You can read thousands of first hand experiences if you download the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's final report. It is not easy to read what some experienced.
The Mohawk Institute at Brantford, Ontario is a residential school that has been documented as truly horrific. This is what Russ Moses, a resident of the school for 5 years, wrote about the Mohawk Institute.
This isn’t about what people did in the 19th century. This is about what Canada continued to do until only two decades ago. It is not what his forefathers did. It is about what many people who lived through the period did not do…speak up to end the genocide of aboriginal culture. We all share a responsibility to make amends and create a culture which understands the value of aboriginal people, rather than shoving our history under the carpet so that we don’t feel guilty. Most countries and civilizations have a blot in their history. This is Canada’s blot.
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.c.../RussMoses.pdf
And you can look at the recommendations from the TRC as well, I think there were 90+ such recommendations. While I don't necessarily support all of them, I think that most of them have merit.
As for some others who simply say, "get over it already", well, that is more easily said than done. Yes, Canada has apologized. Yes, Canada has offered financial compensation. And yes, we can't live in the past forever. But if we can do more, we should do more. Some of the suggestions from the report certainly merit some consideration.
I have no problem paying for name changes for those who feel it would help heal the past. I have no doubt in my mind that what went on in residential schools was cultural genocide. If they feel they have been robbed of their name which is a part of their culture, then I have no problem assisting them in getting their name back. I can't imagine that it would take a huge bureaucracy to assist in name changes.
I have no problem with us teaching about the history of residential schools. We teach about concentration camps, Rwanda, and so on. Surely our own history merits mention as well. The curriculum could be worked out cooperatively between natives and education boards.
I have no problem with appropriate parenting programs being set up. After all, if you lived most of your formative years in a residential school environment, how do you learn how families function?
I have no problem in demanding apologies from both the Catholic and Anglican churches. I don't care how much good some in these churches might have done. It will never negate the horrors of what some had to experience.
And what I would like to see done, that has not been recommended, is to have the abusers named. I don't care if they are dead or alive. This is not just a black mark on the gov't of the day. It is a huge black mark on each and everyone who abused a child in residential schools in Canada and they should be named and brought to justice.
Any normal human being with any emotions at all would and should have known that what went on in residential schools in Canada was wrong. Shame on them for being accomplices or not speaking up.
I also think we can do a much better job educating our native youth. Maclean's magazine had an excellent article documenting the huge improvement in two native schools in Ontario. Actually, these two schools have benefited from the Paul Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative. I think the approach in these two schools would have merit all across Canada as well.
http://www.macleans.ca/education/the...cores-soaring/