Canada’s residential schools cultural genocide, Truth and Reconciliation commission says

[alp227]

Source: Toronto Star

OTTAWA—The Truth and Reconciliation Commission urges all Canadians to rise to the enormous challenge of righting the wrongs committed by residential schools, even if it takes generations to reverse the ongoing effects of cultural genocide.

“We have described for you a mountain. We have shown you a path to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing,” Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, told a packed ballroom in a downtown Ottawa hotel Tuesday.

The exhortation came on an emotionally charged day that saw the commission release a heart-wrenching and damning 381-page summary of its final report detailing the history and legacy of residential schools — largely operated by churches and funded by the Canadian government — that saw 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children come through their doors for more than a century.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/02/canadas-residential-schools-cultural-genocide-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-says.html

[delrem]

1. "... I remain concerned with the government’s resistance ..."

quote from link:

“(Harper) was open to listening to some of our concerns and inquired about some of our recommendations. I remain concerned with the government’s resistance to the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Sinclair said in a statement emailed to media after the meeting, adding the commissioners offered to meet again once he has read the report summary.
The full six-volume collection isn’t due out until later this year.
The Commission has also warned that relations between the federal government and Aboriginal Peoples have deteriorated since the 2008 apology by Harper, but Sinclair noted if the Conservative government chooses not to act, there will one day be another government.

[LeftOfWest]

2. "even if it takes generations to reverse the ongoing effects of cultural genocide"

yes.

"Through the testimony of residential school survivors, former staff, church and government officials and archival documents, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission pieced together a horrifying history that, despite its ripple effects, has been repeatedly dismissed or ignored.

This includes 3,201 registered deaths of children in the care of residential schools — the cause of death, reported in just under 50 per cent of cases, was most frequently tuberculosis, but influenza, pneumonia, fires and suicide all took their toll.

We may never know the true number of deaths, but Sinclair estimates it to be at least 6,000.

Consider what it means, what we’re talking about today: the enormity of it. Parents who had their children ripped out of their arms, taken to a distant and unknown place, never to be seen again, buried in an unmarked grave long ago forgotten and overgrown. Think of that. Bear that. Imagine that,” Wilson told the room Tuesday."

More, much more than worth the read and the realization.

Thank you for this alp227.

[jwirr]

7. One thing: long ago forgotten. That is far from the truth. The reservations have not forgotten. The

stories are still told.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[me b zola]

4. K&R

[dembotoz]

5. Heard some of it on the radio.. Tragic stuff good thing we never did anything like that USA usa

[jwirr]

6. The English have tried this not only on Native Americans both in Canada and the US but on a good

deal of the world. Look at the history of the British Empire in India and China. Look at South Africa. Their state church did this in Ireland as well. The bigotry that is called manifest destiny has been with us a long time. Some of it played out in the early days of our own government. And often you can see it in the attitudes and actions of the dominant culture today.

If Canada is the only one apologizing we have a long way to go. But this is a start.

[dembotoz]

8. Australia is doing stuff too

[jwirr]

9. The Empire has fallen long ago but it's policies continue on.