Residential school survivors welcome federal apology
WINNIPEG, MB—Ever since she days when she and her friends hid in their dormitory room, speaking their language in whispers so they wouldn't forget it, Thelma Meade has been waiting to hear the words Stephen Harper spoke on June 11.
"I wanted Canada to hear it right from our prime minister—saying what happened to our people," says Meade. "It gave me hope as a residential school survivor. It gave me hope that in the future, in partnership with the government, we'll be able to do the healing that needs to be done.
"My people have to know it's not their fault. That has to be conveyed from the government and from churches: it's not your fault."
Standing in the House of Commons before a gathering of officials, politicians and residential school survivors, Harper delivered the federal government's first-ever public apology for the its policy of assimilation which led the government to establish residential schools operated jointly with churches.
"This policy was based on the assumption that aboriginal culture, spirituality and beliefs were inferior," he said, expressing remorse both for the sexual, physical and emotional abuse suffered by many children in residential schools and for its
generational effects.
"The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of aboriginal peoples for failing them so badly."
The four mainline churches who participated in residential schools have already asked forgiveness for their role in the schools numerous times in recent years.
Meade, who directs the Aboriginal Senior Resources Centre in Winnipeg's North End, believes that although her people are all at different places when it comes to processing what they experienced as children, hearing these public statements is essential.
Telling their stories is also part of the process, she says.
Even though Flora Zaharia could see her parents' house from her fourth floor window in the Alberta school she attended as a child, she was only allowed to go there at Easter and Christimas.
Another woman, who didn't want her name published because of her ongoing participation in the Catholic church, has a similar story.
"I believe in praying," she says. "In school they made us pray 37 times a day to be thankful. But I wasn't thankful for the abuse."
Prayer is what has helped her deal with the pain of being cut off from her identity and her family, she says. Today she works as an elder, interpreter and support worker with the Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat. As she travels, listening to stories of other residential school survivors, she carries her rosary with her wherever she goes.
She also has found healing in the traditional teachings of her culture.
"I believe in my culture," she says. "It helped me with my healing. If it wasn't for that I would have been dead a long time ago. A lot of people are turning away from the Catholic Church and going to a different faith. Me, I'm still with the Catholic Church. I don't really blame the Church. It was the people in the church that did it."
Meade doesn't think any amount of money can ever heal her people, many of whom have yet to deal with what's happened to them. "We've just scratched the surface of the pain," she says.
Instead, she'd like to see the government establish healing centres in every province where professional counselling would be offered together with resources for physical healing, traditional native spirituality and Christian teaching.
"If someone wants to heal through God, that's good. There's nothing wrong with having these things work together," says Meade.
She'd also like the centres to teach her people to use their traditional medicines. "Antidepressants are hurting our people," she says.
Meade describes her own healing process as "a lot of prayer, a lot of letting go, a lot of dealing with the positive and negative and touching the core of the pain."
She and her husband Norman lead a non-denominational First Nations church in Manigotogan, Manitoba.
"I healed through God," says Meade. "I know the churches did the damage… Unfortunately the missionaries did not stand for what they came for. They came to bring the word of God, but when they came here they joined with the government. Majiia (Ojibway for 'the Evil One') took them the wrong way. They said, 'let's work with the government and Christianize these savages.' Where was the word of God? Where was the Book? When I did my journey of healing, that's when I knew it wasn't our fault.
"That's the only way. I don't see anything else."
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
