By Tobi Cohen
Montreal Gazette
June 15, 2010
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Residential+school+survivors+share+sorrow+reconciliation+events+begin/3157512/story.html
| File photo: Residential school survivors to share sorrow as reconciliation events begin across Canada. |
Ten years after he left residential school in a tiny northwestern Ontario town, Garnet Angeconeb returned to the site of his childhood trauma with his wife to reminisce.
It was 1979, a few years before he even decided to confront his demons — the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest and the anger he felt towards his parents for allowing him to be taken from them at age 7.
Wandering through the deserted hallways, he pointed out the dorm, the living room, the play room, the dining hall and, finally, the chapel which had become a storage room filled with all sorts of old furnishings. There he spotted a chair he liked and snuck it out the back door and into his vehicle.
"One of the things I remember being taught was thou shalt not steal," he said in an interview from his home in Sioux Lookout, Ont., the same community that once hosted his nightmarish alma mater.
"What the residential school stole from me was a lot more than the price of a chair."
Angeconeb still has the chair and, as a symbolic gesture of reconciliation, he plans to return it at some point during Canada's epic, five-year healing process which is set to kick off in earnest on Wednesday.
Over the next four days, residential school survivors including Angeconeb, their families, former school staff and fellow Canadians will gather at The Forks in Winnipeg as part of the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) national event.
It'll be a chance for survivors to tell their stories and for Canadians to hear them.
"We encourage survivors and those whose lives have been impacted by the schools to come forward during the gathering and to feel safe opening up about their (Indian Residential School) experiences with the Commission," TRC chairman Justice Murray Sinclair said in a statement.
"By sharing these experiences we will truly understand them, and in the process, help future generations move forward with respect."
Several hundred survivors — among an estimated 80,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit former students still alive today — are expected to share their tales either publicly or privately.
They will have the option to have their statements video- or audiotaped for use in a report on the history of residential schools and its impact on individuals and communities. The statements may also be used in future books and films aimed at raising awareness about this dark period in Canadian history.
The process will continue during six more national events — the next is in Inuvik in 2011 — and, at the end of the TRC's mandate, a National Research Centre will be established to permanently archive the material.
Representatives from the Anglican, Catholic, United and Presbyterian churches — all involved in running the controversial schools over a 150-year period from the 1840s to 1996 — will also take part.
Henriette Thompson, of the Anglican Church of Canada, said the church will host a reception for survivors, indigenous and non-indigenous Anglicans and guests to share a meal and talk.
"Our overall goal is that every Anglican knows the history of the Indian Residential School system," she said.
In a statement Tuesday, the Catholic Church affirmed its participation. Noting the event would deal with many "difficult issues," Archbishop Gerard Pettipas said he expects former students and staff will also have a few "more positive accounts to relate."
"These national events are crucial milestones on the road to healing and reconciliation for Canada's aboriginal people and all Canadians, and we are confident the commission will make every effort to ensure that all perspectives will be heard," he said.
This week's event will also feature a variety of cultural activities from theatrical performances and traditional pow wows, to performances by Blue Rodeo and Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Established in 2007 under the Indian Residential Settlement Agreement, the TRC's job is to try to mend the relationship between Canada and aboriginal communities.
About 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their homes, often against their parents' will, to attend Christian boarding schools where many suffered physical and sexual abuse. In an attempt to forcibly assimilate them, they were forbidden from speaking their native languages or practising their native cultures and many felt disconnected when they eventually returned to their communities.
Many of the problems plaguing aboriginal communities today — poverty, substance abuse and illiteracy — are often traced back to the residential school system.
With support from the Assembly of First Nations and Inuit organizations, former residential school students took the government to court and successfully won the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history.
The Residential Schools Settlement Agreement established the TRC with a $60-million, five-year budget, as well as a compensation system that would award survivors $10,000 plus $3,000 for each year of attendance.
On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered a formal apology on behalf of the Canadian government to former residential school students and their families. All four churches involved have also delivered apologies and committed funds to the healing process.
But while many survivors are prepared to accept the government's apology and its efforts to reconcile Canada's past wrongs, others are not.
On Tuesday, a half-dozen of them staged a small protest in Winnipeg at the site of the first national event.
Former student Chantelle Devillier said she simply doesn't trust the federal government.
She said she was beaten and raped repeatedly starting at age 9 and wants criminal charges laid in connection with her abuse and the abuse suffered by thousands of native children.
Peter Yellowquill, former chief of Long Plain First Nation, agreed.
"If I lay out my suffering for them," said Yellowquill, referring to the army of statement takers the TRC will have this week at The Forks, "what good will it do?"
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo is more optimistic.
While long overdue, he's hopeful this first national event will open the door to more dialogue and help increase public awareness about residential schools.
"In order for us to heal, we need to understand first and this is going to be an important step in understanding," he said. "We're looking for Canadians to open their hearts and minds to these stories, to understand them."
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