Learning from a Dark Time

Leader-Post
April 29, 2013

http://www.leaderpost.com/life/Learning+from+dark+time/8308197/story.html



Many non-aboriginal Canadians remain all too ignorant of the shameful history of Canada's residential schools, whose damaging legacy continues to be felt in aboriginal communities across the country.

The recent Montreal hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada are part of the process of moving forward, not only for those who choose to testify, but for all Canadians.

At these public hearings, which are being held in seven Canadian cities, survivors of the residential school system are getting an opportunity to recount their experiences.

Over the course of more than a century, tens of thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were wrenched from their families and communities, and sent away to boarding schools run by religious groups and funded by the federal government. Though the schools were winding down by the 1970s, the last of them did not close until 1996.

More than merely a well-intentioned effort to educate children, the policy was frankly designed to assimilate aboriginals - "to take the Indian out of the child," according to one bureaucrat of the day.

Students were forbidden to speak their own languages, and their traditional beliefs were denigrated and characterized as sinful. And all too often, the children were also subjected to physical and sexual abuse. The schools left a painful legacy, one with which survivors, their descendants and their communities are still struggling.

Some non-aboriginal Canadians may be tempted to respond, "That was then, and this is now."

One obvious response to this attitude is that understanding and coming to terms with the past helps us understand the present.

That said, what about now?

While there are many successful communities and individuals, economic and social statistics tell a dismal story: aboriginals are twice as likely as other Canadians to be unemployed; they are far more likely to live in overcrowded homes; aboriginals make up 23 per cent of the population in federal correctional institutions although they make up only four per cent of the Canadian population (and aboriginal women make up 33 per cent of the female population in federal jails).

Fundamental reforms are needed in many areas, to open the way for a more self-reliant and prosperous future for aboriginals.

As participants in last winter's Idle No More flash mobs attempted to remind ordinary Canadians, with the sound of drumbeats suddenly echoing through the nation's shopping malls, Canada and aboriginal peoples continue to have much unfinished business.

This is an abbreviated version of a Montreal Gazette editorial.