Temple Symposium: Truth and Reconciliation

Transcription

1 1 Temple Symposium: Truth and Reconciliation Montreal, Quebec October 18, 2015 Reflections by Commissioner Dr. Marie Wilson Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Newetsine Mahsi Rabbi (Lisa) Grushcow Elders, ladies and gentlemen, children, fellow panelists, and especially to you Kakaoinstha (Betty), and any other residential school survivors, or intergenerational survivors who may be with us Thank you for the honour of being here with you today Thank you for your commitment to this urgent national dialogue It is one which I and my fellow Commissioners, Chief Wilton Littlechild and our Chair, Justice Murray Sinclair, hope will lead to an urgent national action plan. In reading about your synagogue, some important words stood out for me: There is full equality between men and women, boys and girls. We open our doors to interfaith couples we are the place where individuals and families in all their diversity can find a home (Jewish). I found myself thinking I who was raised Protestant Christian in the United Church of Canada.As I read the words you use to describe yourselves, I was thinking this particular faith community is so liberal in its thinking, it is practically United!

2 As I was reminded also of your ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, and their renowned tent open on all sides and welcoming to all I was struck by two things: 1. That I already knew that story that I too was raised with bibilical stories of Abraham and Sarah and those who came after them underscoring that we have much in common in our spiritual groundings as they relate to community, and to humanity.and that finding such common ground on our values related to humanity is such a good starting point for the dialogue that needs to start and continue. 2. The second thing that struck me was that I also know another very similar tent story but much, much older, and from this continent, not somewhere else. I live among the Dene people of the Northwest Territories Denendeh as it is called by them where I have sat in such tents, still actively used by so many people, including, until very recently, my own 95 year old mother in law. According to the archeologists, the Dene have been setting their tents, with flaps wide open, for thirty thousand years.most of us don t yet know that. Most of us still have so much to learn about each other, and to learn from each other 2 Sir Alexander Mackenzie would have sat in such a tent would have been welcomed into it would not have been able to navigate the great river, the DehCho, without the help of those who lived in such tents and yet, he was the one who got that river named after him the mighty Mackenzie.. Is it easier to recognize those who are most like us? Is it so hard to recognize those who are not? This is the exact opportunity we have been offered as a country by the courageous work of residential school survivors, and those who fought politically for their legal cause some of whom are from this community, and whom you know well Let me reference again your temple description: For over 130 years, we have been a beacon of justice, taking to heart the Torah s teaching that every one of us is made in the image of God.

3 That may well have been the spiritual philosophy of this synagogue but it was not the political thinking or policy of the Government of Canada just one year after your temple was founded in That policy held that certain ones of us were not in God s image at all imperfect, needing correction, needing Christianization, needing civilization, needing assimilation When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men. 1 As a country we have been slowly inheriting the ever-expanding mess of that attitude ever since it was first expressed in Canadian House of Commons by our very first Prime Minister, Sir John A Macdonald in It marked the launch of the federal government s official policy on Indian Residential Schools Definitive public policy, in a great country, that did a great deal of harm to a great many children over a great length of time. The last residential schools closed more than a century later in the late 1990 s. That s when the heroes of the residential school story started emerging. They were courageous, resilient and visionary Indigenous people from every region of the country who headed to the courts to challenge what had happened to their childhoods and their families. Eighty thousand living Survivors of the residential school system tackled the four national Christian churches who ran the residential schools, as well as the federal government itself, that had imposed the residential school system without their consent or even their right to vote. 3

4 The 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was and still is the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. One of its hard-fought provisions was for the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Though more than 60 around the world, this one is completely historic in its nature as a TRC: - NOT a government-initiated policy created as a legal obligation supervised by the courts - Addresses harms caused by government policy, and state-sponsored institutions that occurred over more than a century rather than typical TRC s that follow relatively shorter period of military conflict. - Victims of harm took action - Harms experienced by children children of a specific ethnicity I was punished for who I was, not what I did...please tell me what I did so wrong? I was just a little kid.. Words spoken by just one of the seven thousand people who have come forward to share their childhood experiences of being torn from their parents and homes, from everything familiar to them, and from any kind of adequate supervision or protection from the seemingly limitless examples of physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuses they suffered. Now I have to make things right with people, so my children can learn, and so they can tell their children they care.said the one who did not know how to love or care for her children, since she did not know love or care in residential school. If this history, our history, was shared in the education system, we d build our self-esteem back to what it once was. We d re-build our generations.said one I want my identity back Is that too much to ask Someone else, who looked a lot like many of you, said this: It s people like us that have got to start planting the seeds that we have got to start owning up to our history as a country, and starting working together to make things better for the people we have harmed through our own churches and governments and attitudes of superiority. 4

5 Every one of these statements has taught us something as a Commission, and as a country. 1. We need to Learn.When it comes to residential schools and the Indigenous peoples of Canada we are not the heroes of our own story. We need to start telling a more honest story of what really happened. Of the more than four thousand children who died under our watch. Of the hundreds of thousands of families that were devastated by the removal of their beloved children. Of the hundreds of thousands of children who are still living with the legacy of the schools in the Canadian child welfare system because of the inability of their parents to raise them. 2. We need to Remember To teach and educate our children (and ourselves) so that the curriculum of all children is honest about the history of a country that did not begin with the arrival of Europeans. 3. We need to Connect the dots to grasp the co-relation between high incidence of addictions and homelessness and under-education, unemployment, rejection, poverty, child apprehension, family violence, incarceration and epidemic Indigenous youth suicide We need to Change Change requires Action That s why in our TRC Summary report released this past June we do not talk about Recommendations We talk about Calls to Action. Some of those calls to action have your initials attached to them In the Section on Churches and Spirituality, we invite All Faith Communities to take action by supporting and signing on to the creation of a new Covenant of Reconciliation between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. We further invite all Faith Communities to renounce the Doctrine of Discovery, used to justify the diminishment and dehumanization of Indigenous peoples.

6 We invite all faith communities to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which we say can become a living document as a framework for reconciliation. And outside this temple, in your every day lives, where you wear many and various hats where you function in diverse spheres of influence.we also ask you as the people of Canada so named within our Truth and Reconciliation mandate to commit to the ongoing, individual, and collective process of reconciliation. This is what we have called upon my friend and fellow panelist here, Eloge Butera to do he and about 75 other influential Canadians for all of us to stand as an ongoing witness to the work of truth and reconciliation. So that we may live into our faith and spiritual values each of us in our own way... So that we may live into our values and Treaty promises as a country, to live in peace and friendship and mutual regard So that we may live into the apology and the promise given by the government of Canada on behalf of the people of Canada.whether governments themselves appear to be doing so or not That apology saying that from here on, we will carry the burden of responsibility together with Indigenous peoples And so that we may live into right relationships between the Indigenous and non- Indigenous peoples of Canada going forward, and so live into the opportunity given to us by Kakaoinstha (Betty) and the other courageous residential school survivors, to begin to know ourselves anew, and to live up to the fullest potential and the greatest country that we can yet become. 6 At a conference earlier this year I was asked to contemplate this question Canada s relationship with Indigenous people: Can the damage be repaired? Let me draw to a conclusion by sharing with you just three of the reflections I had at that time..

7 We should be talking about Canada s relationship with Indigenous Peoples not people it s time we began to know and respect the rich diversity and differentiations. Not all are Mohawk, Haudenashone, Wendat, Anishnaabe, Inuit etc. Canada s relationship with Indigenous lands more than 2/3 of untapped resources lie within contested Indigenous homelands Think carefully about your Plan Du Nord and its implications for fair and respectful relationships. Canada s relationship with Indigenous spirituality we need some humility here We know in this hall what a fundamental role our spiritual nature plays in defining Who We Are. o Who am I I want my Identity back..is that too much to ask The abuses included Spiritual abuses The past is not just something to be apologized for. Anishnaabe Chief Gilbert Whiteduck of Kitigan Zibi has pointed out how easy it is to pay lip service to Reconciliation Is it an easy blanket of comfort trying to cover up painful realities, he said, including the reality of how hard it is to even get a look into the windows of decision making power here in Ottawa, he said. We are on the eve of a critical federal election Most parties, but not all, have declared themselves on the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their commitment to ongoing reconciliation. I do not see this as a partisan issue at all. We, as a Canadian society, are all in this together. Many parties of many political stripes oversaw the long, drawn out residential school era, and saw and did little to improve or end it. Today we are all living with its continuing legacy. And what we do about that will determine the script for our own place in the narrative of Canada, as we become the Ancestors of tomorrow. 7 We are in this temple, which is itself an elder in the community of Canadian spiritual homes. It is a place where wisdom is expected, and urgently needed.

8 As the spiritual and social justice activists and advocates of our times, what is the role we are carving out for ourselves? Everyone wants to be the hero of their own story will we be the heroes of the next chapter? 8 Shalom my friends, Niawen, Migwetch, Nakumik marialuk, Thank you, Merci Beaucoup and Mahsi Cho. Shalom