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Conference will uncloak residential school legacy
By Debora Van Brenk
Twenty years after Ontario’s last residential school for First Nations and Metis children closed, the echoes resound among survivors’ children and grandchildren. “The impact of residential schools has been inter-generational, so even young (aboriginal) people who haven’t been to residential schools have been directly impacted,” said Barb MacQuarrie, director of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women. “It broke down and fragmented people’s identity.” MacQuarrie is an organizer of a conference in London Tuesday and Wednesday on what residential schools represented to aboriginal families. The majority of the 250 attendees are teachers or teachers in training who learned a Euro-centric version of First Nations history, MacQuarrie said. “It’s our ignorance. It creates an unintentional racism a lot of times.” The event will include a free performance Tuesday by Juno award-winning Susan Aglukark, an Inuk singer and advocate for children. Wednesday afternoon, broadcaster Wab Kinew is keynote speaker. More than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children attended residential schools in Canada, including the Mount Elgin Indian Industrial School on the Chippewa of the Thames reserve west of London. Some of the 1,200 kids who went there remember beatings, forced labour and denigration of their culture. Kids were taught that their language, culture and history were inferior. They had no cultural reference points for raising their own children or grandchildren. Six survivors will speak of their experiences Wednesday morning and participants will learn how to work toward reconciliation. The It Matters to Us conference is a project of the London Area Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
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