Residential school survivors tells stories in the spirit

Survivors of residential schools shared their stories when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came to Calgary Nov. 4 and 5.  Those heart-wrenching stories were told in the spirit that the telling of the truth would help to move the healing forward.

“I challenge all levels of government to work with First Nations’ leaders and our communities and our Métis leaders and our Inuit to make that healing a reality so we can move forward in a good way,” said Sandra Sutter, president of the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary. “It’s said that scar tissue is stronger than our regular skin. My heart hurts for those of you who are willing to be vulnerable enough to open up that old scar tissue and talk about the stories that hurt you.”

Summer Stonechild, an intergenerational trauma survivor, spoke of her father Wayne Stonechild’s tumultuous life and how he succumbed to his addictions in 2010. She said her father’s message was about tenacity.

“Never give up. When he went into the penitentiary system, it was an extension of the residential school era,” she said. An activist, her father wrote his story and wanted to get it published, but Stonechild said it is too painful to read. ”This journey is not going to stop and we have to become teachers in our own way.”
Gilbert Eaglebear, who has been working at a correctional centre for the past 16 years, said it has been important for him to forgive. He was sexually abused once at the boarding school he attended for six years. He made a commitment never to go to church again.  In his work, he encounters young men looking for their culture. “My culture,” he said, “is who I am today.”
  
For two consecutive days, survivors came forward, supported by family members and health care workers, talking about how they were treated and the lasting effects of losing their families, punishment for trying to express themselves in their own language, and how the acts of violence, abuse and damaging behaviour were inherited. In the spirit of hearing the full and complete truth, survivors were encouraged to tell the good stories, too, of those who tried to help them.

A group of social workers from the Alberta College of Social Workers read and submitted a letter acknowledging “the harmful roles that social workers have played in all aspects of the unjust and unacceptable practice of colonization of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, including the residential school and the child welfare system.” The letter contained a series of commitments they have made.

All three members of the TRC, chair Justice Murray Sinclair and commissioners Dr. Marie Wilson and International Chief Wilton Littlechild, were in attendance. The event had originally been scheduled for the end of July, but mass flooding in Calgary and area forced postponement.

“The hearings,” said Wilson, “are creating safe spaces, sacred spaces, so that people feel safe and comfortable to come forward and teach us what we have to learn, us as commissioners, us on behalf of the commission, us on behalf of the country.”

Sinclair reminded the audience that the TRC is not a government commission, but a commission created out of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

“The agreement was reached because survivors stood up and said they were not going to take it anymore,” he said.

In a successful lawsuit, the court held the federal government and four churches legally responsible for everything that occurred in specifically-named schools. Survivors agreed to set aside $60 million of the compensation fund for the commission to do its work.

“It is education that brought us to this problem in the past, and it is through education that we believe as a commission that things are going to change,” said Sinclair.

 After three years of 126 community hearing-days across the country the commission has recorded over 6,000 statements and will continue to receive statements.

Recently, the TRC’s mandate was extended one year.

More than 150,000 children went through the Indian residential schools.

“Survivors for many years felt they were so alone that no one was listening to them and they felt as well that what happened to them happened to them and nobody else,” said Sinclair.