Mourn & learn
Carey Price isn't just about stopping pucks (and breaking Maple Leafs' fans hearts).
As someone who grew up on a reserve in Williams Lake, B.C., and whose own grandmother endured being sent to one of Canada's infamous Indigenous residential schools, the Montreal Canadiens' future hockey hall of fame goaltender clearly knows a thing or two about human resilience.
Orange Shirt Day — which every Sept. 30 commemorates the residential school experiences of Indigenous youth and honours their journey of healing — originated in Williams Lake in 2013.
On Monday night, after coolly shutting down the heavily-favoured Leafs in the deciding game of their opening NHL playoff round, Price was asked post-game about news that hundreds of Indigenous children's bodies had been found at a former residential school property in Kamloops, just three hours' drive southeast of Williams Lake.
Price, who's spoken out in the past about dispelling ignorance around this shameful chapter of Canada's history, paused then answered quietly, “I'd advise a lot of people to look into residential schools.”
Amen to that.
It's unconscionable that the highest political and religious authorities in this country once devoutly believed that Indigenous people should be assimilated into Canada's dominant European-originated culture.
Their methods — ripping Indigenous children from their parents and homes, forcibly converting them, forbidding them from speaking their language, and subjecting them to physical and mental abuse at residential schools — were barbaric.
It is simply horrific that thousands of these children died at these facilities, their deaths often going unrecorded and treated as relatively trivial by those in charge, leaving their loved ones in the dark about their fate.
True reconciliation with Canada's First Nations can only happen if Canadians fully grasp what Indigenous Peoples long endured at the hands of those who saw them as inferior human beings.
And the best path toward that understanding is education — teaching all children, using age-appropriate material, the dark history of Canada's residential schools.
Two years ago, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), responding to recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, unveiled a three-year Indigenous education plan, including developing curriculum to address the legacy of residential schools at all grade levels.
Although progress varies, we're glad to see these goals have been embraced across Atlantic Canada.
In P.E.I., Indigenous studies are now taught at every grade level. Teachers talk specifically about residential schools, including integrated units of study for Grades 1-3; similar units for Grades 4-6 are now being developed.
In Nova Scotia, an action plan for education committed in 2015 to developing and incorporating — in collaboration with First Nations partners — Indigenous Treaty education into all grades; that partnership was renewed last fall. We hope residential schools will also feature prominently in what Nova Scotia students study.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, an aspirational 2018 education action plan is aligned with CMEC's blueprint, including learning about residential schools.
The more we know, the more we understand.