Legacy
Language & Culture
17. We call upon all levels of government to enable residential school Survivors and their families to reclaim names changed by the residential school system by waiving administrative costs for a period of five years for the name-change process and the revision of official identity documents, such as birth certificates, passports, driver's licenses, health cards, status cards, and social insurance numbers.
This is something that hadn't even occurred to me, but of course, if you're trying to strip a person of their identity, the first thing you will do is take away their name. This has been done in many instances of genocide, worldwide. According to this Government of Canada page,
"Statistics Canada, in collaboration with other federal departments such as Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada and Indigenous Services Canada, will engage provincial and territorial partners on a process for residential school survivors and their families to reclaim names that were changed by the residential school system. This process would be without administrative fees. Thus far, only the province of Ontario, through the Ontario vital statistics registrar, is waiving fees for name changes on birth records for Indigenous people asking for such a change. For identity documents issued under federal jurisdiction, Service Canada does not charge fees for name changes on Social Security Numbers."
This page was last updated in October of 2018, and I couldn't find any other information on how this particular Call is being implemented...
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