What is our ethical duty to truth and reconciliation?
As nurses in Canada, engaging in truth and reconciliation is not optional, passive, or seasonal — it is a mandatory professional, ethical, and everyday obligation. We must all embody this work and uphold the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action.
While Truth and Reconciliation Week (September 21–25, 2026) and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30, 2026) provide crucial moments for collective focus, commemoration, and national learning, the work of dismantling anti-Indigenous racism and transforming our health-care spaces happens in every shift, in every assessment, and on every single day of the year.
CNA’s 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses explicitly establishes Pursuing Truth and Reconciliation as a core ethical value. Under Guiding Principle 4.1, nurses are professionally bound to understand colonial histories, recognize ongoing power imbalances, and actively support culturally safe, distinction-based care. Furthermore, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action 24 mandates health-care professionals to undergo ongoing education on residential schools, Indigenous rights, and anti-racism.
Systemic racism continues to harm Indigenous patients and communities across health systems every day. Meaningful reconciliation requires more than acknowledgment. It demands ongoing action: examining our biases, advocating for systemic change, listening to Indigenous voices, and practising cultural humility in every interaction.
Resources such as the The Path: Your Journey Through Indigenous Canada, help nurses confront historical truths and address Indigenous-specific racism. The 4 Streams of Reconciliation: CNA's Action-Oriented Framework likewise provides a practical roadmap for advancing reconciliation across nursing education, practice, policy and leadership.