Mandryk: Kamloops gives us a chance to better understand residential school wrongs
Murray Mandryk
It was also less than a year ago that deposed federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer offered his spirited defence of good ol’ Sir John A.’s statue that people wanted out of Regina’s Victoria Park because of his residential school policy.
Few human instincts are worse than the blind need to defend all aspects of the cultural history to which one identifies.
Maybe now is the time to stop memorializing Nicholas Flood Davin (the Leader-Post’s founder, namesake of the former Davin School and the person who recommended Macdonald use the U.S. model of Indian residential schools), Edgar Dewdey (Indian Commissioner at the time) or Bishop Vital Grandin (of Bishop Grandin Boulevard that runs through Winnipeg’s St. Vital neighbourhood) who said in 1875 that the goal of residential schools was so Indigenous kids would “be humiliated when reminded of their origin.”
And maybe Kamloops will force us to confront our living history.
The residential school legacy includes the Gordon First Nation School near Punnichy, once run by the Anglican Church, and its former director William Peniston Starr, who pleaded guilty to 10 counts of sexual abuse as recently as 1993.
Maybe those graves in Kamloops have people thinking about residential schools in a way they haven’t before.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Murray Mandryk
REGINA LEADER POST
Maybe it’s because we’ve had a few decades to learn about the horrors of Canadian residential schools — an entire generation has been taught in our classrooms — that we are finally starting to understand.
Maybe it’s because we’ve had a few decades to learn about the horrors of Canadian residential schools — an entire generation has been taught in our classrooms — that we are finally starting to understand.
© Provided by Leader Post Children's shoes in a display to represent children who died while in Canada's residential school program are seen on the steps of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina on May 31, 2021. BRANDON HARDER/ Regina Leader-Post
First Nations have been trying to teach us their story for decades . Maybe those of us who weren’t taught in school can learn now. We’re never too old.
Maybe it’s because people are suddenly getting that we have been talking about children as young as three years old — little kids placed in shackles and ripped from their parents’ arms for the sole purpose of being taught to be ashamed of who they were.
It is those children who lie in the 215 graves at that former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. — discovered by the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation via ground-penetrating radar. Across this nation, there are thousands more such graves.
There’s something about the grave of a child. We’re all moved by a child’s grave marker, but, evidently, we’re also moved when it isn’t there.
Maybe it’s the very absence of crosses and other such markers that’s making some heed a call to action that was previously ignored.
“There are hundreds of children here in Saskatchewan that also did not return home from residential schools and sanitoriums across the province,” Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron said in a statement.
“It is time that governments follow through with their words of reconciliation and give these families the closure they deserve.”
Maybe this time, we are listening.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked for the flags at Parliament Hill and at legislatures across the country, including at the Saskatchewan legislature, to be flown at half staff. Former Saskatchewan justice minister Don Morgan eloquently described it as a reminder that “215 souls haunt us and forever serve as a voice telling us of their loss and how much more each of us must do.”
Monday was Orange Shirt Day, which now commemorates residential school survivors. Hashtags #remember215 and #215children were trending on Twitter. We are seeing an online petition to — as Morgan suggested — follow the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
Maybe it’s because the past 15 months of a pandemic have made us a little more sensitive to human suffering, but we may be getting it in a way we once didn’t.
Whatever the reason, very ordinary folk have been sincerely moved by the Kamloops story. They want to do something … or at least better understand.
We should be under no illusion this will come easy.
Less than a year ago, th e Saskatchewan Party government went to court to kick Tristen Durocher and those teepees off its legislative lawn because the grass was more important than his message about Indigenous youth suicides that link directly to families still struggling with their residential school history.
First Nations have been trying to teach us their story for decades . Maybe those of us who weren’t taught in school can learn now. We’re never too old.
Maybe it’s because people are suddenly getting that we have been talking about children as young as three years old — little kids placed in shackles and ripped from their parents’ arms for the sole purpose of being taught to be ashamed of who they were.
It is those children who lie in the 215 graves at that former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. — discovered by the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation via ground-penetrating radar. Across this nation, there are thousands more such graves.
There’s something about the grave of a child. We’re all moved by a child’s grave marker, but, evidently, we’re also moved when it isn’t there.
Maybe it’s the very absence of crosses and other such markers that’s making some heed a call to action that was previously ignored.
“There are hundreds of children here in Saskatchewan that also did not return home from residential schools and sanitoriums across the province,” Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron said in a statement.
“It is time that governments follow through with their words of reconciliation and give these families the closure they deserve.”
Maybe this time, we are listening.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked for the flags at Parliament Hill and at legislatures across the country, including at the Saskatchewan legislature, to be flown at half staff. Former Saskatchewan justice minister Don Morgan eloquently described it as a reminder that “215 souls haunt us and forever serve as a voice telling us of their loss and how much more each of us must do.”
Monday was Orange Shirt Day, which now commemorates residential school survivors. Hashtags #remember215 and #215children were trending on Twitter. We are seeing an online petition to — as Morgan suggested — follow the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
Maybe it’s because the past 15 months of a pandemic have made us a little more sensitive to human suffering, but we may be getting it in a way we once didn’t.
Whatever the reason, very ordinary folk have been sincerely moved by the Kamloops story. They want to do something … or at least better understand.
We should be under no illusion this will come easy.
Less than a year ago, th e Saskatchewan Party government went to court to kick Tristen Durocher and those teepees off its legislative lawn because the grass was more important than his message about Indigenous youth suicides that link directly to families still struggling with their residential school history.
Few human instincts are worse than the blind need to defend all aspects of the cultural history to which one identifies.
Maybe now is the time to stop memorializing Nicholas Flood Davin (the Leader-Post’s founder, namesake of the former Davin School and the person who recommended Macdonald use the U.S. model of Indian residential schools), Edgar Dewdey (Indian Commissioner at the time) or Bishop Vital Grandin (of Bishop Grandin Boulevard that runs through Winnipeg’s St. Vital neighbourhood) who said in 1875 that the goal of residential schools was so Indigenous kids would “be humiliated when reminded of their origin.”
And maybe Kamloops will force us to confront our living history.
The residential school legacy includes the Gordon First Nation School near Punnichy, once run by the Anglican Church, and its former director William Peniston Starr, who pleaded guilty to 10 counts of sexual abuse as recently as 1993.
Maybe those graves in Kamloops have people thinking about residential schools in a way they haven’t before.
Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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