‘ The action needs to take place’: survivor
Former residential school pupil says aboriginals need to be re- connected
Lenora Many Fingers remembers being in kindergarten and being reprimanded for speaking her native Blackfoot language. She attended a residential school on the Blood reserve, and her Christian teacher slapped a wooden ruler on the back of her hand and forced her to stand in the corner, a public shaming for simply speaking her mother tongue.
Many Fingers said she believes residential schools, and the campaign to separate aboriginals from their heritage, has played a role in many of the social problems that have surfaced on reserves, including substance abuse.
“My feeling is they need to know where they came from because that was wiped away,” Many Fingers said.
“That is why we are having a lot of these social issues here — the ripple effect — because they are not really connected to where we came from, our values, our beliefs, our traditions, our spirituality. We couldn’t even speak our Blackfoot language.”
On Tuesday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its findings from years of interviews and research about residential schools in Canada. The final report contains 94 recommendations to the federal government and other parties in the hopes of moving toward reconciliation, including changes to child welfare, education, and language rights.
“It’s an impressive document,” said Yale Belanger, an associate professor of political science at the University of Lethbridge. “It validates what many First Nations people have been saying for a number of years, that I think many Canadians may not have believed or wanted to believe.”
“It’s a very important document just for raising awareness and hopefully impressing upon Canadians what actually happened in this chapter of Canadian history,” he added.
In Calgary, Linda McLean said she’s seen the painful legacy of the residential schools within the city’s homeless population.
The executive director of Inn From the Cold says while First Nations make up just two or three per cent of Calgary’s population, they account for 60 per cent of the agency’s clients.
“As an agency, we see the consequence of the residential school experience because we have a population that is grossly disproportionately aboriginal,” McLean said. “It speaks to that legacy of trauma and that legacy of abuse, and certainly the rupturing of communities.”
“What we did is we created entire generations of children that didn’t fit,” said Belanger, adding that the loss of native languages and identities left residential school victims with no sense of belonging.
McLean said she hopes the recommendations are put into concrete action.
“It’s great to hear apologies and so on, but the question is, what will be different and how are we going to achieve that?” she said.
Many Fingers said if there is to be meaningful reconciliation, officials must move beyond press conferences to help communities heal.
“A lot of it is talk, but the action needs to be visible,” she said.
“The action needs to take place. We can have these big news conferences, but when it comes down to it, those dollars should be going directly to the grassroots people in healing, any kind of programming that could help them heal.”
It’s great to hear apologies and so on, but the question is, what will be different and how are we going to achieve that? LINDA MCLEAN, executive director, Inn From the Cold