Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is exploring the cultural devastation caused by residential schools, as Andrew Stobo Sniderman writes
They speak of wandering hands of priests, unanswered cries for help, and tears of parentless children and childless parents. One by one, Aboriginal survivors of residential schools are publicly sharing their heartbreaking stories. Chief Wilton Littlechild has listened to every one.
After one elderly woman finished a wrenching description of her sexual abuse, she locked eyes with Littlechild and concluded: “I pray for you. I don’t know how you listen to all these stories.”
Chief Littlechild is one of three commissioners leading Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on residential schools, and the only one to have attended a residential school.
“When I listen to survivor stories, often they are telling my story,” he said. “I have shed many tears with them.” He spent 14 years, from the age of six to 19, at two schools in Alberta, Ermineskin Indian Residential School and St. Anthony’s college.
Littlechild and the TRC face two daunting tasks: assembling an oral record of one of the darkest chapters of Canadian history, and using truths about the past to heal the present. Littlechild has become a historian of pain and cheerleader for forgiveness.
Mostly, he listens. Across Canada, in gymnasiums and community halls, the following scene is unfolding:
A survivor speaks into a microphone facing only the three commissioners and TRC banners that read “For the child taken, for the parent left behind.” Some stories last a few minutes, others a few hours. The audience is arranged in a horseshoe behind the survivor, who is joined by a friend with a hand of comfort and tissues at the ready. When a voice cracks, and most do, the audience cannot see the tears, but they can hear them.
Blooming tissue boxes litter the room. Health counsellors prowl the aisles looking for someone to hug. Along one wall, large fish tank booths house local translators, and headsets buzz with English and the local Aboriginal language.
When a survivor concludes testimony, they are met with handshakes and hugs from friends, family and strangers. Faces read relief, if not catharsis.
For most survivors, this is the first time they have told their stories, and perhaps even more importantly, the first time anyone has listened.
The TRC began listening last summer, and it plans to wrap up by 2014. It is funded by $60 million that survivors set aside from a $1.9-billion settlement in 2007 with the Canadian government and Christian churches, the largest class action lawsuit settlement in Canadian history.
The history of residential schools is not found in high school textbooks, which is why many Canadians would agree with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comment in 2009 that Canada “has no history of colonialism.”
This is a conveniently misleading claim, critics say. Canada did not invade other countries, but colonized within its own borders. For more than 100 years, the Canadian government funded Church-run schools to assimilate Aboriginal children. The first legislation to this effect in the 19th century was called the Gradual Civilization Act. Euphemism would later be abandoned in 1920 when Duncan Scott, the most senior public servant in the Department of Indian Affairs, promised to “kill the Indian in the child.” Over time, more than 150,000 children would be sent to residential schools.
For commissioner Littlechild, the hearings over which he presides are part of his own healing journey.
His glittering career spans sport, business and politics, including stints as a semi-professional hockey and baseball player, an oil and gas lawyer in Edmonton, First Nations chief, and member of Parliament. His toothy smile radiates warmth, and he retains the backslapping ease and banter of a politician.
But even this man of uncommon success dealt with his past at residential school in the most common way: with silence. Only recently, after he accepted the job of commissioner, did he begin to open up about his own experiences to his family, though he did not share many of the details.
“I spent 14 years in residential schools, so I had no bond with my mom and dad or my grandparents. I didn’t get to know my brothers or sisters. I didn’t know how to be a dad or a grandfather, or a husband. I had no source of reference. I needed to apologize to my family, and ask for their forgiveness.”
Thus far, the TRC has collected testimony from more than 3,000 people. As difficult as it is for the commission to solicit the secrets festering in so many closets, this is the relatively easy part of its work. Reconciliation is the real challenge.
The commission refers to truth and reconciliation, as if one leads necessarily to another. If truth, then reconciliation? If only.
After recent hearings in Yellowknife, Littlechild told the audience of over 100, “Sometimes I think about how difficult it is to ask that you go from truth to reconciliation. Because really there are a bunch of intervening steps, including forgiveness.”
Since the average residen-tial school survivor is 66, the average nun or priest who taught them is dead. This is an obvious complication for the process of forgiveness, because “I forgive” comes far more readily after “I apologize.” As it stands, the overwhelming majority of the participants and audience of the public hearings are survivors. At times, Littlechild worries that the TRC and the survivors “are just talking among ourselves.”
As Helen Tologanak said during her testimony in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, “I don’t know how many of my teachers and supervisors are still alive, but I don’t see them here.”
At its best, the TRC led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa in the mid 1990s brought together repentant whites and aggrieved blacks. Victims and oppressors were contemporaries and acknowledged each other, face to face. Reconciling with past wrongs is more complicated.
To great fanfare, Harper delivered an apology about residential schools in the House of Commons in 2008 on behalf of the government of Canada. For many survivors, this was an important step in their healing.
To the extent that churches are participating in some local TRC events, it is to lead prayers before and after hearings. Littlechild admits there has been little testimony by the perpetrators. “The invitation is always open,” he added. “Some survivors want to hear a sorry. We haven’t had enough.”
Nevertheless, in transcendent moments of courage and grace, many survivors use their time in front of the TRC to express forgiveness to those who wronged them.
Reconciling with Canada is another thing altogether. As part of its mandate, the TRC is tasked with renewing and rebuilding “the relationship between Aboriginal and nonAboriginal Canadians.”
Littlechild views the need for reconciliation in a broad way. “To me it means resuming respectful relations: within your family, within a community, and within Canada. As a country, we have to grapple together with the concept, to figure out what reconciliation means collectively.”
At the end of a long day of testimony in Yellowknife, after a spirited drum and dancing session, Littlechild lingered as staff folded up banners and tables around him. He paused next to the empty chair where survivors had sat in front of him telling their stories.
“Do you think you’ll end up in that chair?” I asked.
“Yes, definitely. But not yet. I need to tell my family the whole story first.”
Exposing Canada’s most shameful story
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is exploring the cultural devastation caused by residential schools
Commissioners for the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission Marie Wilson, from left, Justice Murray Sinclair, the chairman of the panel, and Chief Wilton Littlechild. Photograph by: Jana Chytilova, The Ottawa Citizen
They speak of wandering hands of priests, unanswered cries for help, and tears of parentless children and childless parents. One by one, Aboriginal survivors of residential schools are publicly sharing their heartbreaking stories. Chief Wilton Littlechild has listened to every one.
After one elderly woman finished a wrenching description of her sexual abuse, she locked eyes with Littlechild and concluded: “I pray for you. I don’t know how you listen to all these stories.”
Chief Littlechild is one of three commissioners leading Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on residential schools, and the only one to have attended a residential school.
“When I listen to survivor stories, often they are telling my story,” he said. “I have shed many tears with them.” He spent 14 years, from the age of six to 19, at two schools in Alberta, Ermineskin Indian Residential School and St. Anthony’s college.
Littlechild and the TRC face two daunting tasks: assembling an oral record of one of the darkest chapters of Canadian history, and using truths about the past to heal the present. Littlechild has become a historian of pain and cheerleader for forgiveness.
Mostly, he listens. Across Canada, in gymnasiums and community halls, the following scene is unfolding:
A survivor speaks into a microphone facing only the three commissioners and TRC banners that read “For the child taken, for the parent left behind.” Some stories last a few minutes, others a few hours. The audience is arranged in a horseshoe behind the survivor, who is joined by a friend with a hand of comfort and tissues at the ready. When a voice cracks, and most do, the audience cannot see the tears, but they can hear them.
Blooming tissue boxes litter the room. Health counsellors prowl the aisles looking for someone to hug. Along one wall, large fish tank booths house local translators, and headsets buzz with English and the local Aboriginal language.
When a survivor concludes testimony, they are met with handshakes and hugs from friends, family and strangers. Faces read relief, if not catharsis.
For most survivors, this is the first time they have told their stories, and perhaps even more importantly, the first time anyone has listened.
The TRC began listening last summer, and it plans to wrap up by 2014. It is funded by $60 million that survivors set aside from a $1.9-billion settlement in 2007 with the Canadian government and Christian churches, the largest class action lawsuit settlement in Canadian history.
The history of residential schools is not found in high school textbooks, which is why many Canadians would agree with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comment in 2009 that Canada “has no history of colonialism.”
This is a conveniently misleading claim, critics say. Canada did not invade other countries, but colonized within its own borders. For more than 100 years, the Canadian government funded Church-run schools to assimilate Aboriginal children. The first legislation to this effect in the 19th century was called the Gradual Civilization Act. Euphemism would later be abandoned in 1920 when Duncan Scott, the most senior public servant in the Department of Indian Affairs, promised to “kill the Indian in the child.” Over time, more than 150,000 children would be sent to residential schools.
For commissioner Littlechild, the hearings over which he presides are part of his own healing journey.
His glittering career spans sport, business and politics, including stints as a semi-professional hockey and baseball player, an oil and gas lawyer in Edmonton, First Nations chief, and member of Parliament. His toothy smile radiates warmth, and he retains the backslapping ease and banter of a politician.
But even this man of uncommon success dealt with his past at residential school in the most common way: with silence. Only recently, after he accepted the job of commissioner, did he begin to open up about his own experiences to his family, though he did not share many of the details.
“I spent 14 years in residential schools, so I had no bond with my mom and dad or my grandparents. I didn’t get to know my brothers or sisters. I didn’t know how to be a dad or a grandfather, or a husband. I had no source of reference. I needed to apologize to my family, and ask for their forgiveness.”
Thus far, the TRC has collected testimony from more than 3,000 people. As difficult as it is for the commission to solicit the secrets festering in so many closets, this is the relatively easy part of its work. Reconciliation is the real challenge.
The commission refers to truth and reconciliation, as if one leads necessarily to another. If truth, then reconciliation? If only.
After recent hearings in Yellowknife, Littlechild told the audience of over 100, “Sometimes I think about how difficult it is to ask that you go from truth to reconciliation. Because really there are a bunch of intervening steps, including forgiveness.”
Since the average residential school survivor is 66, the average nun or priest who taught them is dead. This is an obvious complication for the process of forgiveness, because “I forgive” comes far more readily after “I apologize.” As it stands, the overwhelming majority of the participants and audience of the public hearings are survivors. At times, Littlechild worries that the TRC and the survivors “are just talking among ourselves.”
As Helen Tologanak said during her testimony in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, “I don’t know how many of my teachers and supervisors are still alive, but I don’t see them here.”
At its best, the TRC led by Nelson Mandela in South Africa in the mid 1990s brought together repentant whites and aggrieved blacks. Victims and oppressors were contemporaries and acknowledged each other, face to face. Reconciling with past wrongs is more complicated.
To great fanfare, Harper delivered an apology about residential schools in the House of Commons in 2008 on behalf of the government of Canada. For many survivors, this was an important step in their healing.
To the extent that churches are participating in some local TRC events, it is to lead prayers before and after hearings. Littlechild admits there has been little testimony by the perpetrators. “The invitation is always open,” he added. “Some survivors want to hear a sorry. We haven’t had enough.”
Nevertheless, in transcendent moments of courage and grace, many survivors use their time in front of the TRC to express forgiveness to those who wronged them.
Reconciling with Canada is another thing altogether. As part of its mandate, the TRC is tasked with renewing and rebuilding “the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.”
Littlechild views the need for reconciliation in a broad way. “To me it means resuming respectful relations: within your family, within a community, and within Canada. As a country, we have to grapple together with the concept, to figure out what reconciliation means collectively.”
At the end of a long day of testimony in Yellowknife, after a spirited drum and dancing session, Littlechild lingered as staff folded up banners and tables around him. He paused next to the empty chair where survivors had sat in front of him telling their stories.
“Do you think you’ll end up in that chair?” I asked.
“Yes, definitely. But not yet. I need to tell my family the whole story first.”
For Postmedia News
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Comments
Raven Redbird
This TRC is useless. It’s like going to court, knowing the offender will be protected by the same system that was responsible for the crime..This is totally ludicrous!!
Name withheld
heyJenX
“The TRC has no power to lay criminal charges or issue subpoenas, will not allow the naming of names or presenting of evidence… will not grant protective immunity to those testifying, and will prevent its findings to be used in courts of law…
[It] will be incapable of conducting any serious inquiry into crimes in Indian residential schools… that claimed the lives of at least 50,000 children over a century.
Not only will this ‘official’ self-examination by the [guilty] parties… provide no satisfaction to the… survivors… but the mandate of the ‘TRC’ violates international human rights protocols…” http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
The mortality rate for students in those schools was FIFTY PERCENT, including murder and even deliberate, mass TB infection. Canada is already in the ICC’s sights on the Afghan detainee question. Put genocide on our list.
citizen63
“Clueless” Mom
anon395286139
Name withheld
8:57 PM on May 23, 2011
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Is it true that the TRC will not allow the naming of names? Can someone in the know please fill us in?
Many have heard the saying that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely…”. Unfortunately for natives in this country, since Europeans came along and conquered the continent , subdued its populations, they have had very little to say about being in power. Especially unfortunate also, it took events such as Oka to rattle the cage of the people in power. By people in power I mean everyone who has ever looked down on native populations because of their difference, because of their origins , because of their “lesser” than “us” condition: lack of education, inherent poverty, ignorance…Those at the top are in great part responsible for the condition.
The same people in power, from politicians to clergy, right to the representatives of that power, namely police officers, social workers, our court system, every day unconcerned hard working Canadians , we are all partly responsible for accepting to look down on other human beings as we did…
Many times I have witnessed natives being called names and treated in ways I wouldn’t think of treating a dog…by people in positions of power. I was slowly being conditioned, unconsciously, though some sort of tradition, to look at native people as lesser than “us”. For the times, as a much younger man when I felt my heart rip apart as a witnessed subtle but hurtful comments, gestures or lack of empathy for Natives or other poor, “powerless” people, I regret not standing taller than I did. Probably because I too was just a little guy trying to find his way in the big world. I am still just a little guy, still going through some evolution, especially in the past year with my involvement in dealing with the “power” of the church…just another part of the same abusive system!…
How will we be able to trust ever again when so many have been cheated, lied to, put down or simply not allowed the opportunities to share in the comforts of the “powerful”… without the abusive selfishness!
“Generosity” is not a boxed puzzle, “humanity” should no longer be a riddle synonymous with “exclusions”. We don’t need people in “power”, we need people who can “guide” us…
JG
JG, I hope you don’t mind me saying that there is as I am sure you know an upside to the turmoil you have experienced in your life in this recent past. Forgive me but I have surmised that now more so than ever before you are a person listening to the call to become the human being you potentially are. Your voice is so loud and so clear. You articulate such relevant and important messages intensely, persuasively and with great conviction. Thanks JG for sharing your wisdom.
Thank You for your kind words Larry…
You should know I was called “an old man” when I was 17 years old. To be called wise is a serious improvement, but I think it is in part because I have a larger “library of mistakes” from which to retrieve some answers…As well, we were given a road map we can all refer to at leisure …I just try to pay close attention to it and listen from inside out…
Mostly, in this case, I enjoyed reading about Wilton Littlechild and I felt inspired by the few words of this man and was just pleased to read that HE listens. You, I and many others who have shared on this site or even suffered alone , know that to find someone who truly “listens” is half the solution we are all looking for. Littlechild ,I felt, is a big man…
For you Larry, I”ll go further and say how grateful I am , as all of the contributors to this site should be, that the seed Sylvia has planted with her dedication is bearing fruit. There is an exchange, a sharing that can only lead to better human beings …Even the heated exchanges at times ,I believe, are necessary and healthy. I try to look for the good and I usually find it. I will be extremely concerned the day people are “indifferent” and stop expressing their beliefs, their disbelief or their anger…Even those who say they have no beliefs, who hate this site , who love “their” church or are raging at the church, are worthy contributors: one way or another we are all in the same torture chamber and we are looking for peace in our hearts, answers to our questions….Simply patient and hopeful !… At times I have deplored however that very good people have been too quick to turn on one another and too slow to turn the other cheek…
One year ago I took a fork in the road, at the invitation of “the church” who professed a reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and so on. Full pages in local newspapers, covered with benevolent Catholic icing, the same sweet icing I was fed all my life… as was fed my father, his father and his father before…
And then at the first opportunity, they chose to lie to me , my family and my father who was the original victim… So, really, I shouldn’t even be here if “the church” had only been slightly sincere!…
Very mysterious ways indeed!…
“The church” is asking to be “forgiven”…They have so lost their way that they have forgotten that “forgiveness” is a gift, to be given ,not requested” as is an “apology”. They are not even close but we will all know when and if they ever chose , as well, a different fork in the road…
Until then we should all continue to speak our individual truths… and be good to someone everyday…
JG
JG…you have articulated with clarity so many valid points on this clergy abuse topic.
I’ve learned not to be afraid from well meaning Christian folks that say…why concern yourself with these clergy abuse victims, you should really learn to get over whatever happened to you long ago, and move on. A clever deflection tactic I believe. It is not about me… it is about other victims that need to be heard, that these victims DO matter. Furthermore…those victims that are not with us today but only in spirit should never be forgotten.
Like a mother whose son took his own life because he could not go on living with the fact what a certain Monsignor/priest did to him.
So many Catholics from their pews and other folks just do not want to talk about the abuses that were perpetrated by the Catholic Church’s clergy. They simply do not want to listen.
It’s like this dirty secret should stay hidden and not spoken about. They rather not seek the truth; they rather stay in their imaginary comfort zone they have found themselves in for whatever reason.
They project this image that the victims should just shut up, go away and stop bad mouthing the Catholic Church.
Words like: CRIMINAL ACTS and CRIMES against the victims are just not part of their vocabulary.
Countless victims are silent and their stories about their abusers do remain untold. Many took their horrible suffering and pain to the grave.
JG you said: “one way or another we are all in the same torture chamber and we are looking for peace in our hearts, answers to our questions.”…”Even the heated exchanges at times, I believe, are necessary and healthy. “…
I re-read your posts JG a few times; it’s full of wisdom to take to heart and ponder on.
Thank You!
Lina
Thanks, good reading from someone who forgot to read!
Hello Lina. Nice meeting you.
Maybe I shouldn’t, but here goes…
…”well meaning Christians” , “they simply do not want to listen”…I am not afraid of that either and no one should be. It just takes time to accept you/we may have been wrong…Nobody likes to be associated to the “losing” team. I believe that is the reason we engage in this confrontation which should be resolved in due time…
If you have read some of the comments I made on this site you probably noticed I like to refer to “the message”….I think we were long ago told how to live our lives, in different ways…As a Father teaching or explaining , or telling a story to his children, we have been told a slightly different version with always the same “message”. We all haven’t been listening very well. We just want to be right!… with the winning team!..
the best army!…the chosen!…
I have always been referred to as a catholic, as a christian as opposed to “the others”, Muslims, Hindous, Jews,… I never thought I was better or special or above…I have always disliked to hear anyone associate themselves to “our Father in Heaven” with constant name dropping… I believe idols were destroyed in “biblical” times and will continue to be! …because we need to hear the Message very clearly!The rest is just frivolous distraction!
I have found it refreshing to read(somewhere else on the site..)someone commenting that a Muslim man sounded more like a Christian than others who professed to “be” Christians. That the lines appeared to be blurred by a simple comment by one of the “others” is reason to “hope” at a wider “reconciliation”. Our “promoted differences” have benefited a limited number of people over time simply to assure “their” hold on “power” over the masses. We are all learning to listen a little more everyday because we are communicating…..we now have that capability!…to expect the truth!
Our “promoted differences” were erected like fences between neighbors, between countries, between races , …and we called it “our Religion” …”us”…”them”..We need to start believing in more than “our church”…As I recall that first “Commandment” aimed a lot “Higher” and I don’t mean the “International Space Station” …or other “diversion/deflection tactics”, as you said ,Lina.
I don’t know why I am opening up like this, just hope this is what I am supposed to do…I don’t believe “Jesus” would be very proud or excited or pleased that his name has become the focus and the “message” he was conveying was put aside by the very people purporting to represent his words. His name often repeated as if he was a rock star, at a concert where we can’t or won’t hear the words of the song…
I am mad at “the leadership” for being so stubbornly shallow and for failing to address the abuse of children in total surrender and by speaking the truth…”Our Church” right now is like a family where the “father” ,”the parents” don’t perform their role of providing for their children’s needs adequately. I think you can visualize the relationships in that home very easily…just like I read in your words and those of that “Clueless” Mom..( who is not so clueless!)and Wilton Littlechild , I respectfully salute once more.
Tell your family the truth… Benedict, et al…
“Ease the pain” of the children, of all ages…
Then you may regain moral authority and maybe renew your mandate…
Food for thought
JG
…off to get my helmet!!!…
Thank you for your response to my post JG.
I like to think there is a time to speak up and a time to let it go. It just to find that balance. Maybe it’s right when that inner voice tells you? That is what I like to believe anyway.
I find your post interesting and if it makes me think more and challenge myself more in constructive ways that is good. Lots of food for thought!
When you said JG: “I am mad at “the leadership” for being so stubbornly shallow and for failing to address the abuse of children in total surrender and by speaking the truth..”
Saying this is so simple then why doesn’t the leadership just speak the truth? Is it because the leadership…no longer teaches the values found in the gospels? They let the trapping of richness and power consume them?
Another thing why do I hear especially from a elderly mother of a son who is a Monsignor (he is accused of crimes against very people & going to trial in the fall).
‘No matter what everybody thinks and say…a priest is a priest forever!’
I always wonder maybe that is one misguided reason strong religious folks and leaders believe the crimes, evil acts by clergy should be dealt differently because they have been chosen by God and they must be dealt differently from plain folks like us? I do not believe this but many must believe it because of all the denial and cover-ups the Catholic Church does.
I read this somewhere on the web about a lady who saw this tee shirt.
The back of the tee shirt says:
In memory of
All the children
Who were abused
By Catholic Clergy
The front of the tee shirt says
IT’S A SIN.
STOP
THE COVERUP.
—–
That is one person putting a message out there for support for clergy abuse victims all over.
Many thanks JG,
Goodnight!
Lina
Lina,
…and a son is always a son! A mother’s Love, hopefully …thankfully we will never be able to explain . Just respect it and give her your affection…
Take care
JG
Thank You!
Lina