IQALUIT
One Nunavut leader says Inuit still have a lot of work to do to move forward and heal following last week's national release of the final report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa.

Former Nunavut MP Jack Anawak is happy with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report released last week but thinks Inuit needed a stronger presence in the process. He recommends a focus on including Inuit culture in mental health programming going forward. - NNSL file photo

The report, six years in the making, details many of the abuses suffered by students in the residential school system and comes with a host of recommendations for Canada to move forward.

Jack Anawak, a former MP representing Nunavut, said he's happy with the recommendations put forward by the commission and the acknowledgment that residential schools were cultural genocide.

"I was happy to see it put in print because that's exactly what happened when we were going to school," said Anawak.

But he's been disappointed through the whole process about the lack of a strong Inuit presence.

"I think it's time people understand that Inuit are a nation," he said. "There's been some feeling to date by southerners that places Inuit under First Nations. We're not First Nation. We're Inuit. Totally different culture."

He recommends Inuit across their traditional territory gather together and address the situation themselves. The key to healing, he says, is incorporating Inuit culture in mental health programming.

"What we want to do is come up with an Inuit-specific plan to deal with the mental health, the residential school survivors and all these other things," said Anawak.

"The mental health of the Inuit should be a priority of our Nunavut government as well as our federal government. Inuit should feel that they can get something out of the programs that are being offered. Right now there's a lack of cultural impact in a lot of those treatment programs and that's what we need."

Mental health programs can do more than anything else the government can, he said, but the programs need to be tailored to the Inuit people.

"The mental health people who are in charge at the Government of Nunavut really don't have any cultural understanding or cultural awareness," said Anawak.

When the Truth and Reconciliation process began six years ago, Anawak said there were a lot of naysayers who have made acting on the recommendations harder now.

"When it came out that there was going to be compensation, then an awful lot of those naysayers suddenly smelled the money and joined in," he said.

"We like the fact that they joined in but the fact that there was a lot of naysayers at the beginning has made it that much harder to convince the people that, if we're going to deal with this, it has to be through the mental health programs."

He says Prime Minister Stephen Harper's apology to residential school survivors in 2008 appeared sincere, but the federal government has since not followed through on its promise to rectify the situation.

Meanwhile, Nunavut's language commissioner wants a clear statement made to protect the use of traditional languages.

"We need a clear statement from the federal government that recognizes aboriginal rights as including aboriginal language rights as a positive obligation," Languages Commissioner Sandra Inutiq stated in a news release following the report's release.

Language played an integral role in the assimilation policy, she said.

"The time is now to start reversing continual erosion of our Inuit language. It would be a symbolic gesture of reconciliation as language played an integral role as part of the assimilation policy," Inutiq stated.

The organization representing Inuit beneficiaries in Nunavut welcomed the national attention given to the release of the report and its recommendations.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. President Cathy Towtongie stated in a release that it is of vital importance that commisssion chairperson Justice Murray Sinclair's report becomes part of the conversation in all Canadian households.

"All Canadians have a personal responsibility to learn about this time in Canadian history in order to better understand the lasting impacts and legacy that residential schools continue to have on a large percentage of this country's aboriginal population," stated Towtongie.

"Before reconciliation can truly move ahead, we all need to know the truth of what happened to former residential school students."

NTI was a party to the lawsuit that resulted in the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2007.

The corporation sent nine Inuit residential school survivors to attend the closing ceremony and associated events in Ottawa.

Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna, who did not travel to Ottawa, focused on the need for healing in his reaction to the release of the report and its recommendations.

"The residential school system was essentially an effort to wash away the culture and language of Inuit and other aboriginal peoples," Taptuna stated. "This has added to the intergenerational trauma we still see across Nunavut. We must find common ground to move forward and heal.

"For the past two years, we have worked with the NWT and the Legacy of Hope Foundation to teach a Grade 10 social studies unit dedicated to residential schools in Canada. This is one part of the healing process, Taptuna stated.

"We are reviewing the Truth and Reconciliation report and recommendations to determine our next steps. In this context, we must understand that reconciliation is a process that involves change at every level of society."

It is estimated between 3,000 and 4,000 Nunavut Inuit were forced to attend residential schools.

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