No truth, no reconciliation

Toronto Star - Linda Diebel

 They’re dying quickly now, the aged survivors of an Indian residential school system in Canada that yanked tens of thousands of aboriginal children from their families and sent them far away to Christian schools to be stripped of their identity. For more than a hundred years, it was Canada’s official policy: “Take the Indian out of the Indian,” as Sir Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Indian Affairs department, defined his mandate early in the last century.

Cree elder Gordon Williams, a residential school alumnus, retired Presbyterian minister and adviser to the special commission set up to document what happened to these children, told the Star that between five and 10 survivors are dying every week. He puts the number as high as 5,000 lost since a negotiated $2 billion court-ordered agreement created the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2006.

For them, no truth, no reconciliation.

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