From the archives: Residential schools survivors share the pain

By ANDREW STOBO SNIDERMAN, Special to The Gazette

MONTREAL -
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. "We know," as one attending Health Canada psychologist said, "that talking is better
than not talking. And the more you talk, the more you heal."
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 TRC recently concluded its "northern tour" through 19
communities in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and northern Quebec.
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 skeletons rotting 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." Later, another survivor publicly forgave her
former tormentors, but wished she could "say it to their face."
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.
Harper's speech was historic, yet it was lacking. Overtly racist government in Canada is dead, but in its heyday it
acted with impunity. Canada's Aboriginal people have received an apology for the past, but are expected to forgive
ghosts.
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."
Marie Wilson, another one of the TRC's commissioners, added, "Our audience is not survivors. It is all Canadians.
"The rest of Canada cannot think this is just about survivors telling their truth, having a
 measure of catharsis, and that's it. It's about healing Canada's amnesia, and thinking about the problems that
continue to plague First Nations people," she said.
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."