NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
One of the starker findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which wrapped up last week, is the estimated 6,000 children who died while under the care of the residential school system.
This number doesn't surprise Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya, a former residential school survivor himself who attended the notorious Grollier Hall in Inuvik.
"I believe those numbers could be higher," he said.
"If you look at the Northwest Territories, we haven't even done our own count on how many children have not come back to the communities."
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Chair Murray Sinclair publicly offered this number after releasing a report of TRC findings June 2. The report itself states the number of children who died will never be known, citing a government policy to routinely destroy residential school health records.
The TRC was established in 2008 as a result of a class action lawsuit between former First Nations, Inuit and Metis students and the federal government. The commission soon after embarked on a fact-finding mission to quantify the impact of residential schools in Canada. To do so, researchers spent years pouring through government records and collecting statements from survivors.
Yakeleya said the government was not prepared to deal with the influx of testimonials it received from the NWT.
"They were ill-prepared in regards to this tsunami of residential school survivors coming in front of them," he said.
"They came out to the tsunami with a dinghy boat."
In response to the six-volume report, which was released June 2 and includes 94 recommendations for reparation, he said the territorial government needs to dedicate itself to helping former students and their families.
"There's got to be a victims' advocacy group," he said.
"We have a high population of aboriginal people entering into our justice system and correctional facilities. We're trying to fix a nation of inter-generational residential school survivors and we are not yet willing to give back to the community members."
Some of the key recommendations include the addition of residential school history to curriculum in Canadian schools, the establishment of a National Survivor's Day and national centre for survivors, acknowledgement that the poor state of aboriginal health in the country is a direct result of the residential school system and an overhaul of the child welfare system.
Premier Bob McLeod made a statement in legislative assembly June 3 to acknowledge the report, congratulate the commission and confirm his government will "undertake a detailed review of the comprehensive recommendations."
Charlie Furlong, a residential school survivor and former politician living in Aklavik, believes some of the recommendations would be more helpful than others.
"They funded this commission so I think they should take it seriously and begin to talk to leadership and talk to the communities one more time and ask them to prioritize the recommendations," he said.
"We can't sit back and expect the government to take them all and come to us with a pocketful of money. We have to offer support and likewise they have to as well. Education is the strongest point."
He added he wasn't too keen on some of the recommendations, such as a National Survivor's Day or a national centre for survivors.
"I think that just re-opens old wounds and it's a place for consultants and lawyers to continue to ask for money to carry on a fight. I don't really support that, maybe others do but you know I'm trying to get away from creating gatherings where people continue to press that issue."
Northwest Territories MP Dennis Bevington told News/North he found the report and its recommendations "far reaching and extremely important" and said the federal government has a responsibility to take them seriously.
"But whether he does or not, well we haven't seen that kind of reaction yet," he said.
"So far (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's) reaction has been ... almost a non-reaction. They should have been prepared to speak up on this, that was important."
For his part, Harper has said very little about report in the House of Commons and said his government will not commit to acting on its recommendations.
Report makes special mention of North
The TRC report's 384-page summary examines a number of aspects of the residential school system, of which eight operated in what is now the Northwest Territories between the years of 1867 and 1996.
The buildings, it states, were "in most cases, badly constructed, poorly maintained, overcrowded, unsanitary fire traps."
Many school administrators neglected to do fire drills because children sought to escape when they were practised. Fire exits were blocked for the same reason. As a result, 53 schools were destroyed by fire. There were at least 170 additional recorded fires and at least 40 children died in fires.
Children often did not receive an education and instead spent their time maintaining school buildings, which were chronically underfunded. Supervisors arranged students into marriages and blocked others from marrying in order to discourage them from returning to their families when they left school.
Food was usually scarce and diseases, such as tuberculosis, ran rampant.
The report makes special mention of residential schools in the North.
"Because of the majority of the aboriginal population in two of the three Northern territories, the per capita impact of the schools in the North is higher than anywhere else in the country," it states.
"And because the history of these schools is so recent, not only are there many living survivors today, but there are also many living parents of survivors. For these reasons ... the legacy of the schools, the good and the bad, are particularly strongly felt in the North."
Many sections of the report deal with negative aspects of the residential school system but there are glimmers of positivity.
Vitaline Elsie Jenner, a former residential school student who went on to work as a girls' supervisor at Breynat Hall in Fort Smith, told the commission that "to her surprise, she enjoyed most of the experience."
"She recalled being asked by one staff person what sort of games she thought the children would like to play to make them feel at home," states the report.
"I said, 'You know, I bet you they all want to be hugged, like I was in that residential school. 'Cause you know what? They're away from their parents.'"
A massive undertaking
It took six years for Sinclair and his team of researchers to compile 6,750 testimonies and innumerable written documents into the definitive history of the residential school system, bound in a six-volume report.
In it, those tasked with studying the legacy and impact of the residential schools in Canada studied the institution through the lens of the Canadian government's policies to "eliminate aboriginal governments, ignore aboriginal rights, terminate the treaties and through a process of assimilation, cause aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as a distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada."
The report calls the establishment and operation of residential schools a "central element" of these policies, which it goes on to describe as "cultural genocide."
"States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted," the report states.
"Most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next."
Approximately 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children passed through the system over a period of approximately 150 years.
- with files from Evan Kiyoshi French and John McFadden
