Truth
and Reconciliation Commission announcement impresses Curve Lake member By Malcolm McColl with Rodney Merasty
Justice
Harry LaForme, a member of the Mississaugas
of New Credit First Nation in southern Ontario, will lead the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission promised by the federal government as part of an
out-of-court settlement with former students of Canada's Indian Residential
Schools.
Harry
LaForme was, "the first Aboriginal person
appointed to any Canadian appellate court," and graduated from York
University's Osgoode Hall Law School in 1977. He was
called to the bar in 1979 and was an associate at Osler, Hoskin
& Harcourt, before specializing in aboriginal law in a practice of his own.
Rodney
Merasty is a former teacher from Pukatawagon
in Manitoba, and now resident of Curve Lake First Nation, in Ontario, who said,
"Many First Nations people will point to different historic events that
crippled and wiped us out to near oblivion. I think that the two most damaging
would be: 1. The Creation of the Indian Reserve System; and, 2. The Creation of
the Residential School Holocaust."
He
said, "With the Creation of the Indian Reserve System came
the purposeful intent to remove the 'Indians' from the rest of the population,
thus creating the 'Indian Problem.'" Indians, he said, were neatly put
away so that any positive contribution they might have on their families and
people would be stymied, by removal from any meaningful participation in
government, church and economy in the 'outside world.'
A
governing authority showed no respect for existing First Nation government and
forced an unworkable scheme (of two year terms for Chief and Counsels) for
First Nation governance.
"Without
a reasonable share of the Gross Domestic Product in these jurisdictions we can
only fight with each other (committing auto genocide) for scraps from the
government, and even then, those can be eaten only if your family is connected
to the chief and counsel."
The
Truth and Reconciliation process will have to deal with, "the creation of
the Residential School system that came with atrocities and ingredients that
make up a holocaust. Murder was the order of the day from the Indian Affairs;
it was murder that was perpetrated in every way imaginable."
With
Justice LaForme appointed by the government to head
the Truth and Reconciliations Commission, "I think that this is a very
appropriate name because it makes you think that there is going to be dialogue
followed by action to exposing the truth. There should be attempts towards
reconciling the wrongs that were done to 'residential school survivors'."
Merasty said, "Exposing the
truth may be the easy part of this evolving equation; for true reconciliation
to happen there has to be a very deep understanding for the long term effects
that residential schools have, including right now on our people. The damages
that were done nearly completely wiped out our culture, language and
identity. It will take an extremely
profound intervention to correct the damages done to the Indian Family."
In
reality, Merasty and his family would, "Let us
plan a reconciliation as a process of restoring hope, love for each other's
humanity and experiences, respect for each other's parents and siblings. True
reconciliation would bring about respect for our government, and respect for
all things sacred."
In a
true reconciliation, "Indians would have returned the respect for our
Heritage, respect for our peoples role in society, and
a return of Indian self-esteem and pride in ourselves. Let us move towards
attempting to restore the 'Indian Family' to what it was before the government
confiscated our children. A healthy family
is what was taken away from us with the advent of the Residential School
System."
Merasty said, "It is not enough
to think about reconciliation for just the living survivors of the residential
school but reconciliation to correct the damages that are still manifesting
themselves today within a very disillusioned and broken down family. In order
to do justice to the children of the residential schools we must spend time and
money on correcting the long term damage that continues to this day."
He noted,
"Our people always communicated and shared history, family values, culture
and stories through word of mouth orally. When our children were taken away
from us they took away our ability to continue our tradition and culture.
Children were no longer around to teach and train in the familiar ways. Then,
in turn, children were abused in every way imaginable and close to 50% of them
died (murdered) in residential schools."
Merasty said the ones that were
'lucky' enough to survive were left to live in a world where the only thing
they had to share with their children (generations of today) was an inheritance
of dysfunctionalism, "so this vicious cycle
continues in many ways."
He
said, "So you can see and understand why reconciliation is so much more
then doling out money to survivors and their families; reconciliation is
looking at the long term damage that was done; and instituting measures and
steps that will at the very least reverse the trends of dysfunctional living by
many of our people in our little Indian reserves."
Merasty asked, "If we were to
create a successful formula to restore the Healthy Native Family I wonder what
it would be. The biggest one is to address the basic needs of nuclear families
to live a normal life."
He
added, "A healthy family is a family that doesn’t live in poverty, has
their own home, and has values and cultural traditions, A healthy family speaks
their Native Language, and time tested and true ancient medicines to heal
themselves; a healthy family lives in hope for the future."
He
encourages First Nation families to start providing these attributes, "any
way we can. Let’s reward all the Elders and Spiritual Leaders who construct our
own parenting teachings; then let’s reward mom and dads who go and learn the
value of passing on truths and teachings to their children….this would just be
the start."
