Maggie Hodgson - Speaking My Truth

experience, but also about community violence. There was no fallout from
the show. Georges Erasmus was the first National Chief to have a motion
passed by the Assembly of Chiefs requesting that the issue of residential
schools be addressed. National Chief Fontaine broke the silence from
leadership when he spoke about his own abuse in residential school. Our
communities were ready to deal with historic trauma now that so many of
our people had attended recovery programs and many more were pursuing
post-secondary education.
The process of reconciliation relies on the foundation laid by the person, the
group, and the community to bring our spirits to a place of readiness to be
willing to reconcile. Readiness of the wounded and timing are both critical
to the success of reconciliation. The healthier we are, the more we are willing
to understand the other group’s perspective. To say we understand does not
mean we agree with the historic offender’s world view of our relationship.
It simply means that we understand where they come from. Based on the
foundation laid by the addictions recovery movement, along with the
strengthening of ceremony and the increased participation in education
and therapy, we were ready to deal with trauma. The Aboriginal Healing
Foundation’s program evaluation clearly stated that the majority of former
students accessed traditional ceremony holders and Elders in their treatment
for trauma. 12 Some clients selected both traditional and Western therapy
modes to deal with their trauma. An estimated total of 111,170 participants
attended AHF-funded healing activites, and well over half of those
participants accessed services to engage in healing for the very first time. 13
The common experience payment provided for in the Indian Residential
Schools Settlement Agreement (2006) is to acknowledge the trauma of
residential schools, the policy of outlawing ceremony, the loss of language,
and the impacts on students of being removed from their family. The
term “common experience payment” covertly talks about the results of
legislation to outlaw ceremony and the impact of removing generations
of children from their parents. I am always amazed at how the English
language can sanitize the most horrific experiences. Regardless of the
words used, it is a just settlement. For some, the payment will be a form of
reconciliation because it will be seen as a public acknowledgement that
they cried themselves to sleep without their parents and suffered because of
their removal from ceremony to heal themselves.
An alternative dispute resolution process (ADR) to resolve claims of injury
was established in 2002. Deputy Minister Mario Dion of IRSRC had the
choice of either following the usual government process of appointing a chief
adjudicator from within the government’s political circles or choosing to listen
366 | Maggie Hodgson