Mr. Speaker, a few weathered crosses scar a barren field. The old man who tends to them remembers coming with the religious leaders to bury the small boxes. He has spent a lifetime trying to come to terms with what happened at residential schools, how they shattered his family and how he spent decades trying to rebuild ties. The stolen children, who lay beneath his feet, many friends, never had that chance. Sadly, no one actually knows how many are buried, hundreds if not thousands, their names or how they died. They are the voiceless.
The white crosses paint a bleak picture of a terrible tragedy: children poorly fed, poorly clothed, with little medical help and ideal conditions for the spread of tuberculosis.
One woman remembers being sick along with three other children for days before the religious leaders called for help. When the child came to, the other three beds were empty. The only words, “You are the lucky one. You pulled through”.
I rise today to urge the government to honour the Prime Minister's 2008 apology for the federal government's role in the Indian residential school system with real action, namely to continue funding the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which has been very successful at both achieving its objectives and in governance and fiscal management.
In the 19th century the Canadian government believed it was responsible for caring for and educating the country's aboriginal people. Ideally, children, who were easier to mould than adults, would pass along their new lifestyle of Canadian customs, Christianity and English to their children. Aboriginal traditions would diminish or be abolished in a few generations.
About 150,000 first nations, Inuit and Métis children were removed from their communities and forced to attend schools. Children were discouraged from speaking their language, and if they were caught doing so they would experience severe punishment. Children rarely had opportunities to see examples of normal family life as brothers and sisters rarely saw one another due to gender segregation. Children were away 10 months of the year. All correspondence was written in English, which many parents could not read.
When children returned to the reserve they often found they did not belong and were even ashamed of their traditions. Frequently they did not have either the skills to help their parents or to function in an urban setting as the skills they learned were often substandard.
As a result of residential abuses suffered in the past, aboriginal people today endure many effects of unresolved trauma, including alcoholism, depression, lack of capacity to build and sustain healthy families and communities, lack of parenting skills, violence, poverty, suicide and weakening or destruction of cultures and languages.
Today some 30% of first nations people have felt blue, depressed or sad for two or more weeks. A statistical profile on the health of first nations in Canada for the year 2000 showed that suicide and self-inflicted injuries were the leading causes of death for first nation youth and adults up to 44 years of age, and first nations youth committed suicide about five to six times more often than non-aboriginal youth.
Tragically, the suicide rate for first nations males was 126 per 100,000 compared to 24 per 100,000 for non-aboriginal males. For first nations females the suicide rate was 35 per 100,000 compared to only 5 per 100,000 for non-aboriginal females. Suicide rates for Inuit youth are among the highest in the world, at 11 times the national average.
Former national chief, Phil Fontaine, has said, “The memories of residential schools sometimes cut like merciless knives at our souls”.
First nations people and Inuit face other serious health related challenges, such as high rates of chronic and contagious diseases and shorter life expectancy.
Compared to the general Canadian population, heart disease is 1.5 times higher, and type 2 diabetes is 3 to 5 times higher among first nations people, and rates are increasing among the Inuit. High rates of diabetes are linked to key health determinants, such as education, employment levels, income, social conditions and access to health care, all impacted by the residential school experience.
While it has been more than 100 years since the former chief medical officer at Indian Affairs sounded the alarm over horribly high rates of tuberculosis in residential schools, TB continues to be a major concern in aboriginal communities. Aboriginal people in Canada face a third world risk of the disease. The tuberculosis rate among status Indians is 31 times higher than that of non-aboriginal Canadians. The rate among Inuit is 186 times that of Canadian born non-aboriginals, equivalent to the rate in sub-Saharan Africa.
Although not the subject of this debate, the rate of tuberculosis among Canada's aboriginal peoples is an embarrassment that demands a real government strategy, the what, by when and how, and resources. We must call upon the Prime Minister to take immediate action on this 100% preventable disease.
After over 100 years of abuse and neglect, churches implicated in abuse apologized. The United Church of Canada formally apologized to Canada's first nations people in 1986 and offered a second apology in 1998.
Archbishop Peers offered an apology on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada in 1993, stating,
I am sorry, more than I can say, that we were part of a system which took you and your children from home and family.
Four leaders of the Presbyterian Church signed a statement of apology in 1994 stating:
It is with deep humility and in great sorrow that we come before God and our Aboriginal brothers and sisters with our confession.
In 2009, the Pope expressed his sorrow to a delegation from Canada's Assembly of First Nations for the abuse and deplorable treatment that aboriginal students suffered.
The Government of Canada finally apologized in June 2008. The government recognized that the assimilation of aboriginal children was wrong, and “has caused great harm and has no place in our country”.
The school's policy and legacy includes social problems that persist in communities today and was profoundly damaging to the language and heritage of aboriginal peoples.
Most important, the Prime Minister said, “We apologize for having done this”, and asked for forgiveness.
Words are not enough. Words must be backed up with action and particularly engaging in a meaningful way with aboriginal community leaders, former residential school students and their families.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation provides resources that promote reconciliation and encourage and support aboriginal people and their communities in building and reinforcing sustainable healing processes that address the legacy of cultural, mental, physical, sexual and spiritual abuses in the residential school system, including intergenerational impacts.
In December 2009, INAC released a report that stated,
The Government of Canada should consider continued support for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, at least until the Settlement Agreement compensation processes and commemorative initiatives are completed.
Will the Prime Minister honour INAC's recommendation and continue the healing so all those who seek healing can access it, so some mothers can build self-esteem, can teach their children and in some cases end the cycle of abuse and addiction?
These programs must be ongoing. It is impossible to erase 150 years, the generations and unspeakable abuses against children without healing. A mistake has been made. Will the government do the morally right thing and restore the funding?