Healing process needs support

Lethbridge Herald
April 2, 2014

http://lethbridgeherald.com/commentary/opinions/2014/04/02/healing-process-needs-support/

Four years of public hearings have come to an end.

Sunday in Edmonton, the commission tasked with exploring the history of Canada’s residential schools system, and its impact on the county’s aboriginal population, wrapped up its work.

In all, thousands of victims shared their experiences, as stories of the cruelty and abuse were captured on video. It created a video history of what will go down as one of Canada’s biggest blunders, a dark chapter in our history.

For some, including many here in southern Alberta, the opportunity to have their story heard was only one part of the process. Many have commented over the years how it was all part of the healing process while for others, it simply brought back memories they likely wished to keep buried.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made visits to over 300 communities, and started in Winnipeg back in June of 2010. Since then, about 6,500 statements were collected, as survivors spoke about what they went through during their time in residential schools.

It was a massive undertaking, one which was required due to the fact about 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were placed in the system, often separated from their families by long distances to attend the church-operated schools.

Stories now all too familiar included sexual abuse, hunger and beatings. Some youngsters would go years between seeing their families, as the isolation left them cut off from loved ones. If that was not enough, some students in the care of those entrusted to keep them safe died of disease, or unknown causes and for others, the strain of it all was too much, as suicide was viewed as the only option.

Today, many who went through the system still suffer from memories of those times. Canadians, in part through the commission’s work, now know much more about the story, and can make their own judgments about a residential school system that failed on so many levels.

For the federal government’s part, the commission was a solid step in the healing process. Established as part of a 2007 class-action lawsuit settlement, the apology and the launch of the $60-million initiative lived up to its mandate in terms of the creation of a living, breathing record of the residential school system.

The hope was the work of the commission could act as a launching point for recovery, to help those who lived through the experience heal and move on with their lives. But ironically, the day before the commission wrapped up its hearings, Justice Murray Sinclair, the man heading the commission, told The Canadian Press the federal government plans to cut a program that helps residential school survivors with the healing process. Sinclair also noted the government is shying away from recommendations to improve mental health services that would assist victims’ extended families.

The commission seems to have been a positive exercise, but it’s just one step in what for many victims is a long healing process that isn’t over yet. If the federal government isn’t going to follow through with continued support for the recovery process, it is doing a disservice to the victims of the residential school system – which, don’t forget, was government-directed – and to the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The government had a hand in causing the pain which the residential school system produced. It has a responsibility to help those impacted to heal from that pain.