from their families to grow them up with the legally dominant Euro-Christian way of life through the 20th Century.

In 2007, then prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the families affected and calls from the Indigenous community for compensation continue.