From the Social Action Handbook

• The First Nations of Canada should have a constitutional guarantee to the right to self-government and to an adequate land and economic base arising from aboriginal title, aboriginal rights and treaty rights.
• Recognized regional and national groupings of native people have a special right to be heard by federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments and the various courts of the church.
• Resource development should not take place on un-surrendered land until either there is a claims agreement in place or terms governing that development are negotiated satisfactorily with the native people concerned.
• We acknowledge that the stated policy of the Government of Canada was to assimilate aboriginal peoples into the dominant culture and that the Presbyterian Church in Canada co-operated in this policy. ... We confess that, with the encouragement and assistance of the Government of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada agreed to take the children of aboriginal peoples from their own homes and place them in residential schools, [and that] the effect of all this, for aboriginal peoples, was the loss of cultural identity and the loss of a secure sense of self.
• For our church, we ask forgiveness from God. We ask, also, for forgiveness from aboriginal peoples.