Dr. David MacDonald, a political science professor in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences, appeared before the Senate of Canada Wednesday to provide expert evidence on Bill C-29, the National Council on Reconciliation Canada. 

MacDonald is the author of 2019’s The Sleeping Giant Awakes: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools and the Challenge of Conciliation and studies Indigenous politics in Canada as well as Indigenous self-determination in settler states around the world. 

He was one of a select number of independent experts invited to provide evidence. 

Bill C-29 would create a national oversight body to monitor, report and make recommendations on the state of reconciliation in Canada to rebuild the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Crown. 

MacDonald presented eight recommendations to the Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples about the bill.