Ottawa Citizen

‘We are just beginning’

Findings let affected population start rebuilding and healing process

- TOM SPEARS tspears@ottawaciti­zen.com Twitter.com/TomSpears1

Thirty years ago, Irvin Sarazin didn’t like thinking of himself as native. But that has changed, and on Wednesday he’ll open the final day of the Truth and Reconcilia­tion commission with a prayer.

He’ll use it to thank the children of the residentia­l schools, whom later generation­s haven’t always understood.

“My dad was a resident,” he said Tuesday. “But he never, never passed this on to us, I guess so we could live a normal life without that hurt. He kept it in silence.” His children knew their father had been hurt, but none of the details.

The stories lived on for years only as a shadowy threat: Be good, someone would tell a child, or they’ll take you away to a residentia­l school. “It was there, but not shared openly.”

Sarazin now lives in the Algonquin community of Pikwakanag­an, west of Eganville. He wonders how the younger generation­s will see their residentia­l school heritage, and feels it’s important to tell them, to keep the story alive.

Native people lost language and culture and faith, he says. “Some are working toward their culture again, rebuilding it.

“This (the Truth and Reconcilia­tion report) is just the beginning. They say it’s the end, but to me it’s the beginning — of rebuilding, of a better future.”

There was a lot of talk of the future Tuesday among the crowd that jammed the Delta Hotel ballroom, jammed an upstairs media room that had a TV, and stood in all three floors of the main atrium where a single TV spread Justice Murray Sinclair’s sombre voice.

The commission made two people honorary witnesses Tuesday: former prime minister Joe Clark and Olympic cyclist and skater Clara Hughes. Their job, and that of witnesses named earlier, is to carry the message.

“Unless we all carry it forward, it will not happen,” Clark said.

Goodwill alone isn’t enough unless progress becomes a “very real priority for all Canadians,” he said. “I’m going to make a point that I don’t want too much read into, but there is a different between a promise and a priority.”

Clark grew up five kilometres from a residentia­l school and didn’t know it until years later.

“I’m in a situation like so many now in Canada that we know there was a wrong,” he said. “We have not known until this Truth and Reconcilia­tion Commission began, the nature of that wrong, the deep, deep wounds it left, and the need that continues to try to address those problems.”

Hughes, a six-time Olympian, has travelled widely among native communitie­s and recalled getting a gift from the Squamish people days before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. They taught her that “if you want to succeed; if you want to be good and strong and fast, the only way you can want that is if you want it for everyone.”

On a day when many spoke of pain, Hughes also told about sharing laughter and a love of sports with native communitie­s. An example came last year when her crosscount­ry cycling tour for mental health flew into Nain, in northern

My dad was a resident, but he never, never passed this on to us, I guess so we could live a normal life without that hurt.

Labrador.

She had been there before, and this time the whole community turned out. They wanted her to cycle the short distance from the airstrip to the hotel — but there was snow.

So they bolted a bicycle onto a komatik — a sled pulled by a snowmobile — and she rode this odd contraptio­n as children ran beside and shouted “Hey Clara Hughes, remember me?”

“Yes, I remember you!” she shouted back.

“What’s my name?” the kids asked.

Eduardo Gonzalez, a Peruvian sociologis­t and expert in truth and reconcilia­tion efforts, said it’s time now for political pressure because the commission will no longer exist. He’s also an honorary witness for the commission.

“The only priorities that get moved to the agenda are those that have people behind them,” he told the audience.

Many spectators waited patiently for hours. Roy Erasmus came from Yellowknif­e, couldn’t get into the packed hall, and could only hear bits on a TV in the lobby. But he liked what he heard, and lined up for a copy to take home.

“I want Canada to endorse the report,” he said. “It’s excellent. The recommenda­tions are excellent. It’s a shame that Canada has been doing whatever it can to oppose the declaratio­n of indigenous rights.”

Jerry Lavalley, a councillor from Pikwakanag­an, carried the traditiona­l eagle staff that is brought into the room for each day ’s session, and carried out at the end of the day. There’s a golden eagle head at the top, a deer antler, bear claws, deer hide, and feathers. Probably feathers from the same eagle, he said.

“It’s very symbolic of our traditions,” he said.

“As Justice Murray Sinclair stated quite eloquently, we are just beginning and we do want recognitio­n of what happened, and it should not be forgotten.”

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