OTTAWA – Canadians have a unique opportunity to engage in “nation-building” said the special advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools, Robert Watts, in an address to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada on June 5.
“As a nation, perhaps we haven't even started nation-building because a lot of people in this country haven't been included in the process,” the Métis leader told 400 church commissioners meeting at Ottawa's Carleton University. “There's a societal opportunity before all of us,” he added, to engage Aboriginal people in a way that many feel they haven't been included in the past in creating Canada.
The Presbyterian Church was one of three Christian denominations, along with the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, that administered residential schools on behalf of the federal government. Thousands of students were forced to attend schools where they were not only restricted from seeing their families, speaking their language or practicing their culture, but were physically and sexually abused.
Claudette Dumont-Smith, a native health expert who was recently named one of three commissioners told the assembly “We do know the church played a significant role in helping carry out work of residential schools, but what we don't know is the truth.”
Dumont-Smith joins fellow commissioners Jane Morley and Justice Harry S. Laforme in an effort resulting from the court-approved Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement that was negotiated between former students, churches, the Assembly of First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations.
TRC commissioners are expected to take five years touring the country and listening to both private and public stories of residential school survivors. Counselling as well as emotional and cultural support will be offered to those participating in commission initiatives.
“It's not fair to our nation's history to not include [these stories],” said Watts, a father of three and grandfather of four from Ontario's Six Nations Reserve. “When you consider the impact it's had on aboriginal people we have to ask 'Why hasn't it been part of our history?'”
In an interview following the address, Presbyterian Church moderator Rev. Cheol Soon Park expressed his desire to encourage true reconciliation among Canadian Presbyterians.
“You can't just say 'I'm sorry' then turn around and forget about it; that's not reconciliation,” said the 51-year-old first generation Korean immigrant. “The first step is to deliver the story, what we learned.”
People are ignorant of the issues surrounding aboriginal residential schools, added Park. They don't know “what's been done against our brothers and sisters in aboriginal communities.”
The newly appointed moderator said, “We need to educate our people of this tragic, ugly history. We have to face it and hear it and learn what has happened, lest the same mistake happens again in the future. That would be a good beginning.”
Over the coming year Park will be urging local churches to take practical steps towards establishing reconciliation with its aboriginal neighbours.
“I thank God that we have the courage to do this. There is still a long way to go; we have to commit ourselves to process of healing and reconciliation with our true hearts and minds.”
In addition Watts encouraged commissioners to offer public help and encouragement as well as support of national events which will be unfolding over the next two and a half years. He stressed that while Canada will look to other truth and reconciliation commissions examples around the globe, it is committed to forming its own unique effort: “It's Canada's truth commission,” he said.
Watts said the comission's efforts can be compared to spring ice: “If you try and pick it up it's likely to crumble in your hands, but if you get a lot of hands together it won't crumble. So that's our invitation to you: to bring all of our hands together and hold up the TRC so we can write that unwritten chapter of Canada's history and help us mend the future for our unborn children.
“It's up to us to use our wisdom and faith and energies to try and reach this societal opportunity.”
