Programs on residential schools elicit strong viewer response

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A special two-part special television broadcast aired in February has stirred up the memories and emotions of Native people affected by their residential school experiences.

Residential Schools: Moving Beyond Survival, was produced jointly and aired by Vision TV, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and CBC Newsworld.

The specials featured four half-hour documentaries about residential schools, two produced by APTN, and two by Vision TV. Each of the three participating networks broadcast the documentaries as part of two one-hour segments. Included in the broadcast was a panel discussion. Panel members included Shawn Tupper, director of the residential school unit for Indian and Northern Affairs, Rev. David MacDonald, special advisor to the United Church of Canada on residential schools, Maggie Hodgson, former residential schools special advisor to the Assembly of First Nations, Janet Brewster, vice-chair of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, Chief Robert Joseph, a former residential school student who is now executive director of the BC Residential School Project, and Natalie Des Rosiers, president of the Law Commission of Canada.

The idea to develop the special residential school programs came from Rita Deverell, executive producer of Skylight, Vision TV's daily program.

Deverell said the idea of producing the programs came about, in part, because the legacy of residential schools is something that affects two of the networks main audiences -Aboriginal people, and the churches that ran the residential schools on behalf of the federal government.

"I thought, this is a subject of great importance. It's a subject that the bulk of Canadian citizens may not have enough information about; probably don't have enough information about. And if you're involved in either of the first two groups that I named, in a way you have a higher level of literacy about residential schools. But that it's important to discuss these matters with all Canadians."

Because of the importance of the subject, Deverell decided to approach both APTN and Newsworld about the project, with both networks agreeing to get involved.

Each participating network had one host for the programs, with Deverell hosting for Vision TV, Rick Harp for APTN, and Anne Petrie for Newsworld.

Vision TV followed the two hour-long programs with a half-hour town hall forum, with audience members commenting on the program and the issue of residential schools.

APTN followed both airings of the residential school programming with Contact, its hour-long phone-in show, also hosted by Harp.

Deverell said the response to the residential school programs has been "really quite amazing."

"Starting with the panel, there was a considerable amount of comment about how we did manage to get people, I won't say from all sides of the issue, but in a way it was from all sides of the issue. What they had in common was that they were willing to sit down and talk, obviously, in one room," Deverell said.

"I'm enormously gratified with the frankness, the openness, the willingness to move forward on what's a major issue at this point. And that was, I think, the most important thing to come out of the panel discussion," she said.

"Now to the audience forum that we had. Here again, people were delighted to be invited. Delighted to be there. Delighted to be talking to each other. And they all said that, as much as they know about the subject, they still found out things from the round table that we did and the documentary material that we produced."

Response from the viewing audience has also been pretty amazing, Deverell indicated.

"The e-mail has been hopping," she said.

Audience response has also been overwhelming at APTN, according to Harp.

"In front of me is a handwritten letter, written over five days by a woman, a former student, with arthritis. It's a six-page letter detailing everything that happened to her in the school, and what she thinks about the apology. And I think, insome ways, that's a very representative response from viewers," Harp said.

"We've gotten a lot of response from former students, and a response here and there from non-Aboriginal people who are just expressing their appreciation for the program. So I would say it triggered a lot of memories for a lot of people.

"During the second episode of Contact we gave out a couple of phone numbers for people to contact in case they were finding the subject matter difficult to watch, and at least one of them told us their phone lines were overwhelmed," he said.

"So I would say on the whole that people were glad it was on and even though it may have triggered some personal flashbacks for them, that it was important to them that it be addressed."

Harp said what Canada did to Aboriginal children in the residential schools is symbolic of the larger relationship.

"I think this issue has ended up becoming kind of a flash point and a metaphor for the relationship between the Indigenous peoples of this land and the recent arrivals, Canadians of European descent. So in some ways, how Canada responds to this is either going to mark the beginning of a new relationship or same old, same old."

He said he had never really thought about the situation that way until he did the show.

"I think the great thing about this special is that it opened a lot of eyes, particularly non-Aboriginal people who didn't have a full sense of what the schools did and the impact that they continue to have."

Anyone who missed the original broadcasts of Residential Schools: Moving Beyond Survival will have another chance to see them when Vision TV rebroadcasts the documentaries and panel discussions on April 21 and 28 at 8 p.m. ET.

The Vision TV website dedicated to the programs will be operational up until the end of April, and feedback from viewers will be included in the rebroadcast shows. The website, located at http://www.visiontv.ca, includes a forum for viewer feedback, as well as links to additional informtion about residential schools, and links to healing centres and other resources.

Comments about the programs can be sent to Vision TV at comments@visiontv.ca or by fax at 416-368-9774, by calling toll-free at 1-888-321-2567, or by writing to Vision TV at 80 Bond Street, Toronto, ON M5B 1X2.

Anyone wanting to be connected to counselling services can call the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) at 1-888-725-8886, where foundation staff can provide contact information for AHF funded programs in your area.