As a survivor of residential schools, I can speak on the effect of violence against women. There was so much lost within those schools. There was a lot of violence done to women, to girls and boys, but I'm a woman, so I can speak to that aspect.
When we left residential schools, unless you very consciously made a choice that you weren't going to perpetuate what was done to you in those schools... That's why we've got the intergenerational effect. I very consciously made a decision that I was not going to abuse my children, because what you learned in those schools was abuse, whether it was mental, physical, or sexual. But by the same token, I also didn't know how to discipline effectively. I knew what I wasn't going to do, but I didn't know what to do when it came to discipline, and you can feel it with my children and my grandchildren. Those effects, those behaviours, are still there.
It gets better and better with each generation. My daughter does stuff with my grandchildren. I don't know where she got it from; she sure as blazes never got it from me. She does crafts with them and does all these things. I never did that with my children because I didn't know how to play with them, and the reason is that I wasn't taught that in residential schools.
Getting over that and recognizing it, I think, is a big step.