Canadian Shame: A History of Residential Schools | Ginger Gosnell-Myers | TEDxVancouver

[Music] [Applause] [Music] my father was a fisherman he knew how to live off the land I remember him getting ready to head out the door getting ready to head out on a hunt grabbing his gun and me small wanting to go with him wondering what we were going to eat next he didn't tell a lot of stories but he liked to sing some of my favorite memories were of him playing his guitar singing away he was tough he worked hard he built her house new mechanics was a jack-of-all-trades and we were always visiting others in our village he was close with our family and he took care of others just as much as he took care of us when I was 17 and flipping through the channels I've seen my uncle on TV it was mostly his face with a black screen behind him and I remember being surprised wondering what this was all about he was talking about his time in an Indian Residential school how he was taken as a child same as my auntie's uncles including my father he talked about how bad it got that there was a lot of violence and a lot of abuse against the kids and how much he missed his parents when he talked about the abuse he experienced and seeing he cried and years later when he was finally able to go how he no longer understood the Nishka language and couldn't even talk with his own parents like most Canadians I had limited opportunities to learn about this truth in this history but here I was looking at the TV line swirling wondering what this meant this is how I learned my father attended in Indian Residential school he had passed on a few years earlier and never mentioned anything about it no one did but a lot about my life and my father made sense afterwards the violence the drinking behavior how one night he jumped out of bed and kicked down the closet door the result of a night terror he carried a secret this heavy burden and I would never have the opportunity to talk to him about it it also helped me understand why indigenous peoples all over Canada were dealing with similar states of mass post-traumatic stress compounded with 150 years of government depression and the intergenerational experiences of living in communities were no healing and limited truth exists the last residential school closed in 1996 and only today I was starting to talk about reconciliation which is understanding the history and impact of these residential schools recognizing the harms and human rights abuses against persons and looking at how we can move forward together reconciliation this long-term efforts to heal asked it's a big part of my life personally and professionally but we still don't have societal consciousness and what reconciliation means and given what we are doing I'm not surely well in 2007 Canada's largest class-action lawsuit the Indian Residential school settlement agreement recognized damage caused through residential schools and that Canada start to repair these harms through individual payments and the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada for 2009 to 2015 the TRC's mandate was to collect stories of residential school survivors and ensure Canadians were informed of what happened in these schools and for one powerful week in 2013 the tears that came to Vancouver part of the event had survivors tell their stories publicly they were given 20 minutes to do so I remember being in the audience the air that smelled like burning sweet grass listening to survivors accounts of the horse ventured as well as the extreme silence they felt in those residential schools and one story really stands out for me it was a father and a son they decided to share the 20 minutes to tell their story together first the father spoke for 10 minutes he talked about how he was ripped from his home the darkness he felt in this new place the isolation the violence and sexual abuse experienced by the children there and that had happened to him his voice was strong he talked about being raped and beaten and again he was just a child when he finished she was angry and he was shaking and he passed the mic to a son a man about my age he then said this is the first time I've ever heard my father talk about any of this I felt like it could have been me up there hearing those stories was an awakening and I finally understood why truth was the pathway to reconciliation but not long after this the TRC Prosis ended the conclusion of the TRC was a report with 94 calls to actions which would facilitate reconciliation for the mass atrocities caused by these government sanctioned Indian Residential schools then that was it it was done adi estimated 80,000 residential school survivors still alive today 6750 gave their testimony an important feat for sure but I still think about all the stories untold and the weight that would have on those individuals and their families I think what is the risk of continuing as a country and not having those stories told what does that do to us as a country in our future history I believe this is an incomplete process our Truth and Reconciliation moment is not done there is another example in the world that we can look to Germany is a country that has made reconciliation part of their national identity at the end of World War two German public opinion of their role in the Holocaust was of denial and deflection it wasn't them silly or their country it was the fault of the Third Reich over the following decades the sentiment in Germany was not seen as favorable towards reconciliation efforts but as the next generation the next generation of these Germans came into power came to understand this history it was this voice it was this next generation who recognized they did have a role to play in persistence political will and leadership the ideas for restitution and strengthening relationships with Jewish community were born and produced cultural institutions and economic certainty for Holocaust survivors and more than that what happened could be called doing the right thing each German Chancellor from 1949 to today has had the personal imperative to repay the steep moral depth and acknowledgement of the heavy burdens of World War two by the end of 2016 or the sixty years after the war Germany had provided over 73 billion euros in all forms of restitution which continues to this day agreements and treaties have been signed between Germany and countries affected by the Holocaust and this is to ensure that Germans today can continue to support and prettiest projects of significance in the area of arts economic prosperity youth leadership just to name a few generations of Germans have since gone through an evolution of thought and action and today's younger generation lives with reconciliation ingrained as there and you can see that with so many young Germans today who are willing to volunteer in countries that were harmed by the Nazis and today the German government still finds ways to deal with the impacts of the Nazis to repatriation of ceased art through monitoring language used in German textbooks each new generation of Germans recognizes that there are new ways that there are parts that were caused in that reconciliation for this will never end and that its meaning will change with time and what is true is that they are acting on all fronts monitoring the process and using all actions necessary for them reconciliation is process that never ends our identity whom we are becoming as Canadians I feel we are forging a path of forgetting not remembering and not learning we're at the cusp of our new national shame if we let this moment pass us by we need to go back and finish what we started if everyone knows her assurances but only one in five Canadians can name the residential school in their hometown residential schools like st. Michael's and Alert Bay where my father was sent or st. Paul's in our think uber or the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential school or Changi when Jack a young - Navi boy was sent and who died later escaping and you can hear his story told by the late gordoni in the project the secret path and if you're looking for a place to start learning check out the secret path let's not forget that these harms went well beyond the residential schools but extended to the destruction of our traditional government systems blankets infected with smallpox gifted to our communities destruction of ceremonial objects are having stolen away the collections around the world the force containment on two small reserves taking away our wealth our languages and so much more there is little understanding of these atrocities and less on talk for justice and restitution there are many many actions that have taken place over the last 150 plus years and we all need to know this and you need to know whose the lands peace of always being we need to understand the deep connection to this earth and we need to learn from that knowledge this country also needs to officially acknowledge indigenous peoples as key founders of this country it needs to get rid of the Indian Act a tool used for cultural genocide it's been around since the 1800s it's still around today and it shouldn't be we are less on the path to reconciliation and understanding the work that should be done more on the path to bury our history further if this history isn't a secret why does it feel like one I don't have all the answers I feel like that's for all of us to figure out together what I can leave you with is another example New Zealand as a country is moving forward on their reconciliation journey as well they are building a national identity that is rooted in Maori culture and language and much of it stems from Maori activism in the late 1970s for New Zealand to promote their language in 1987 Mari was recognized as an official language of that country and many institutions have grown from this and there are now a couple of generations that are benefiting from this national record mission and respect for Maori culture because of this it can be said that a goal of the bharat peoples is for all New Zealanders whether they're indigenous or not to have Maori private and you can see it it's visible from the architecture with Mari design tamari place needs being recognized to having significant representation in government and incorporating the haka a sports team tradition this is identifying New Zealand as a unique place on earth and they are moving forward together co-creating a country and an identity that benefits all it connects everyone there to the land they share through indigenous knowledge this is what respectful and meaningful reconciliation can be how we get from here to there requires us to not treat reconciliation as if it's a time to find program it should not have an expiration date if we are going to move forward in an honest way we need to act in remembrance recognition and respect and if it takes forever we should be ok without that would be a great Canadian value [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 39,372

Rating: 4.8699188 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Global Issues, Culture, Education, History, Mental health, Social Justice

Id: U1EDbbse2BM

Length: 15min 25sec (925 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 25 2018