Still a ‘long road’ to residential school reconciliation

Sitting in his dining room in the Shuswap community of Tappen, Ernie Philip, 86, still has clear memories of his time in a residential school in Kamloops.

This week, closing events for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are taking place in Ottawa. After collecting thousands of statements about residential school experiences, the commission made 94 recommendations on Tuesday.

“The commission’s recommendations outline specific actions to redress the harmful and disgraceful legacy of the residential school system in Canada,” said chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Murray Sinclair to an Ottawa audience. “Today I stand before you and acknowledge that what took place in residential schools amounts to nothing more than cultural genocide.”

While some, like Ernie Philip can talk about those experiences, others still can’t.

“You have to know that at least half of our people refuse to talk about their stories,” says Jennifer Houde, the child and family and health services manager with the Okanagan Nation Alliance. “They don’t have the ability within them to share their stories.”

As TRC closing events continue in Ottawa, Houde says there is still a long road to reconciliation.

“There is a lot of work that needs to still be done….having our people actually say what does reconciliation mean to us locally here, on this land where these events have happened,” she says. “Really you need to ask people who have been impacted what reconciliation means and a lot of that discussion hasn’t happened.”

In a release Sinclair also calls the recommendations “the first step toward redressing the legacy of Indian Residential Schools”.