There are a lot of residential school survivors out there who do not even know who they are because they were too young when they were taken from their parents. The Cree woman I know whose mother was put into the residential school at age 5, the first thing the school did was make her take a white christian name. In her case she was able to remember and find her home but many children did not.
Taken away from mothers and fathers these children did not know or understand 'family'. They learned no lessons in family life being in the confines of the virtual jail they were in where many were punished and abused in various ways. These are the children who grew up to have children and they had no idea how to be parents, much less deal with what they themselves had gone through as children. So what was the result for many of them?....raising dysfunctional families themselves and escaping the pain of the past in booze or drugs. And what did the children of the parents who survived the schools learn from those parents?.....more dysfunction and confusion.
What residential schools did is not to one generation....it has affected multi generations. It was government approved and financed genocide with a cross over the front door.
Also there are many residential schools with hundreds of small crosses in cemeteries behind the schools. No names on the tombstones. No one knows who these children were or where they were from, or how and why they died. Hopefully these records will solve some of those mysteries.
Harper should not have waited for the courts. He should have said "let it be done"!
mikey, mikey, mikey.
To begin with the information about these people was taken when they were 'children'. It holds the information that a lot of them want to know about who they are in real life before the 'conquerors' came along and said "you can't be you anymore".
Secondly the information is being requested by the First Nations people themselves. I am sure that those who do not want to visit the past because of the pain, that their wishes will be respected by their own people. Not your choice or anyone else's to make.
As for the rest.... I told you where. Do you want me to do leave breadcumbs down the road?
Oh by the way....it's your turn.
Thank you puck for your insightful words in post 3.
Ah yes, the 'foster care' story. Well you and your wife took 'care' of the children. Sadly many were taken into foster care or adopted out west or in rural communities and they became nothing more than child labour. (that happened to the family of my cousin's wife and not in some distant Province or way up north....it was just outside Parkhill)
So in addition to the residential school atrocities....we can add those children sent into what is basically slavery back then....some of whom had to try and survive both the schools and then the farms.
Slow genocide?.....yes.....wrapped in steel cross. Maybe that will be an answer to those who do not understand why the Native people want to stay together and protect themselves and their lands. They have already dealt with the other way. Those days are over and a new generation is taking up the feather.
Oops! Computer freeze up resulted in double post.
Not your fault....it as a burp on the forum's side. I ran into the same problem myself, but I seen it coming so I copied my post and by the time I did that....it was fixed.
