Reconciliation efforts forge ahead
Chief Robert Joseph set to kick off speakers’ series at SFU
As a young man, Robert Joseph, one of the hereditary chiefs of the Gwawaenuk First Nation near Alert Bay, found himself in the depths of despair — until an epiphany changed his life. Today, he is a noted First Nations leader who cofounded Reconciliation Canada.
Joseph was six years old when he was sent to St. Michael’s Indian Residential School, where he spent the following 11 years enduring physical, sexual and emotional abuse and isolation.
After he graduated, he says he drank heavily and was both irresponsible and unmanageable. The cycle of loneliness and feelings of abandonment haunted him and his lack of a normal upbringing made it tough for him to care for his own family.
“Even in the depths of my despair, I always cared about others. I tried many, many ways throughout the years to be of service to others while I was sinking in and out of my alcohol addiction and anger and dysfunction,” said Joseph, now 76.
“But one day, I had an epiphany that turned my whole life around. It allowed me to gain some dignity, some self-respect, some confidence and a vision of what a future could look like for me.”
His epiphany came one morning on a boat in Johnstone Strait, after a drunken evening spent passed out on a bunk below. After he woke up, Joseph says he went out onto the deck and asked God to help him. He was overcome with tears, but noticed how beautiful the water and Vancouver Island was in the distance.
“I kept elevating my gaze and I stared upward and I saw all of the universe. It was so awesome, beautiful and magical and I heard this voice that said, ‘In spite of what you’ve done to yourself, I love you and you’re part of all of this,’” he said.
“Those were answers to the stark feeling of abandonment and that nobody cared and that I wasn’t connected to anybody. I had grown up as a little boy feeling that rejection and abandonment and thinking that nobody cared.”
After his life-changing experience, he overcame his addiction and began work with the Indian Residential School Survivors Society in Vancouver.
“I was part of a lot of healing projects as part of my involvement with IRSS. I was recognized by govern- ment and church as someone who would be useful in the dialogue and discussions and negotiations that went on,” Joseph said.
He and three other residential school survivors helped former prime minister Stephen Harper draft his apology for the Canadian government’s role in the system, he said. “That was pretty cool. I also did the final draft of the preamble for Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Joseph said.
“There’s a real interest and momentum across the country that we have to make sure keeps growing and going forward because I think we can make a truly great country out of Canada that allows it to live up to its own values of justice and equality and all of those things,” Joseph said.
“We have a discourse now that we never had before. I think that is really exciting.”
Individual people can contribute to reconciliation every day, in little ways, Joseph said.
“People can make back-pocket reconciliation plans on a daily basis,” Joseph said. “(They can say) ‘here’s what I’m going to do today — I’m going to tell my children I love them.’
“There are so many ways to act out reconciliation from an individual basis and we don’t recognize them. If we consciously make an effort we build the volume of reconciliation ... and make people feel like they belong and they’re loved and they’re cared for.”
On Sept. 8, Joseph will kick off a President’s Dream Colloquium at Simon Fraser University, in which a series of speakers will explore justice, identity and belonging in the context of education for reconciliation.
The speaker series is free and open to the public, with many of the events held at 3:30-5 p.m. at SFU’s Burnaby campus. For more details, visit sfu.ca/dean-gradstudies/events.html.