When I responded to the question about the root causes, those causes are different for us. Canada as a whole did not experience something called the Indian residential schools because guess what it's name was: Indian residential schools. It wasn't called something else.
The displacement from the land, the Indian Act, all these things are unique to our community, as is the land, as is the language. The fact that we chose a title, which is translatable...we've done some work in British Columbia recently, and they don't have any problems using the language that is appropriate to them with the same concepts.
For us, it is an early intervention with respect to identity. It is the loss of identity through a variety of attacks that we believe have displaced them. If I can use my own cosmology as a Mohawk woman, our own sense of saying Skennen'kó:wa is a part of a greeting. It means “is the great peace with you”. If somebody's beating you up, guess what: the great peace isn't there. If you are using your fists or sexual violence against women, guess what: the great peace isn't with you.
For us, on those kinds of notions that come, some of our elders and traditional people, some of our philosophies, might argue that we're waking up our blood memories. We're going back, and as part of our recovery we see ourselves and understand ourselves differently, understanding why you're just pissed off. I don't know if those are polite words for your committee, but you're all human beings.
Those are important notions for us. It's not that I don't think they are for everybody else, but we have a different twist to it. A lot of our recovery, a lot of our sobriety, a lot of the issues in terms of dealing with all kinds of addictions in our community, and modern issues such as pornography.... Government will pay for a big satellite in our community, but they don't want to pay for a healing and wellness program at our schools, so we're really starting I think from that different context.
I think issues of when people begin to own stuff, and they understand they can be self-determined, and they understand these things around them, those expressions are often different in our community.
We have an enormous number of children in care, and the kids who aren't in care, 27% are in female-led households, so they don't even have healthy men in their lives to see how to behave. I think all of those created a different pedagogical approach that we need.
I'm trying to use words that aren't—