Canadian political and religious institutions openly practiced cultural genocide against this country’s aboriginal peoples for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The commission, which released its findings and recommendations June 2 after six years of investigation into Canada’s residential school system, said that for more than 100 years, the central goals of Canada’s aboriginal policy were to eliminate aboriginal governments, ignore aboriginal rights, terminate the treaties, and cause aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities.
“Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group,” stated the commission in Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, a 382-page summary of its final report. “States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
“In its dealings with aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.”
The suggestion that this country – a strong proponent of human rights on the world stage – is guilty of cultural genocide may be a bitter pill for many Canadians, but according to at least one local First Nations leader, it’s one that needs to be taken.
“I strongly believe in the statement the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and TRC say about ‘culture genocide’ because it’s very true,” Wilf Adam, Chief of the Lake Babine Nation, said last week.
Adam says that First Nations people in the Lakes District have been deeply affected by Canada’s aboriginal policies of the past. Many were forced to attend the Lejac Residential School near Fraser Lake, which opened in 1922 and was operated by the Roman Catholic Church on behalf of the federal government until the mid-1970s.
“I didn’t attend Lejac, as my family prevented that when the Indian agent and priest came around to collect the children,” he explained. “I did attend a couple of years at Immaculata school (in Burns Lake), and two years at Prince George College.
“I did make a submission with the other LBN Lejac survivors to the TRC when it was in Prince George,” he continued. “What I keep hearing from our citizens who had bad experiences there (at Lejac) is the mistrust and hatred of the church (it instilled) and formed a strong negative impact of what happened to them. They are very strong people who went through this, and I hope and pray for their proper healing.”
The TRC’s findings were generally well-received by First Nations leaders and organizations in Canada. Here in the North, the Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of BC – which has for 42 years provided counselling and referral services to aboriginal people in conflict with the law – fully endorsed the commission’s 94 recommendations, and urged the federal and provincial governments to implement them quickly.
Yet this isn’t the first time a federally-appointed panel has called on Canadians to redress the wrongs inflicted upon aboriginal peoples. In 1996, the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples urged Canadians to take action on various issues, but most of its recommendations were never implemented.
Adam and others are hoping that government won’t handle the TRC report the same way.
“I hope that the recommendations of the TRC are acted on and not put on the shelf,” he said. “That in itself will do more harm than good if that happens. I’m sure there are a lot of caring people in Canada to push for proper healing of this awful event in our preventable history.”
“What the TRC did is focus on this history that should never happened. I hope the people of Canada demand the government to act on the recommendations, as it is a true start of healing the nation – especially of those truly effected.”
While Canada’s policies toward aboriginal people have changed in recent years, Adam feels there’s still much more work to be done.
“Discrimination against aboriginal people will continue by all levels of government and society when we are not respected of who were are and our relation of our rights and title,” he stressed. “We need action of how we are dealt with now, not token expression or actions. I know it’s a work in progress, and governments have to act on the court decisions that we keep winning. Governments are slow to act on their court decisions, as it will do more harm than good if they delay.”
The Lake Babine Nation chief is optimistic that eventually, institutionalized racial discrimination will be a thing of the past in Canada. “There will be a day where true justice will be fully served and people of all colours will live in harmony,” he said. “Probably by the next generation… (This) does not mean we don’t do anything, though. The need to resolve outstanding issues is a must to move ahead.
“I pray for all the people who went to residential schools, especially who had a very bad experience, and hope they have true healing of their mind and body – if it’s not too late.”
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was established as part of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Its mandate is to tell Canadians about the 150-year history of residential schools through the statements of those whose lives affected by them.
The commission’s three members – Hon. Justice Murray Sinclair, Dr. Marie Wilson, and Chief Wilton Littlechild – heard more than 6,750 survivor and witness statements over six years. When complete, their final report will consist of six volumes and more than two million words.
The TRC’s ‘Calls to Action’ include steps to protect child welfare, preserve First Nations’ language and culture, promote legal equality, and strengthen information on missing children.