Canadians, aboriginals look towards reconciliation
Posted Dec 16, 2015 01:59:22 PM.
Last Updated Dec 17, 2015 08:00:53 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Now that a massive report into the abuses aboriginal students suffered at residential schools has been released, where do we go from here?
That’s the question many Canadians are asking in the wake of the final report released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“There’s been so much damage done over the years that it’s going to take time for that healing to happen, and it’s going to take generations,” says Shawn Johnston of the Waterloo Aboriginal Education Centre.
“It’s going to be a journey that we’re all on together, and it’s going to take everyone in this country working together to reach some form of reconciliation.”
The report lists 94 recommendations going forward, and in the ceremony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed that the history of aboriginal victims in government residential schools would never be glossed over in Canadian classrooms again — something he says happened during his own educational experience.
It’s a story that rings true for Johnston as well.
“The most that we heard about was stories of Christopher Columbus,” he says, “and how he was the one who ‘discovered’ America, which is really unfortunate.”
It led Johnston to learn about aboriginal history from his own family, including stories of his mother’s experience as a residential school survivor.
“She told me about the things that had happened to her,” Johnston says, “and she felt it was important that [I], as a child at the time, understand what had happened, and how this is impacting our family today.”
About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children were taken from their families and sent to government schools over the last century, where many experienced physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
Justice Murray Sinclair said the findings show the many problems of aboriginal communities today are rooted in years of government efforts to “assimilate, acculturate, indoctrinate and destroy.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says what’s needed is “nothing less than a total renewal of the relationship between Canada and indigenous peoples.”
Johnston says he’s encouraged by the response from people in our community looking to help in the healing process.
“These agencies, there organizations are coming forward and wanting to work with us, and we’re doing that together. It’s small steps — small little projects going on — but in the end, they’re definitely going to have a big impact,” he says.
“We need those people to be working with us, not against us. And that’s what we’re going to need for this healing to take place — we need people walking alongside us who are going to say, ‘hey, let’s look at these problems and see why they’re happening.'”
