By Stephen Llewellyn
Daily Gleaner
September 7, 2011
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/cityregion/article/1437808
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| Justice Murray Sinclair is a commissioner with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission will be in Fredericton on Thursday to hear from residential school survivors. |
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada will be in Fredericton on Thursday to hear from survivors of residential schools in this part of the country and their children and grandchildren.
The one-day hearing will be held at Government House on Woodstock Road from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and is expected to hear from people who stayed at the only residential school in Atlantic Canada, which was located in Shubenacadie, N.S.
It will also be an opportunity for all Canadians, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, to learn more about and bear witness to the legacy of the residential school system.
"Almost every survivor who speaks with us and has an opportunity to have their statement recorded tells us that it is an important part of their personal healing," Justice Murray Sinclair, one of three commissioners who make up the commission, told the editorial board of The Daily Gleaner on Tuesday.
"It is a form of release and it's intended to be that way."
The Shubenacadie school was open from 1929-67. It's estimated there are 128 survivors from New Brunswick who attended that school.
The Fredericton hearings are the first of 10 in Atlantic Canada leading up to a national event in Halifax in October.
There are an estimated 80,000 survivors of residential schools across Canada. The last two residential schools closed in 1996.
Sinclair, who sits on the Court of Queen's bench in Manitoba, said an estimated 10 generations of aboriginal children went to residential schools in a campaign of forced assimilation.
He said when the first generation or two returned to their community they could receive help to recover from that experience. But after three or four generations, residential schoolchildren were returning to dysfunctional families and damaged communities and that's reflected in statistics on crime and social problems recorded in the 1950s and 1960s.
The commission was formed in 2009 as part of a $4-billion court settlement and has a budget of $60 million.
It has a five-year mandate to create a public historical record regarding what happened in aboriginal residential schools dating back 150 years.
It will also lead to the creation of a national research centre.
Sinclair said so far the commission has heard from 6,000-8,000 people, including former school staff. He said he isn't sure the truth and reconciliation commission is working.
"It depends on how you define working," said Sinclair. "We're busy. Are we having an impact? I don't know yet."
He said the question of residential schools and their legacy isn't clear in the minds of Canadians.
"To the extent that is our ambition, I don't think we've had that impact yet," said Sinclair.
"The first thing is to understand what the impacts are and our first responsibility as a commission is to document what those impacts are."
He said even non-aboriginal Canadians who lived next door to a residential school sometimes weren't aware of what it was or what was going on inside. He said the schools were often walled and the students were cut off from the local community.
The commission is planning to issue an interim report at the end of 2011, and Sinclair said it will surprise some people.
"One of the big surprises has been the number of children who died in the schools and who were never returned home," he said.
"The families were never told what happened to their children.
"Documenting where the children died and how they died and where they are buried is a major undertaking."
Sinclair said not everyone had a bad experience at an aboriginal residential school.
"Residential schools generally don't have to be bad things if they are run properly," he said.
"I'll tell you from experience my grandmother loved residential school. She loved the nuns."
Ironically, well-run residential schools became a refuge for many aboriginal children to escape the chaotic home life in the 1950s and 1960s that was created in large part by the legacy of the residential school system, said Sinclair.
The testimony at Thursday's hearings will be public unless a survivor requests a private hearing or a survivor names a perpetrator who has not been previously named and is still alive, he said.
Health Canada support workers will be on site at the hearing Thursday for anyone who needs help.
llewellyn.stephen@dailygleaner.com
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