The final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has been gathering information and evidence from aboriginal people all across Canada for the past six years, was released on Tuesday.
Its contents make for disturbing reading. The commission comes to the conclusion that the government of Canada, and Great Britain before it, practised “cultural genocide” on First Nations people all across the country, through a wide variety of means. The most notable was residential schools, which had a mandate from the government to “take the Indian out of the child” by refusing to allow children to speak their native language, by removing them from home at young ages, by banning First Nations cultural ceremonies and replacing them with religious ceremonies, and ultimately by breaking up the family unit.
The damage this has done is evident all around us. While the Lower Mainland has a significant number of First Nations people living on the street, the numbers here pale when compared to cities like Regina and Winnipeg.
First Nations children continue to be taken from their families due to concerns about neglect and abuse. Far too many of the children referred to in B.C. Children’s Commmissioner Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s reports are of native background.
The languages once spoken by First Nations people (there were dozens of distinct languages in B.C. alone) have almost completely disappeared, although small groups are trying mightily to preserve them by teaching them to young children. The challenge is that few adults know the languages any more.
All of these things can be directly traced to government policy and a determination to ensure that there would be little distinction between the aboriginal people who have lived in this land for countless generations, and the immigrants from other parts of the world.
The commission makes a multitude of recommendations to try and bring about genuine reconciliation. These need careful study, but the first step must be for all Canadians to recognize the wrongs of the past and learn from them. Next Wednesday’s Times will look at some possible forward steps.