Report called ‘ beginning of the truth’
Crowd gathers to view livestream airing of TRC recommendations
There were tears, applause, and at times smiles in city council chambers as almost 200 people gathered on Tuesday to hear the final recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After six years of cross- country hearings and research, the report on Canada’s residential school system provoked a powerful mix of emotions. For many, it wasn’t about the end of the commission process but the beginning for a new collective understanding of Canada’s history.
“It is an excellent day. It’s the tears of joy, it’s the tears of healing. There’s no hate. It’s forgiveness and knowing how to walk with non- native people and how to walk with yourself. It was everything,” said Evelyn Day, a member of B. C.’ s Tahltan First Nation and a residential school survivor.
She was in Edmonton council chambers to watch the proceedings from Ottawa where the TRC’s commissioners and chair presented 94 recommendations.
Day said Tuesday was important for her and her ancestors, who would have wanted to hear the discussions.
“It’s the beginning of the truth of what happened to our ancestors and what happened to us, the cycle of discrimination and the abuse that has gone through generations and generations,” she said. “We have to know and understand our ancestors are happy to hear this ... it makes us realize there is a beginning and we pray and hope there is no end.”
Mayor Don Iveson who, at the end of the national TRC event in Edmonton last year proclaimed a year of reconciliation in the city and was an honorary witness at the TRC, said reconciliation resonates at a city level.
He noted that investments in housing would benefit all vulnerable people, including the indigenous population that is disproportionately represented in that group.
The crowd that gathered in council chambers broke into applause throughout the morning, including at several issues raised by TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair, who spoke about the need to change school curriculum to include more teaching about the legacy of residential schools, the need for an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and his statement that, “reconciliation is not an aboriginal problem, it’s a Canadian problem. It involves all of us.”