A year of hard lessons

It’s been a year of reckoning and a year of mourning in Canada since unmarked Indigenous children’s graves were discovered at the sites of former residential schools.

A year of fresh grief, and rekindled anguish.

How can you ever reconcile children dying while in the care of the church and state, particularly when those children were taken from their families, stripped of their language and culture, and often physically and sexually abused.

We have a lot of healing to do as a nation, as was evident when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined members of Tkemlúps te Secwépemc First Nation this week to visit the memorial site in Kamloops, B.C. and received an angry reaction.

“There were a number of people who are still very, very hurt by this and who are angry, and, frankly, they have a right to be angry,” Trudeau said afterwards.

And he’s right. The hurt runs deep as Indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians try to move ahead together on the path of reconciliation.

But there are signs that we are taking small steps forward.

In the past year, many non-indigenous Canadians have learned more about the residential school system and its painful legacy than they were ever taught in schools. Many Canadians have listened as survivors have bravely told their stories and their families have conveyed how the trauma gets handed down through generations like a terrible inheritance.

There are signs that, slowly, we are beginning to listen.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a Heart Garden has been created on the grounds of Government House in St. John’s to honour all those who were sent to residential schools, and their families.

In Nova Scotia, Indigenous cultural sensitivity training is being delivered to personnel at Cape Breton Regional Hospital, in order to bring cultural awareness and sensitivities to the birthing process and parent and baby care.

“It’s about making the space welcoming, providing materials in the languages of the community, learning about traditional practices around birth and breastfeeding, and being supportive of those practices to give culturally informed and culturally safe care for First Nations families,” explained Candi Edwards, associate director of the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority.

In Prince Edward Island last week, non-indigenous municipal allies received Reconciliation Recognition Awards from Epekwitk Assembly of Councils for projects that acknowledge and celebrate Mi’kmaq culture in P.E.I.

Mayor Rowan Caseley’s community of Kensington was honoured for incorporating Mi’kmaq culture into a town mural and flying the Mi’kmaq Grand Council flag. He suggests that everyone has a role to play in acknowledging the mistakes of the past, learning from them and working toward a brighter future.

“Our role may be small in the whole scheme of things,” he said, “but I think reconciliation is really a series of small steps that each and every one of us have to take individually, and communities have to take as well.”

Let’s keep moving in the right direction.