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	Residential Schools: Survivors Share the Pain By Andrew Stobo Sniderman Montreal Gazette May 7, 2011 http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/Residential+schools+survivors+share+pain/4743356/story.html When many Canadians hear about a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they likely think first of Nelson Mandela bridging the white-black divide in South Africa. Yet Canada has its own truths to face about its treatment of Aboriginal peoples. Today, our TRC is travelling around the country to hear stories about residential schools, places designed to "kill the Indian in the child," as one government official infamously put it. For more than 100 years, these government-funded, Church-run boarding schools sought to transform Aboriginals into English-speaking Christians. Attendance was mandatory. Children were taken from their families at age five and returned home only for the summers. There are 80,000 living survivors of residential schools. The last school closed in 1996. In April, survivors of residential schools spoke at public hearings in Cambridge Bay and Kugluktuk in Nunavut, and Yellowknife and Behchoko in the Northwest Territories. "These are not just stories Canada needs to hear. These are stories Canada needs to feel," said Chief Wilton Littlechild, one of the TRC's commissioners. The following passage contains 19 quotes pieced together, from the testimony of 19 different survivors: "ONE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED. There was a plane. The government was picking up kids. I was five years old. I wanted to stay home, to be with my parents. I HID UNDER A TABLE, but a big white man came to get me. IN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL, I felt like a white Anglo-Saxon robot that did as I was told. Later, I realized I had lost my identity. I REMEMBER the first time I saw my brother at school. I wasn't allowed to talk to him, or to hug him. EVERY TIME I SPOKE MY LAN-GUAGE, I was hit on the back of the head with a yardstick. I SAW NUNS putting their hands under kids' blankets. I didn't know what they are doing, but it was bad. WHEN I CAME HOME for the summer, I wondered 'Who are these people?' They were my parents, and I couldn't understand their language. WHAT ABOUT MY PARENTS? When we were taken away, they became childless. They must have been hurting as much as their children. IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME to understand that maybe not all priests are bad, maybe not all nuns hit, maybe not all RCMP officers are out to get me, maybe not all teachers think you are dumb and savage. I WAS TREATED LIKE A DOG, so I became a dog. I TURNED TO DRUGS. I drowned my pain in the bottle. In a way it kept me straight, but it was a crooked road. I HAD KIDS AT AN EARLY AGE. I didn't know how to love them. I didn't know how to play with them, to rear them. I know I need to apologize to my children. I am so sorry I wasn't there for you. I failed as a mother. I didn't know until my son committed suicide. I WANT TO LEARN TO FORGIVE, to let go of this anger. What a shame we carried it all these years. TO MY FORMER TEACHERS: I FORGIVE YOU. I wish I could say that to their face. I've been waiting a long time for this day to take out my garbage. NEVER FORGET. Never can we let Canada forget. All I ever wanted, when I said I was sexually abused, was for someone to believe me. CANADA GIVES all kinds of grants to the Third World, but you are missing somebody. Your own Canadians are suffering because you don't bother to see them. I don't have the ability to convince important people. Maybe you can. I WANT TO THANK everyone for listening to my tiny unpleasant piece of story. I'VE NEVER TOLD any of this to anyone before. NOW THAT I HAVE SPOKEN to the commission, I feel a lot lighter. Not light as a feather, but light enough to float."
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